3 Nov
2011
3 Nov
'11
2:42 p.m.
On 11/03/2011 09:12 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
Yes, it's the user of the UIExtensionClass which decides what the content contains.
Yes that's the plan. As I mentioned the UIExtensionClass objects would be cached in
memory and the script service would return the cached values (it's an
"active" cache since it'll refresh automatically when a UIExtensionClass
object is modified).
Yes you did ;)
Thanks
-Vincent
Hi Eddy,
On Nov 3, 2011, at 1:13 PM, Eduard Moraru wrote:
I want to echo this sentiment, not just in this case but in general, there is a fine
balance between creating something that doesn't age well and not doing anything
because there might be a better way, both are dangerous.
Caleb
Hi Vincent,
On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
First le me say that I'm not planning this as something uber complex that may satisfy
all possible future needs. I'm taking a very pragmatic approach here which IMO solves
a lot of hardcoded issues we have today. We can optimize/refine it later on. I prefer to
that approach since the other approach hasn't worked in the past 5 years… ;) Hi devs,
I'm implementing the LinkChecker UI and I want to be able to add a Tab in
AllDocs. Right now I've coded it with a hardcoded #if but I really hate
this.
So here's my proposal:
* Create the following modules:
xwiki-platform-uiextension/
|_ xwiki-platform-uiextension-ui/
|_ xwiki-platform-uiextension-api/
where:
* xwiki-platform-uiextension-ui/: contains XWiki.UIExtensionClass page
* xwiki-platform-uiextension-api/: contains a ScriptService to get
UIExtension data + contains an EventListener that refreshes the UI
Extension Cache when an UIExtensionClass object is modified (this is for
performance reasons)
So how would this work exactly? Each UI (skin, xwiki bundled application, user
application, etc.) defines
these extension points that any other application can contribute to by
using the "type" field in an XWiki.UIExtensionClass instance?
Yes.
This would,
of course, mean a great deal of rewriting, but once done, it would be a
good investment.
There's no need for any rewrite.
Whatever works will continue to work. OTOH of course it'll be nice if some existing
custom extension mechanisms were retrofitted to use this new UIExtensionClass. Now it
doesn't mean we should never allow custom extension mechanisms.
The idea is more than any part of the UI which needs to provide extension points would
use UIExtensionClass from now on if it fits its needs. For example I can think of the
Workspace Applications which needs a User profile extension point for the tabs and which
needs a Menu extension point for the top level Menu.
To start
with I'm proposing to have the following fields for
UIExtensionClass:
* type: String, represents the type of the extension (for example for the
AllDocs needs, I'll use a "IndexTab" type (or "AllDocsTab" type)
* id: String, the technical name of the extension, which can be used for
example as suffix for HTML class or ids.
* name: String, the name of the extension, which can be used for
displaying. For example for the AllDocs needs, it would be used as the name
of the Tab
* content: Textarea: the content of the extension. For example for the
AllDocs needs, it would be used as the content to display when clicking on
a tab
Depending on the specifics of the extension point, the content gets treated
differently? Also, I`m assuming this will generally be
velocity/wiki syntax, right?
Generally I'd say wiki syntax yes.
Another thing that might be useful (maybe in
future iterations) would be
some kind of parameters that the extension could supply to its hook.
In your particular use case, a tab extension could say to the AllDocs page
that it wants its content to be loaded asynchronously, when the tab is
selected. Another case would be a menu extension that wants the menu item
to open in a new window when clicked or that wants to be placed before
entry X or after entry Y. Etc.
Yes, good idea, we'll probably need to use a List field for that allowing the
extension to provide "key1=value1,key2=value2,…"
I'd
like to implement this ASAP and thus stop hardcoding UI Extensions
from now on.
The only downside I see is the performance penalty once everything starts
being extra extensible, but maybe using some smart caching (which you
already mentioned something about) we can limit the damage. The extension
content still needs to be evaluated every time (unless maybe otherwise
stated by the extension itself), but at least the list of extensions can be
easily cached.
Yes. Caching the rendered value would be another field in the UIExtensionClass for
later.
Here's my +1
+1 if I understood it correctly. Thanks,
Eduard
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> PS: If you find a better than "uiextension" I'm all ears. A name
without
> "extension" would be great to not confuse it with our Extensions (and with
> xwiki-platform-extension).
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