[xwiki-dev] Clean URLs - Anyone knows why we have /bin/ in XWiki URLs?

[Ludovic Dubost]

The issue with mapping static file is what stopped me from getting rid 
of the "bin". It's sad to need a servlet for this.
The "/bin" can be renamed in "/xwiki"
Concerning the /xwiki/ removing it creates some issues with some 
absolute URL (same problem when the webapp is not named xwiki)
Since we are talking about URLs, what would be cool is to have simple 
mod_rewrite like functionnality in XWiki also to allow to rewrite  /123 
into /Main/MyScript?id=123

Ludovic

Sergiu Dumitriu a écrit :
>
>
> On 2/12/07, *Vincent Massol* <vincent at massol.net 
> <mailto:vincent at massol.net>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     Some user (Jerome Lacoste) has commented to me that XWiki URLs are a
>     bit too complex and should be simplified and cleaned as much as
>     possible. I agree with him.
>
>
> I also agree, and there's a task for this somewhere in my queue.
>
>     Take for example: http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
>     <http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome>
>
>     Wouldn't it be nice is this was simplified to http://www.xwiki.org/
>     Main/WebHome?
>
>
> Yes, but it's going to be tough.
>
>     This would mean view is the action by default.
>
>     I guess we could have: http://www.xwiki.org/Main/WebHome?action="view|
>     edit|..." with view being the default. 
>
>
> I (and also some search engines) don't like this. It reminds me of 
> those websites consisting of one page only and a few params, like 
> www.mysite.com?page=78 <http://www.mysite.com?page=78>. Anyway, for 
> other actions except view, we can decide on whatever method to specify 
> the action.
>
>     The /xwiki/ part will be able to be removed once we fix the jira
>     issue about removing the hardcoding about it.
>
>
> I think the hardcoded urls have been fixed, but I wouldn't recommend 
> having the default package configured as the ROOT webapp. Instead, we 
> should document how to make xwiki respond to the URL without /xwiki/, 
> either by deploying the application as the ROOT webapp, or by using 
> apache+mod_jk+URL rewriting. This is because xwiki might live in a 
> crowded environment, where the ROOT application already exists.
>
>     That leaves the /bin/ path. I'm not sure why it's there and what it's
>     doing. I can see some hardcoded /testbin/ in the code but I thin this
>     is probably some leftover that we should remove (or do differently).
>
>
> The /bin/ part is needed for sending requests to struts, and the /view 
> part is needed for sending requests to the ViewAction. XWiki works 
> fine without /view/, what needs to be changed is the URLFactory that 
> generates URLs. Removing /bin/ is a bit trickier, since the container 
> must know which requests to pass to struts and which requests to serve 
> as plain documents (what's the difference between /Skins/MySkin and 
> /skins/default/style.css ?). But for removing the /bin/ part, we can 
> do this:
> - send requests for / to struts
> - remap existing directories to a simple directory listing / file 
> retrieval servlet. The default one should do fine, but I don't know 
> (didn't find) a way to specify a starting directory, since if we map 
> it to /skin/, it will serve files not from the skin directory, but 
> from the root directory. And if we don't want to explicitly map each 
> directory, we could have only one action ( /files/ for example) which 
> calls this servlet, and all the problems are solved. We just need to 
> modify the same URLFactory.
>
>     So what's the reason for /bin/?
>
>     Thanks
>     -Vincent
>
>
> So, to summarize:
> - /xwiki/ should be there in the default package, but we need to 
> document how it can be removed if needed/wanted.
> - /bin/ can be removed
> - /view/ can be removed
> - /edit/inline/viewrev/download ... can be replaced with something 
> else, but I think they should stay there
> - /files/ should be added for serving files on the local file system
> - The code generating URLs should be modified. Anyway, with the 
> architectural change, a complete recheck/rewrite of the various URL 
> modules should be performed.
>
> Sergiu
>
> -- 
> http://purl.org/net/sergiu
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-- 
Ludovic Dubost
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