[xwiki-devs] [Ideas] Some thoughts about Extension Manager's future
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
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
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 12:50 AM, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks -Vincent
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participants (3)
-
Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) -
Thomas Mortagne -
Vincent Massol