i think we really could need some guidelines or at least a basic principle of how macros are designed. i think it makes the the macro coders' lifes easier.

e.g. i consider the topic_macro badly designed (or badly named in this case), because it returns the name of the topic as link. i would expect this functionality to be in topiclink_macro. and topic_macro should return the plain topic's name only.

another example are macros which render html tags. imho it is very important to give access to (almost) all of the html attribiutes via the macro. if that's too much hassle, please take in account at least "style", "class" and "id" to let the people control the element via cascading style sheets.

again, i think this will release a lot of pressure from the antville developers because users get the power to play their individual games without permanently crying for changes in antville source code.

if you want me to, i happily will browse through the macro code and try to develop some consistent practice how they generally should be implemented. whatcha say?