I did not say what you say was "not true" Gallardo. I should have been more careful and I would have been had I known there were fragile people out there who might be hurt. As it was, I do not take myself so seriously as some others do. Anyway, I sure did not mean to suggest that Cocoon was built by Frank Zammetti. I thought I said: "Thought I'd pass on to the Struts list the great success and popularity Frank Zammetti's ideas are having on the Cocoon list." Oh, wait, I checked, and I did say that. LOL ///;-)
On 4/21/05, Antonio Gallardo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Jue, 21 de Abril de 2005, 3:07, Michael McGrady dijo: > > Thought I'd pass on to the Struts list the great success and > > popularity Frank Zammetti's ideas are having on the Cocoon list. > > Hi Michael, > > Unfortunately, I need to tell this just for the records: > > In cocoon XmlHttpRequest was first saw in 9-Sept-2004 thanks to Ugo Cei: > > $ svn log src/blocks/forms/samples/forms/xhr_carselector_template.xml > > <snip/> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > r43610 | ugo | 2004-09-09 10:36:28 -0500 (jue, 09 sep 2004) | 1 line > > Carselector with XMLHTTPRequest sample > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > I am not telling the article by Frank Zammetti's was not interesting. It > was! The article helped me to understand AJAX. I am happy of that. But > from this to tell that cocoon implemented AJAX based on the article is no > true. > > In my post I just related how I stepped. I just posted what I was trying > to do. My answer takes almost 10 days since Sylvain original post, becaue > I wanted to take my time to write a good answer for this great job, > because while I was doing my small AJAX steps, Sylvain showed his own > solution. He was faster than me for a lot of time. I don't know when I > will finish that. > > Kudos to Sylvain again! He is on my hero plate now! :-) > > BTW, I expect to see this in 2.1.x soon! ;-) > > Best Regards, > > Antonio Gallardo. > > > > > > > On 4/20/05, Antonio Gallardo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hi: > >> > >> Simply, wow, it is great! :-) > >> > >> I started to do something similar 4 days before you posted this > >> solution! > >> > >> My main motivation was because repeater widget with comboboxes are very > >> slow in 2.1.x. I saw a browser waiting around 2 minutes to show a form > >> because the repeater data. The all form was +100kB! Of course, this was > >> an > >> unusable solution. Then we thought that a solution was break the form in > >> more pieces, but this looked very ugly from a user POV. > >> > >> At that time, Tim Larson advised to look for an XmlHttpRequest solution > >> integrated into cforms. The same day, I saw an struts related article in > >> the theserverside: > >> > >> http://theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=33056 > >> > >> And I started to migrate this to cocoon in my free time. But with no > >> major > >> success. :-( > >> > >> I think, your solution is more elegant than what I tried to do. My idea > >> was to generate client-side java script for every widget and send it to > >> the browser, then the browser will react to the onfocus event of the > >> widget and fill the list on demand. That way we don't need to fill all > >> the > >> lists at once and the page will load faster. I expected cocoon caching > >> will help here. > >> > >> Also, given the fact that this solution was not needed on every combo, I > >> thought to include an @ajax attribute in the "fi" namespace on the > >> template as flag. Something similiar like I saw in the struts sample > >> pointed above. Not at the form level as the committed solution. > >> > >> I have 2 questions: > >> > >> 1- Will this ajax implementation improve the combo loads in cforms? > >> 2- Are you planning to merge it in 2.1.x? If not I will see the urge to > >> move to 2.2 soon! :-D > >> > >> Thanks for this great improvement! > >> > >> Best Regards, > >> > >> Antonio Gallardo. > >> > >> On Jue, 14 de Abril de 2005, 8:19, Sylvain Wallez dijo: > >> > Hi all, > >> > > >> > I've been thinking for a few weeks to add AJAX support to CForms. Ajax > >> > is the current buzzword in the blogosphere since Google maps [1] > >> started > >> > and the folks at Adaptivepath found this name for the XmlHttpRequest + > >> > JS + XML combo [2]. > >> > > >> > At first this looked like a complex problem, requiring a special > >> > controller and special pipelines on the server to answer ajax > >> requests, > >> > and "ajax-aware" implementations of widget styling (i.e. having a JS > >> > client-side part to handle page update). Lots of code for the > >> > infrastructure, and lots of browser-dependent code each time we want > >> to > >> > add a new styling. > >> > > >> > Then a few days ago I realized that we don't need that complexity. > >> Form > >> > widgets have all the information needed to inform the surrounding > >> > environment if they need to be updated, and we can use this > >> information > >> > to do partial updates of the browser page. > >> > > >> > Two days hacking, most of which dedicated to writing client-side JS > >> and > >> > solving cross-browser compatibility problems and here we are: adding > >> > ajax="true" on <ft:form-template> turns on the magic. > >> > > >> > This is still experimental though: it's only implemented with the > >> > JXTemplate version of the CForms template language and requires a few > >> > changes on repeater templates. > >> > > >> > -- oOo -- > >> > > >> > How does this work? The idea is, when answering and Ajax request, to > >> > send back an XML document containing browser updates directives, that > >> > will contain document fragments that will replace their existing > >> > counterpart in the page, based on the element id. > >> > > >> > These directives are represented by "bu:replace" elements (bu = > >> browser > >> > update) holding the id of the page element that needs to be replaced. > >> > This is a very generic mechanism that at this point isn't specifically > >> > related to CForms. This could for example probably be used by the > >> portal > >> > to update coplet contents. > >> > > >> > Now CForms. When a widget is updated in some way (new value, selection > >> > list changed, repeater row added or moved, union case updated, etc), > >> it > >> > registers itself in a list of updated widgets in the Form object. > >> > > >> > The template works as usual unless there is a special "cocoon-ajax" > >> > parameter, indicating an ajax request from the browser. In that case, > >> > widgets that have changed are enclosed in a "bu:replace" element, > >> > holding the widget id. > >> > > >> > This mix of template structure, and widget instances surrounded by > >> > bu:replace elements goes to styling, which replaces widget instances > >> by > >> > their HTML styling, still in the bu:replace elements. > >> > > >> > A new "browser-update" transformer flattens the "bu:replace" elements, > >> > i.e it removes all surrounding markup produced by the template. We now > >> > have a list of partial page updates that are serialized as XML. > >> > > >> > On the brower, the update directives are "played" and the page is > >> > updated. And that's all. > >> > > >> > -- oOo -- > >> > > >> > Any widget, any styling can now be managed this way. The only -- but > >> > important -- constraint is that the html produced for a widget > >> instance > >> > need to have the same id attribute as the widget. > >> > > >> > This constraint is satisfied for all field stylings (I updated the > >> > stylesheets), but not always for containers (repeaters, structs, etc). > >> > > >> > About repeater, this requires a change in the template language, to > >> > separate the repeater itself from the iteration on its rows. So rather > >> > than: > >> > <table> > >> > <!-- header --> > >> > <ft:repeater-widget id="myrepeater"> > >> > <!-- row --> > >> > </ft:repeater-widget> > >> > </table> > >> > > >> > we now have to write: > >> > <ft:repeater id="myrepeater"> > >> > <table> > >> > <!-- header --> > >> > <ft:repeater-rows> > >> > <!-- row --> > >> > </ft:repeater-rows> > >> > </table> > >> > </ft:repeater> > >> > > >> > I have turned on ajax mode on the following samples: > >> > - http://localhost:8888/forms-samples/carselector > >> > - http://localhost:8888/forms-samples/do-dynaRepeater.flow > >> > - http://localhost:8888/forms-samples/do-datasourceChooser.flow > >> > - http://localhost:8888/forms-samples/do-taskTree.flow > >> > > >> > -- oOo -- > >> > > >> > Next steps are better handling of container widgets and finer-grained > >> > browser update for some often-used stylings such as dropdowns and > >> inputs. > >> > > >> > Now that Cocoon has Spring and Ajax support, we really should post an > >> > article on TSS ;-) > >> > > >> > Enjoy, > >> > Sylvain > >> > > >> > [1] http://maps.google.com/ > >> > [2] > >> http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php > >> > > >> > -- > >> > Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies > >> > http://apache.org/~sylvain http://anyware-tech.com > >> > Apache Software Foundation Member Research & Technology Director > >> > > >> > >> > > > >
