Thanks for you response to my questions: 1) Re: other build systems: Actually maven 1 is fine for a build system. It was problematic though as for most of the jackrabbit incubation the maven build was "broken" requiring the downloading and installation of different Xerces libs to get it to actually build anything. I spent a few hours the first time puzzling over odd XML errors until I found a very early comment on which libs to replace. There is now a "Note for Java 5 users" but IMHO the darn build should just work. Sorry for the miscommunication, not a different build system, but one that works "out of the box".
2) Again my fault for not giving more information (I didn't know anyone was paying attention ><). As for DB persistence a step-by-step example of configuring mySql would be nice somewhere on the website. Having to poke through the contrib directory is a pain for new users and for old users (such as myself) I never got it to work because I could never find a working set of instructions. This may be my fault but having to piece together instructions is error prone. It would help immensely if were up-to-date instructions on the web site for setup of persistence. Also, just because you can't document all types of DB's shouldn't stop someone from at least documenting one (say mySql since it's popular). I use Oracle but I know Oracle so I probably can figure it out myself from the mySql instructions but I need a working example first. 3) Along the lines of DB persistence I feel that there are use cases for your project that are being addressed secondly. If I had my wish as a new user I would want the whole shooting match. By that I mean I would like a full set of instructions for: 1) install into Tomcat/Jboss/etc 2) configuration for mySql 3) configuration for the server contrib project 4) make of a simple RMI client to talk to the server 5) check-in of a file via cli client just to show it works This is the most complicated usage of your project; all the bells and whistles. To be honest though for a majority of people I feel that if they could get Jackrabbit onfigured properly and easily I doubt they would opt for the simplified implementation of the product that seems to be the prevalent concensus on the developer boards. Even people who would tinker with this project, I feel, will want a better persisence mechanism than a file store. The potenital to increase speed and reduce locking problems makes the DB persistence mechanism the only logical choice (I'm a db guy though). And finally almost everyone will need to access their assets remotely so WAR/EAR implementation as a client-server app is inevitable. Implementation of a stand-alone CMS that is backed by file-store seems reasonable, particularly from the spec point of view, but I doubt people that actually use this project to build larger more complex repositories would implement it that way. I know at my company at least we can't wait to kick the tires. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Mark Slater [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 5:35 PM To: jackrabbit-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Improving the first impressions Hi Mike, As the author of the example web app Jukka mentioned, I wanted to ask a few questions: - What build systems other than Maven 1 would you like to see? I felt one of the advantages of Maven 1 (when I wrote the example) is that users needed to have it installed anyway to build Jackrabbit, and it was dead easy to have it build a war. I think the release of Jackrabbit 0.9 removes that restriction. Give me a list of other build systems you'd like to see used and I'll try and incorporate them. - When you say it should be easy to change the WAR to a DB persistence mechanism, do you mean you'd like the sample to have several different Jackrabbit configurations? Do you feel the documentation for the configuration that is already in the website could be improved to make this easier? Part of the problem I saw in trying to put DB persistence into the example web app is that users would have to configure the settings for their local database anyway. - If there's anything else you can think of that would make the app easier to use or a better "first repository" example, let me know. Anyone else who has suggestions for improvements is also welcome to chime in. Feel free to email me directly, but it might be preferable to add comments to the JIRA page: http://issues.apache.org/jira/ browse/JCR-319 Mark On Mar 13, 2006, at 10:46 AM, Michael Wilson wrote: > This is a great idea. As a new user to Jackrabbit who is looking to > implement a digital asset management system having a drop in WAR would > go a long way towards improving my chance of successes with your > project. Additionally, that WAR should allow the relatively easy > switching to a DB persistence mechanism (and I wanna Pony also). > > Great job but a prebuilt WAR, better docs with up-to-date instructions > for installation, and/or a build system not based on maven 1, would > go a > good distance towards allowing me to try your software out. I've been > tinkering to get the darn thing installed as a WAR for the past two > weeks with little success. > > Mike > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jukka Zitting [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 10:29 AM > To: jackrabbit-dev@incubator.apache.org > Subject: Improving the first impressions > > Hi, > > With the graduation from the Incubator and the release of > Jackrabbit 1.0 > getting closer, we can expect to receive a fair amount of external > interest in near future. This is a great chance to attract new > users and > contributors, and I'd like us to make the most of this opportunity. > > The crucial time for attracting new users are the first few minutes > after a user arrives on the Jackrabbit web site or decides to try > using > Jackrabbit. I'll focus on these moments for the next few weeks and I'd > like to welcome all of you contribute in whatever way you like. Ideas, > comments, documentation, example applications, and bug reports or > fixes > are all welcome. What do you think are the main issues that negatively > affect the first impressions of a new user? Is there something that we > could do to make the first few minutes smoother? > > I'm currently rewieving the First Hops document for improvements (see > JCR-348 and JCR-351), but there are also a lot of other opportunities > for improvement starting from editing the Jackrabbit front page. > Please reply with your ideas or file improvement requests to Jira! > > One exciting opportunity is taking the example web application > contributed by Mark Slater and enhancing it to create a simple drop-in > war file that could serve as an easy-to-install and easy-to-play-with > introduction to Jackrabbit. This is by no means a trivial task, but a > team of a few contributors could well come up with great results. Any > volunteers? I'd be happy to help coordinate such a team. > > BR, > > Jukka Zitting > > -- > Yukatan - http://yukatan.fi/ - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Software craftsmanship, > JCR consulting, and Java development > >
