20 May
2008
20 May
'08
9:20 a.m.
On May 20, 2008, at 8:51 AM, Evelina Slatineanu wrote:
Hi,
Yes, I've read that document a hundred times but the implementation
proposal
changed about that much too :P
So, yes, Vincent is right about the fact that we should follow the
interface
extension direction for the new applications that we are going to
make but,
so far, since we don't have the interface extensions I am a little bit
puzzled about the whole thing. What I don't know how to do is:
1. In what way an application should contribute admin pages to the
administration application? For this we should have at least some
classes &
objects generically defined for each application and the
administration one
to read these objects and to be able to know what to include (even
hardcoded) in the administration menu, as Vincent says. And isn't
this what
interface extension application is suppose to do? Please correct me
if I am
wrong or I did not understand the request.
Right now the admin page should hardcode the link to the admin pages
of the apps. This part will be replaced when IX are there.
However before printing the link we should check if the application is
present and don't show it if not (we can check for a known page from
the application).
For example, let's say we have the Blog
application. For now we have
global
administration and space administration. We have the rights, the
panels and
the presentation preferences included in the space administration
for Blog
space (this is something fixed). Where should go the other things
that the
Blog administration application wants to include in the
administration menu?
The things that Vincent wants to be hardcoded for now. In the space
administration page? In another administration page...? And how
should I
read these things? From what kind of objects or documents or
whatever else
may be used?
1) The space preferences (i.e. rights, preferences, etc) should be
separated from the applications IMO. It seems better to have a generic
page that allows to change these space by space rather than delegating
this to the spaces. Especially since Application doesn't mean there's
a space for that application. An application is only a set of pages
right now.
2) For the Blog application what I mean by the admin page for Blog is
page in the Blog application that allows changing:
- Blog categories (edit, add new ones)
- A link to the Article Class so that admin users can edit the
stylsheet/template/class definition.
3) So in the left menu of the general admin page, we could hardcode a
"Blog" link that links to the blog admin page defined in 2) (and only
display it if the Blog app is present). The same goes for the Panels
app.
Until now, after discussing with Jv, Thomas and
Sergiu, the idea I
made
about the administration application is that it is a set of wiki
pages used
to administrate a wiki at global and space level (pretty much the
same kind
of application like Panels). But its implementation seems to change
the more
we discuss about it (which is a good thing of course) but now I am
really
confused.
I don't see what's changing... Could you be more specific?
The only thing I'd like NOT to see is (to continue with the Blog
example) to have a blog admin page located in the general admin
application.
Now one question is whether we consider Import/Export, User/Group
management, Preferences, Panels as 4 applications or not. I think for
now we should consider them as 2:
* the Admin app: Import/Export, User/Group management, Preferences
* the Panels app
WDYT?
Thanks
-Vincent
Can you help me understand WHAT exactly should I
implement for now?
Thanks,
Evelina
-----Original Message-----
From: devs-bounces(a)xwiki.org [mailto:devs-bounces@xwiki.org] On
Behalf Of
Vincent Massol
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 1:06 PM
To: XWiki Developers
Subject: [xwiki-devs] New Admin Design direction
Hi,
Some comments I've discussed with JV about implementing
http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Design/ImproveWikiAdministration
I believe we should design it in the following manner:
* The Admin page is a generic empty shell
* An XWiki instance is made of applications (admin pages like users/
groups/configs are part of the admin application too). Examples: Blog,
Calendar, Panels, etc
* Each application should be able to contribute admin pages to
configure/administrate itself. These pages should automatically appear
in the left menu on the new admin page. Note that this will require
interface extensions so right now we would hardcode them in the menu.
* What it means is that the admin page should link to the admin pages
located in the applications providing them.
I know we're missing the interface extensions to make this work but
I'd like that our design for the new admin page works towards this
goal in mind.
WDYT?
Note: This email was prompted by Evelina asking if it was ok to attach
XARs to be imported in the XWiki.XWikiPeferences page. IMO it's not a
good thing to do. The XARs should be attached in the ImportExport
application pages (as it's done now). Now I have no idea how easy or
hard this is to implement since I haven't dived in the implementation.
Thanks
-Vincent