[xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Changes to Page Creation needed for Application Within Minutes

List overview All Threads
Download

newer

older

[xwiki-devs] Simple Mobile Skin

[xwiki-devs] How to call rendering...

Marius Dumitru Florea

3 Oct 2011 3 Oct '11

5:33 p.m.

Hi devs, For the upcoming Application Within Minutes I need to enhance the XWiki platform with the ability to generate the page name automatically when creating a new wiki page. For some applications it doesn't make sense to have two creation steps: (1) specify the wiki page name (i.e. the location) and then (2) edit the new wiki page with the specified name. Let me give you two examples: * It would be cool to be able to create a new blog post in a single step. The blog post name could be generated from the blog post title specified in the edit form. * An application that manages holiday requests doesn't need meaningful page names (i.e. free text, like a blog post would have) but something like Request_XYZ, where XYZ is a unique counter/identifier. These applications should be able to create new wiki pages with automatically generated names without writing their custom create forms. Since 3.2RC1 was planed for today and these changes are in the 3.2 roadmap, here's a proposal that I think I can implement quickly and safely: (1) Introduce two new components: // Used to generate a document name that doesn't have to be unique (e.g. by cleaning the document title). DocumentReferenceGenerator#generate(DocumentModelBridge):DocumentReference // Used to make a document name unique (by suffixing an unique counter/identifier) DocumentReferenceDifferentiator#differentiate(DocumentReference):DocumentReference (2) Modify editinline.vm to store "documentReferenceGenerator" and "documentReferenceDifferentiator" request parameters in two hidden input fields so that they are passed to the save action. Obviously, these are component hints. (3) Modify editactions.vm to replace "Save & View" + "Save & Continue" with "Create" when "documentReferenceGenerator" or "documentReferenceDifferentiator" (or both) request parameters are set. (4) Modify SaveAction to take into account these two request parameters (only if they are specified). Something along these lines: generateDocumentReference(doc) synchronize(lock) { doc.copyDocument(differentiate(generatedDocumentReference)).save(); } I'm not sure where to place the two components from (1) though. WDYT? Thanks, Marius

Show replies by date

Ecaterina Moraru (Valica)

3 Oct 3 Oct

5:50 p.m.

New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Changes to Page Creation needed for Application Within Minutes

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 18:33, Marius Dumitru Florea < mariusdumitru.florea(a)xwiki.com> wrote:

...

(4) Modify SaveAction to take into account these two request parameters (only if they are specified). Something along these lines: generateDocumentReference(doc) synchronize(lock) { doc.copyDocument(differentiate(generatedDocumentReference)).save(); } I'm not sure where to place the two components from (1) though. WDYT? Thanks, Marius _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Vincent Massol

6:15 p.m.

Hi Marius, Disclaimer: I really haven't had the time to think about this so my comments below are based after thinking about it for 10 minutes only. IMO this requires some more brainstorming/thinking. On Oct 3, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote:

...

I don't see the need for 2 components. I do see the need for one component: DocumentReferenceGenerator#generate(String prefix) Then you could have one implementation of it that that takes the prefix and appends a number to make it unique. Now for using the title as the reference name, we don't need anything: new DocumentReference(wiki, space, doc.getTitle());

...

(2) Modify editinline.vm to store "documentReferenceGenerator" and "documentReferenceDifferentiator" request parameters in two hidden input fields so that they are passed to the save action. Obviously, these are component hints. (3) Modify editactions.vm to replace "Save & View" + "Save & Continue" with "Create" when "documentReferenceGenerator" or "documentReferenceDifferentiator" (or both) request parameters are set.

I don't see how what use case (3) solves. Can you explain?

...

The component I mentioned above could go in xwiki-platform-model. <general remarks> Now I'm not very comfortable with hacking the default vm files to add more "if" in the code to support even more parameters. Why not use the new sheet system you've started putting in place to specify a specific vm to use? More generally I'd like that we think about removing big spaghettis code for vm and be able to have more vms and that we can choose which vm to use where. Also, as usual, I'd like to that someone who wants to build on the xwiki dev platform be able to not use this if he doesn't need to (hence my comment above about being able to selectively choose what behavior to have/use instead of having lots of "if"s in vm files. Especially since this new behavior doesn't seem to be good for the majority of use cases but only for some. Said differently use an Object-oriented approach or a component-based approach instead of a big-ball-of-mud approach ;) </general remarks> Note that as always, I'd prefer if we do this: - discuss how we would like it to be in the near future - then only discuss how to reach that based on constraints (release contraint, etc) and see how many steps we need to get there Thanks -Vincent

Marius Dumitru Florea

8:02 p.m.

New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Changes to Page Creation needed for Application Within Minutes

Hi Vincent, Thanks for the feedback. See my comments below. On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 7:15 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:

...

I don't see the need for 2 components. I do see the need for one component:

The two components I proposed serve two different concerns: 1. Generate a document name from the structured and/or non-structured data of a document. The most simple implementation is to use the document title as the document name but IMO an XWiki application should be able to write its own generator (in groovy for instance). ---> Ludovic and devs writing XWiki applications should confirm if this is really needed. 2. Modify a document reference to make it unique. I believe XWiki applications have to be able to mix implementations of these components.

...

DocumentReferenceGenerator#generate(String prefix) Then you could have one implementation of it that that takes the prefix and appends a number to make it unique. Now for using the title as the reference name, we don't need anything: new DocumentReference(wiki, space, doc.getTitle());

...

I don't see how what use case (3) solves. Can you explain?

You go to the Blog home page and click the Create button which takes you to: /xwiki/bin/edit/Blog/TemporaryBlogPost253?template=Blog.BlogPostTemplate&parent=Blog.WebHome&documentReferenceGenerator=custom If we keep "Save & Continue" then it will be possible to create a new document everytime your click it because the factors that influence the generated document reference can change (e.g. you modify the title). We could keep only "Save & View" but I thought "Create" is better from UX point of view.

...

The idea was to let XWiki applications use the standard edit/create form offered by the XWiki platform. I can drop (2) and let each application add those hidden input fields in their edit sheet if they need to generate the pane name automatically. Regarding (3), the reason I proposed to hide the Save buttons and show Create only when those specific request parameters are set is because I wanted to keep the current behavior for normal wiki pages and existing XWiki applications. My basic need is to distinguish between create and edit form. The simplest solution is to show the Create button instead of Save buttons when the document is new, but that's an important change (for instance lots of functional test will be affected) and I didn't want to make it in 3.2RC1.

...

Also, as usual, I'd like to that someone who wants to build on the xwiki dev platform be able to not use this if he doesn't need to (hence my comment above about being able to selectively choose what behavior to have/use instead of having lots of "if"s in vm files. Especially since this new behavior doesn't seem to be good for the majority of use cases but only for some.

...

Said differently use an Object-oriented approach or a component-based approach instead of a big-ball-of-mud approach ;)

Well, that sounds nice, but Velocity templates are not object oriented and it's not easy for an XWiki application to reuse/customize an existing template without duplicating its code. Thanks, Marius

...

</general remarks> Note that as always, I'd prefer if we do this: - discuss how we would like it to be in the near future - then only discuss how to reach that based on constraints (release contraint, etc) and see how many steps we need to get there Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Ludovic Dubost

4 Oct 4 Oct

2:50 a.m.

New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Changes to Page Creation needed for Application Within Minutes

Hi, 2011/10/3 Marius Dumitru Florea <mariusdumitru.florea(a)xwiki.com>

...

Hi Vincent, Thanks for the feedback. See my comments below. On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 7:15 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:

Hi Marius, Disclaimer: I really haven't had the time to think about this so my

comments below are based after thinking about it for 10 minutes only. IMO this requires some more brainstorming/thinking.

On Oct 3, 2011, at 5:33 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote: > Hi devs, > > For the upcoming Application Within Minutes I need to enhance the > XWiki platform with the ability to generate the page name > automatically when creating a new wiki page. For some applications it > doesn't make sense to have two creation steps: (1) specify the wiki > page name (i.e. the location) and then (2) edit the new wiki page with > the specified name. Let me give you two examples: > > * It would be cool to be able to create a new blog post in a single > step. The blog post name could be generated from the blog post title > specified in the edit form. > > * An application that manages holiday requests doesn't need meaningful > page names (i.e. free text, like a blog post would have) but something > like Request_XYZ, where XYZ is a unique counter/identifier. > > These applications should be able to create new wiki pages with > automatically generated names without writing their custom create > forms. > > Since 3.2RC1 was planed for today and these changes are in the 3.2 > roadmap, here's a proposal that I think I can implement quickly and > safely: > > (1) Introduce two new components: > > // Used to generate a document name that doesn't have to be unique > (e.g. by cleaning the document title). >

DocumentReferenceGenerator#generate(DocumentModelBridge):DocumentReference

> // Used to make a document name unique (by suffixing an unique > counter/identifier) >

DocumentReferenceDifferentiator#differentiate(DocumentReference):DocumentReference

I don't see the need for 2 components. I do see the need for one

component: The two components I proposed serve two different concerns: 1. Generate a document name from the structured and/or non-structured data of a document. The most simple implementation is to use the document title as the document name but IMO an XWiki application should be able to write its own generator (in groovy for instance). ---> Ludovic and devs writing XWiki applications should confirm if this is really needed.

Yes we definitively need flexibility. The only way to make sure we don't have to get back to scripting the whole creation process is to make sure there is extensibility in this creation process. Groovy to provide a generator is a great way to do it.

...

2. Modify a document reference to make it unique. I believe XWiki applications have to be able to mix implementations of these components.

I'm not sure it's either good neither viable to have 2 components. I don't think you can really transform a document reference to make it unique. The uniqueness of the document reference is potentially a bummer. Some clients have asked for a "real" uniqueness, which can only be implemented using a "reservation" system. (the issue here is to make sure that between the moment you chose the document reference and the moment you actually save the document, nobody has been able to get the same document reference) It is better to do the generate and uniqueness (or pseudo-uniqueness) in the same process. The configuration which tells us which generator to use will be the one deciding if uniqueness is involved or if it duplicates should generate an error (we can need an AJAX API for that by the way, part of the validation api). I also agree with Vincent's object oriented approach and not using "if" in the template. I think it would be better to have one API "generate" and if this API returns nothing then it means that the generator could not work. This is better than testing for parameters, since there can be many use cases for generators (which we have not coded) that are valid which might not involve the same parameters we check for in the "if". So we should start with one API and provide a couple behaviors for one or more implementations: 1/ Title (or other fields) to Name transformation with and without uniqueness counter A couple text transformation could be provided (normal names, wiki style names, seo friendly names with authorized/unauthorized special chars) -> I would put the priority to unauthorized special chars normal names and then on seo friendly names 2/ Pure counter with prefix Real unique or Pseudo unique are possible here. Fill or not filling holes. -> I would put the priority to a prefix + pseudo counter and then also work on a prefix + real counter with a reservation stored in the database valid for a maximum time (5 seconds) Ludovic

...

DocumentReferenceGenerator#generate(String prefix) Then you could have one implementation of it that that takes the prefix

and appends a number to make it unique.

Now for using the title as the reference name, we don't need anything: new DocumentReference(wiki, space, doc.getTitle());

I don't see how what use case (3) solves. Can you explain?

The component I mentioned above could go in xwiki-platform-model. <general remarks> Now I'm not very comfortable with hacking the default vm files to add

more "if" in the code to support even more parameters.

Why not use the new sheet system you've started putting in place to

specify a specific vm to use?

More generally I'd like that we think about removing big spaghettis code

for vm and be able to have more vms and that we can choose which vm to use where. The idea was to let XWiki applications use the standard edit/create form offered by the XWiki platform. I can drop (2) and let each application add those hidden input fields in their edit sheet if they need to generate the pane name automatically. Regarding (3), the reason I proposed to hide the Save buttons and show Create only when those specific request parameters are set is because I wanted to keep the current behavior for normal wiki pages and existing XWiki applications. My basic need is to distinguish between create and edit form. The simplest solution is to show the Create button instead of Save buttons when the document is new, but that's an important change (for instance lots of functional test will be affected) and I didn't want to make it in 3.2RC1.

Also, as usual, I'd like to that someone who wants to build on the xwiki

dev platform be able to not use this if he doesn't need to (hence my comment above about being able to selectively choose what behavior to have/use instead of having lots of "if"s in vm files. Especially since this new behavior doesn't seem to be good for the majority of use cases but only for some.

Said differently use an Object-oriented approach or a component-based

approach instead of a big-ball-of-mud approach ;) Well, that sounds nice, but Velocity templates are not object oriented and it's not easy for an XWiki application to reuse/customize an existing template without duplicating its code. Thanks, Marius > </general remarks>

> Note that as always, I'd prefer if we do this: > - discuss how we would like it to be in the near future > - then only discuss how to reach that based on constraints (release contraint, etc) and see how many steps we need to get there

> Thanks > -Vincent

> _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > devs(a)xwiki.org > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Ludovic Dubost Founder and CEO Blog: http://blog.ludovic.org/ XWiki: http://www.xwiki.com Skype: ldubost GTalk: ldubost

Marius Dumitru Florea

11:11 a.m.

New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Changes to Page Creation needed for Application Within Minutes

Hi Ludovic, Thanks for the feedback. I made the proposal thinking that an XWiki application would follow this steps to automatically generate page names: 1. Put a Create button on the application home page: ----------8<---------- {{velocity}} ## Safety measure. The temporary document is not saved but someone could create it manually. #set($tmpDocName = $xwiki.getUniquePageName($doc.space, 'Temporary')) #set($tmpDocRef = $services.model.createDocumentReference($doc.wiki, $doc.space, $tmpDocName)) #set($editParams = 'editor=inline&template=AppCode.Template&parent=App.WebHome') {{html}} <span class="buttonwrapper"> <a href="$xwiki.getURL($tmpDocRef, 'edit', $editParams)" class="button">Create</a> </span> {{/html}} {{/velocity}} ---------->8---------- 2. Specify the document reference generator/differentiator in the edit sheet ----------8<---------- <input type="hidden" name="documentReferenceGenerator" value="foo" /> <input type="hidden" name="documentReferenceDifferentiator" value="bar" /> ---------->8---------- 3. Write custom generator/differentiator in groovy if needed. And that's it. As you can see, the application doesn't call the generator/differentiator. They are called by the save action, which instead of saving the temporary document it saves the document with the generated reference. The application can configure the generator/differentiator by * adding more hidden fields which will be available as request parameters to the generator/differentiator (this is needed if the application creates multiple types of documents and it uses different naming rules for each type) * using a space-level configuration source (space preferences) that affects all create forms in that space. Now, regarding the number of components, one vs. two, I don't think it's enough to say "I want an unique name". Unless we expose lots of hints like title, title/realUnique, title/pseudoUnique, field, field/realUnique, field/pseudoUnique, etc. the application will need to specify both how the name is generated and how/if the uniqueness is satisfied. I don't see why a differentiator (even a custom one) would not work with any generator. To me they serve two different concerns. Thanks, Marius On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 3:50 AM, Ludovic Dubost <ludovic(a)xwiki.com> wrote: