Why develop custom tags?

vaaaska

Ok, I'm breaking down on the subject because I just don't get it.

Why would somebody who writes a little CMS (like MovableType) need to implement a set of custom tags for their system? You know, stuff like:

<%MT echo $the-title %>

Why not just give the user direct access - something more like:

<?php echo $prefs['the-title'] ?>

Now, yes, I know, MovableType is not the best example of this since it uses perl as well, but I know of a few people who are doing this.

I just don't see a real reason for it except to try to lock out the user from using php tags - but then again, they still do allow this...but at the template level...so why bother with the custom tags anyways?

Ok, sorry, I hope this makes sense to anybody.

ps: Blogger does this too, but I can understand this since it's their servers doing the work, not just any users server.

planetsim

I dont think there is much answer for it. Lots of companies have there own tags. Netscape has the <blink> tag in HTML, Microsoft have there own set when saving a Word Document as HTML.

vaaaska

I could see this being the case if you developed a system where users could ONLY tap into existing strings, functions, etc...

But not if there if it is in the design to allow people to use actual php customizations...then why bother except perhaps to try to 'brand' things even more...

Yeah...my own tags...

<%vaska  echo "I am soooo kewl."  %>

Weedpacket

If the templating system allows arbitrary PHP code to be contained between the tags - not a lot, except to fool PHP-aware editors into not doing whatever it is they do with PHP code.