14 Jun
2012
14 Jun
'12
8:13 p.m.
Hi,
I want to list some ideas about Extension Manager that come to my mind. I'm
sure others thought about them already or will find the time to make some
other suggestions:
1) Filtering core extensions
Would be nice to be able to view preinstalled applications with EM.
Right now everything that comes preinstalled is found inside 'Core
extensions'.
There are a lot of technical extensions, but there are also some extensions
that could be of general knowledge. For example it would be nice to see
what functionality a default wiki has in terms of applications and macros
(even nicer if we think about future flavored packages). This would allow
the administrator to quickly scan and customize the tools at his disposal.
Maybe it would be interesting to have some filtering functionality.
This way I could filter for applications and see that I have preinstalled
'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', 'Search', 'WYSIWYG',
'Message Stream',
etc. and if I filter for macros I could get 'Chart macro', 'Box macro',
'Display macro', 'Message macro', etc.
2) Enable/Disable applications from inside EM
Another idea is for the EM to sustain enable/disable actions for
installed/core applications/macros. Right now applications like
'Annotations', 'Search Suggest', 'Message Stream', even
'OpenOffice Server'
have special settings that permit to enable ('activate') them. This
functionality could be covered by the EM and not display anymore special
administration sections for each applications.
3) Integrate application configuration inside EM
If EM will manage installed applications and would also allow the
enabling/disabling part, than is normal that the application configuration
should be made also from inside the EM and not as a separate Administration
component.
Although all things in XWiki are extensions and components, we would need
to get along what the lightest version of xwiki would contain (in terms of
functionality and not components). For this default functionalities (Users,
Rights, Localization, Presentation, Import/Export, etc.) the Administration
sections would be still used, since they could be considered core elements
and not something that can be disabled or uninstalled.
Maybe all the thoughts I am writing here could also be solved if we rewrite
some functionality like 'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', some macros,
etc.
and not display them anymore as 'Core Extensions' but rather as 'Installed
Extensions'.
Thanks,
Caty
15 Jun
15 Jun
12:50 a.m.
New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Ideas] Some thoughts about Extension Manager's future
Hi Caty,
Nice thoughts, see below.
On Jun 14, 2012, at 8:13 PM, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
Hi,
I want to list some ideas about Extension Manager that come to my mind. I'm
sure others thought about them already or will find the time to make some
other suggestions:
1) Filtering core extensions
Would be nice to be able to view preinstalled applications with EM.
Right now everything that comes preinstalled is found inside 'Core
extensions'.
There are a lot of technical extensions, but there are also some extensions
that could be of general knowledge. For example it would be nice to see
what functionality a default wiki has in terms of applications and macros
(even nicer if we think about future flavored packages). This would allow
the administrator to quickly scan and customize the tools at his disposal.
Maybe it would be interesting to have some filtering functionality.
This way I could filter for applications and see that I have preinstalled
'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', 'Search', 'WYSIWYG',
'Message Stream',
etc. and if I filter for macros I could get 'Chart macro', 'Box macro',
'Display macro', 'Message macro', etc.
An idea we have discussed at length is to have no extension installed initially and ask
the user to pick a flavor (i.e a preset selection of extensions) or manually check
extensions to be installed.
2) Enable/Disable applications from inside EM
Another idea is for the EM to sustain enable/disable actions for
installed/core applications/macros. Right now applications like
'Annotations', 'Search Suggest', 'Message Stream', even
'OpenOffice Server'
have special settings that permit to enable ('activate') them. This
functionality could be covered by the EM and not display anymore special
administration sections for each applications.
Yep, the EM already support the notion of "downloaded extension" vs
'installed extension'. It would be nice that the UI makes the distinction too.
And indeed we should refactor the application-specific disable features to use the EM
"disable" feature instead.
3) Integrate application configuration inside EM
If EM will manage installed applications and would also allow the
enabling/disabling part, than is normal that the application configuration
should be made also from inside the EM and not as a separate Administration
component.
I don't understand this one. It's up to each app to provide its own configuration
and implement Admin UI extension points.
Although all things in XWiki are extensions and
components, we would need
to get along what the lightest version of xwiki would contain (in terms of
functionality and not components). For this default functionalities (Users,
Rights, Localization, Presentation, Import/Export, etc.) the Administration
sections would be still used, since they could be considered core elements
and not something that can be disabled or uninstalled.
I don't think this is necessarily true. It really depends on the use case needed by
the user. Eventually almost everything should be able to disabled/enabled. Now some
extension require other extensions to be active to work so disabling an extension would
also disable extensions using it if it's a necessary dependency (ie not optional).
Maybe all the thoughts I am writing here could also be
solved if we rewrite
some functionality like 'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', some macros,
etc.
and not display them anymore as 'Core Extensions' but rather as 'Installed
Extensions'.
Yep, exactly. That's what Thomas is working on for 4.2M1 AFAIK.
Thanks
-Vincent
8:55 a.m.
New subject: [xwiki-devs] [Ideas] Some thoughts about Extension Manager's future
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 12:50 AM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
It's not that simple, EM is working at a lower level and manipulate
extensions. You can (and most of the time do) have several features in
an extension. Also what does it mean to disable a XAR extension ?
IMO what we should work on instead is an Admin UI to manipulate
components and enable/disable/remove them and move feature in this
direction as much as possible (macros already are components for
example). That would make much more sense. It would also allow to
manipulate things you did not installed with Extension Manager like
customs macros in your wiki.
No it has nothing to do with Extension Manager and this is not the
direction we want to take. If an application want to appear in Admin
UI it just have to expose a Configurable object.
No that's not what I'm working on, jar extension packaged in the war
are and will stay core extension but XAR are not and will never be
core extension. What I'm working on is to find a way to make sure XAR
extensions always go trough EM to be recognized as such.
Hi Caty,
Nice thoughts, see below.
On Jun 14, 2012, at 8:13 PM, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to list some ideas about Extension Manager that come to my mind. I'm
> sure others thought about them already or will find the time to make some
> other suggestions:
>
> 1) Filtering core extensions
> Would be nice to be able to view preinstalled applications with EM.
> Right now everything that comes preinstalled is found inside 'Core
> extensions'.
>
> There are a lot of technical extensions, but there are also some extensions
> that could be of general knowledge. For example it would be nice to see
> what functionality a default wiki has in terms of applications and macros
> (even nicer if we think about future flavored packages). This would allow
> the administrator to quickly scan and customize the tools at his disposal.
>
> Maybe it would be interesting to have some filtering functionality.
> This way I could filter for applications and see that I have preinstalled
> 'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', 'Search',
'WYSIWYG', 'Message Stream',
> etc. and if I filter for macros I could get 'Chart macro', 'Box
macro',
> 'Display macro', 'Message macro', etc.
Right now it's a bit complex to do advanced filtering but for 4.2
(hopefully) the plan is to work on an index (probably a Lucene index)
containing all extensions (core, local, remote) in which you can
execute queries and more easily filter on pretty much anything.
An idea we have discussed at length is to have no extension installed initially and ask
the user to pick a flavor (i.e a preset selection of extensions) or manually check
extensions to be installed.
Yes at some point we should not have as much core extensions as we have now.
2) Enable/Disable applications from inside EM
Another idea is for the EM to sustain enable/disable actions for
installed/core applications/macros. Right now applications like
'Annotations', 'Search Suggest', 'Message Stream', even
'OpenOffice Server'
have special settings that permit to enable ('activate') them. This
functionality could be covered by the EM and not display anymore special
administration sections for each applications.
Yep, the EM already support the notion of "downloaded extension" vs
'installed extension'. It would be nice that the UI makes the distinction too.
And indeed we should refactor the application-specific disable features to use the EM
"disable" feature instead. 3) Integrate application configuration inside EM
If EM will manage installed applications and would also allow the
enabling/disabling part, than is normal that the application configuration
should be made also from inside the EM and not as a separate Administration
component.
I don't understand this one. It's up to each app to provide its own configuration
and implement Admin UI extension points. Although all things in XWiki are extensions and
components, we would need
to get along what the lightest version of xwiki would contain (in terms of
functionality and not components). For this default functionalities (Users,
Rights, Localization, Presentation, Import/Export, etc.) the Administration
sections would be still used, since they could be considered core elements
and not something that can be disabled or uninstalled.
I don't think this is necessarily true. It really depends on the use case needed by
the user. Eventually almost everything should be able to disabled/enabled. Now some
extension require other extensions to be active to work so disabling an extension would
also disable extensions using it if it's a necessary dependency (ie not optional).
Maybe all the thoughts I am writing here could
also be solved if we rewrite
some functionality like 'Activity Stream', 'Annotations', some macros,
etc.
and not display them anymore as 'Core Extensions' but rather as 'Installed
Extensions'.
Yep, exactly. That's what Thomas is working on for 4.2M1 AFAIK.
Thanks
-Vincent
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Thomas Mortagne
4529
days inactive
4530
days old
2 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) -
Thomas Mortagne -
Vincent Massol