Forums Rickshaw Work Plan
=========================

Semantic XML
------------

The APLAWS-II project requires that all applications generate
semantic XML for public facing display components. The goal is
to make it easier for designers to create custom styling by
providing quick access to the domain data. The scope of this 
requirement does not extend to administrative UIs. In addition
only limited work will be done on user facing, interactive forms. 
The core of the work entails removing all use of the following 
Bebop classes:

  Table
  List
  ColumnPanel
  GridPanel
  BoxPanel

And any other similar component with a tendancy to generate XML 
tags with low information entropy, such as 'bebop:cell'.
To achieve this, the components will be re-written to use the
DomainObjectXMLRenderer (or a similar technique). For example
the following code snippet[1] illustrates how to do without a 
bebop List or Table class:

  public class SiteListing extends SimpleComponent {    
    private SiteSelectionModel m_site;

    public SiteListing(SiteSelectionModel site) {
            m_site = site;
    }

    public void generateXML(PageState state,
                            Element parent) {

        Element content = parent.newChildElement(
            Subsite.SUBSITE_XML_PREFIX + "siteListing",
            Subsite.SUBSITE_XML_NS
        );

        Object key = m_site.getSelectedKey(state);

        if (key != null) {
            content.addAttribute("selected", key.toString());
        }
            
        DomainObjectXMLRenderer renderer = new DomainObjectXMLRenderer(content);
        renderer.setWrapRoot(true);
        renderer.setWrapAttributes(true);
    
        DomainCollection sites = 
           new DomainCollection(Site.BASE_DATA_OBJECT_TYPE);
        sites.addOrder(Site.TITLE);

        while (sites.next()) {
            DomainObject site = sites.getDomainObject();
                
            renderer.walk(site, getClass().getName());
        }
    }
  }   

This generates XML looking like:

      <subsite:siteListing>
        <object oid="[com.arsdigita.subsite.Site:{id=30008}]">
          <id>30008</id>
          <title>Another Site</title>
          <description>Some other stuff</description>
          <hostname>some.example.com</hostname>
          <styleDirectory>some</styleDirectory>
          <frontPage oid="[com.arsdigita.london.portal.Workspace:{id=26024}]">
            <id>26024</id>
            <title>Another Site</title>
            <description>Some other stuff</description>
            <primaryURL>/portal/some.example.com/</primaryURL>
          </frontPage>
        </object>
        <object oid="[com.arsdigita.subsite.Site:{id=32018}]">
          <id>32018</id>
          <title>My Site</title>
          <description>Some stuff</description>
          <hostname>mysite.example.com</hostname>
          <styleDirectory>mysite</styleDirectory>
          <frontPage oid="[com.arsdigita.london.portal.Workspace:{id=30004}]">
            <id>30004</id>
            <title>My Site</title>
            <description>Some stuff</description>
            <primaryURL>/portal/mysite.example.com/</primaryURL>
          </frontPage>
        </object>
      </subsite:siteListing>

We then write custom XSLT to render this as required.

The main UI classes that will be changed to achieve this goal
are:

  * ThreadListing - displays a thread summary for the whole forum
  * NavForm - form linking to a thread summary restricted by category
  * PostTable - displays a list of posts in a thread
  * MesssageView - displays a single post
  * UncategorizedListing - displays a list of threads no categorized.
  * CategoryListing - displays a list of categories (topics)


General Application Cleanup
---------------------------

As part of the APLAWS-II project, now work is being done to eliminate
the legacy old dispatcher & improving the categorization APIs. This 
provides an opportunity to tidy up some of the legacy forums code. It 
is suggested that the following be done:

  * Uncomment the getServletPath() method in Forum.java
  * Add servlet-mappings.xml & servlet-declarations.xml
  * Remove the explicit 'rootCategory' association between
    Forum <-> Category, in favour of the generic 
    ACSObject <-> Category association provided by categorization
    for mapping root categories.

  * Any other revamps to make better use of categorization API
    & thus eliminate a lot of custom PDL data queries

[1] https://listman.redhat.com/archives/redhat-ccm-list/2003-March/msg00036.html