I will just note there are two other smart approaches to field handling I do want to facilitate or at least not hinder as a result of improved field handing these are;
- wild card based handling
- protocols in the field value
wild card handling is where you may use a filter to invoke custom handling such as with a fieldname prefix or suffix eg all fields ending in ‘-link’ or prefix ‘name-’
by protocols in field values is when the fields value names a protocol the most common examples are the url protocols such as http https mail to etc…
- that is field handling is driven by something in the value rather than the name of the field
- this can free up the field names to be flexible and thus descriptive
the issue becomes determining precedence
Also note @pmario addresses many of the issues about implementation for fields in the view template HowTo: Use Custom and Complex ViewTemplates (Tagging and Cascade)
- Of particular note to me is his use of the info tab