Re: [xwiki-devs] Proposal for the new Administration

Evelina Slatineanu wrote: There are 2 main issues here: 1. How should the administration work when the wiki is empty (no sheets) 2. How and when should WebPreferences document be created 1. There are two options, one is to create them from java, similar to the way critical classes are initialized or updated if they don't exist; the other one is to use static skin velocity templates. I'd go for the second option, as creating sheets from java is a conflict of roles: the platform core is supposed to offer some services, not to create wiki documents. Plus, there will have to be a synchronization between the core and product-enterprise-wiki, which otherwise are completely separated. The admin templates (.vm) should be a failback mechanism; currently the register.vm checks first if the XWiki.Registration page exists, and if it does, displays its content, otherwise it renders a default registration page. admin.vm should work in the same way. - If the current document is not an administration one (XWikiPreferences or WebPreferences), then redirect to a proper document (or warn that this is not an administration page, whatever is better); - otherwise, if the document does not have an XWikiPreferences object and does not have a content, add those; - if the AdminSheet page exists, display the current document's rendered content; - otherwise, do what it does now (parse static admin${editor} velocity files). This ensures that the administration is accessible even when the database is empty, and it allows each product to have it's own administration interface. I think that the administration part should be separated as an application, and not part of XE. This way we can put a warning in admin.vm when the admin sheet doesn't exist, something like "This is a basic administration interface. We strongly recommend installing the [Administration application>http://...wherever-it-is]". 2. Here there are another 2 options, create the document + object + #includeForm from java, using a listener, or from velocity, in the admin.vm template. I really don't know what option is better, as there are + and - points for each one. The java approach is better performance-wise, does not need an extra redirect, and keeps the admin.vm template a bit smaller. The velocity approach is better as it keeps everything in one file (hm, maybe it can be done without a redirect, too). If you already have something working in velocity, then let's leave it like that. Instead of redirecting to objectadd, admin.vm should use the API to change the document, then save() it. We should see if there's any bug here, I hope there isn't, but I'm not sure... And by the way, I am against creating WebPreferences for all spaces at startup, and against creating web preferences when creating the first document in a space. What settings should we put there? Why grant admin rights to the first author? Automatic admin rights is something dangerous, IMHO. The administrators should be responsible for proper administration, and the preferences should be created when an admin visits the administration page. -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/