Leon Widdershoven wrote:
- move to a generator approach.
Do you mean generator-only approach? I think that would limit the options of the users quite a bit (and I am one of those). I actually like the pipeline
approach so that you can build your XML tree dynamically; if one would move
to a generator only approach other generator-only functionalities (xsp, though
that appears to be deprecated) can not really be used anymore.
As you notice I am not well enough at home in cocoon core matters to really have an opinion, but two months ago when I started using cocoon (and I am working full time with cocoon-2.1.4) the fact that the xsp was a generator only brought me a lot of trouble so I have a bit of a phobia about that.
Sylvain is not proposing to scrap pipelining, just to merge a couple of stages. At present, in CForms, you can have:
JXTemplateGenerator->FormTransformer->XSLT->Serialise
What is being proposed is to use JXMacros in JXTemplateGenerator to implement the functionality of the FormTransformer, so you get:
JXTemplateGenerator->XSLT->Serialise
So, hopefully this scares you less. The template that is being worked with is very much an XML one - XML to HTML transformation remains steadfastly with XSLT.
Exactly. This idea came from the fact that the form state participates in defining the page layout through widget states (in the global meaning, e.g. when a repeater is empty).
And if this isn't taken into account at the generator level (a dynamic one, like JXTemplate), this leads to defining control structure statements in the markup handled by a transformer. And this leads to defining a myriad of similar-yet-different markups all over the place, for a result that cannot achieve the expressional power of a single dynamic generator (be it JXTemplate or XSP).
In short, transformers should not be used to define the document _structure_.
And believe me, I love pipelines ;-)
Sylvain
-- Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies http://www.apache.org/~sylvain http://www.anyware-tech.com { XML, Java, Cocoon, OpenSource }*{ Training, Consulting, Projects }
