Hi, This is my first post to the list, so I think I'll begin with a little introduction about myself.
My name is Maxime Petazzoni, I'm a french student interested by the SoC project about redesigning the mod_mbox interface (httpd-mbox-if). I'm willing to get involved in Apache's development, and I believe this project is a good start. Not that big, but with some challenge (along with the "time attack" involved by the SoC). > * Interface. This is a SoC project. We need some thoughts on if we > want to use some kind of Theme system (eg, ClearSilver or XSLT) or > stick with hard coded HTML. I think a massive addition of CSS is a > given, but the details are still up in the air. As I said, I'm interested in this project. I've started looking at the mod_mbox code, and chipig helped me setting this thing up and running on my box (we almost took down my system in the meanwhile, but anyway, it works). I've already made some changes to the mod_mbox_index.c file so it outputs a clean XML file, along with an appropriate stylesheet I got a nice (but very simple) result : http://skikda.bulix.org/archives/dev/ I'm not yet using any Apache integrated XSL Transformation, so you'll need a Gecko-based browser to be able to have an overview of this work in progress. From what I've seen from the mod_mbox source code, the HTML output it really hardcoded and that's why I've choose XML output : I prefer hardcoded XML than hardcoded HTML, although I'm not really satisfied by all this "hardcoded" stuff. But, is there another way ? We have to output something :) I'm not yet entirely familiar with the mod_mbox code, but I have to say that I find the parts I've seen a bit messy. It maybe because I'm not used to ASF coding style and it messes my overall understanding of the code. > * General Design. Currently, mod_mbox is tied to a single .mbox > file, or optionally, a directory of .mbox files. As we add > searching and improve the interface, we will want the ability to > search all mailing lists, a single list, or maybe all lists under a > domain. This means mod_mbox needs a knowledge of what other lists > exist. This is really about turning mod_mbox into a 'Mail Archive > Application' vs just something that runs off of mbox files. There > are advantages and disadvantages to both directions. For the ASF's > use cases, I believe making it more of a unified application is > good. This is an interesting point :) As you said, actually mod_mbox serves only one mailing list archives. If we want it to handle mutliple lists, we are not talking about design, but redesign. All the actual mod_mbox code would only be a small part of this new mod_mbox. The question that must be asked is : does a so complex application should be an Apache module ? Imho, actual mod_mbox as an module is great because it's very fast, but I don't believe C is the best language for the large application you are talking about. Maybe something could mix both together ? Well, these are my first thaughts about mod_mbox, I think I'll have more to say in next few days while ideas come up. Comments and ideas are welcome, of course ! Regards, - Sam -- / Maxime Petazzoni - <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - bulix.org | | Zwe (zwe.bulix.org) - Gobelins : http://gobelins.nekeme.net | | Gpg Id: 0x83E6AE0D - Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________/
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