While doing a suggestion to the addThis plugin, I started to sketch a suggestion of “widgetizing” the article page view. I think that this is the view that many users want to change. I mean the order of things there.
So, I suggest a model where the article template only defines areas where different block of content can be dragged into. Also, plugins that need to show something on the article view page can create such a block, which the journal may then drag into a fitting position.
We’ve discussed this for a while now. I think the plan is to re-purpose the “sidebar” code, so that a “sidebar” is just a block area, and there can be as many block areas as needed.
Ideally, a theme would register which block areas are available, as this could differ for each theme. And we’d have a few different types of blocks, like BLOCK_GLOBAL, BLOCK_ARTICLE, etc, depending on the scope that the block needed to render properly.
Sounds great! Would be happy to participate when you start to implement this.