[Dev] blockName & itsName

[John Anderson]

Alec Flett wrote:

> Perhaps this is more obvious than I'm realizing, but am I 
> understanding this correctly?
>
> blockName refers to the name of the block in the tree of blocks 
> created for the UI. It doesn't necessarily have to be unique across 
> the entire tree but things seem to behave better if it is.

We will be modifying blockName to make it unique soon.

>
> itsName is the unique name that allows the parcel loader (and the 
> repository?) to identify Items.

Yes. When an item is copied to the soup itsName changes to it's UUID 
which makes finding thing by itsName problematic.

>
> A question I have is, is blockName required? Is there an easy way to 
> make blockName just refer to itsName if it isn't specified? As a new 
> developer, I'm finding the syntax to be rather verbose and tedious, it 
> sure would be nice if I could skip things like blockName if it isn't 
> required.

blockNames are only required if you need to refer to a block by name 
which is rarely necessary. It occurs when you want to post a "named" 
event and when you want to send an event to a block by "name".

I completely agree that the syntax is way verbose and tedious. Lisa's 
addressing proposal precludes using repository paths, which use itsName, 
so for all practical purposes I only use itsName as a way to refer to 
item between parcels in parcel XML.

>
> Alec
>
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