I'm planning a new version of WebHelpers sometime this spring, and
need some input on what it should look like. As background, Ben
Bangert wrote WebHelpers for Pylons, based on various Ruby on Rails
helpers. It had a major revision in 2009-2010 (1.0) coinciding with
Pylons 0.9.7, and has had only minor changes since then. I took over
maintenance around that time. WebHelpers is widely used in Pylons
applications, is compatible with Pyramid except for a few
"Pylons-only" helpers, and provides one way to handle forms in Pyramid
(WebHelpers + FormEncode + pyramid_simpleform).
With the jump to 1.0, we revised the existing helpers and dropped some
of Rails' bad ideas and fast-changing Javascript libraries. This
introduced backward incompatibilities, so version 0.6.4 is still
available for old applications.
Since then I've discovered more cruft. WebHelpers was advertised as
framework-neutral but some helpers have subtle dependencies on Pylons.
I've now documented these, but it's still a sore point for me. So I'd
like to make a WebHelpers 2, containing only the widely-used helpers
compatible with Pyramid, and spinning off large helpers to separate
distributions. The new core would be ported to Python 3 (minimum 2.6
or 2.7). Here's my initial thoughts on the disposition of existing
helpers:
- webhelpers.constants :
Port to version 2.
- webhelpers.containers:
Port to version 2.
- webhelpers.date:
Port to version 2.
- webhelpers.feedgenerator:
Spin off to separate distribution. Looking for maintainer for
this. This is copied from django.feedgenerator and is probably behind
the original's version. I updated it once and it required several
patches to remove djangoisms like dependencies and (y, x) instead of
(x, y). Check PyPI to see if there's an existing standalone feed
generator, or consider whether to build a new one, possibly using one
of the XML libraries.
- webhelpers.html.builder:
Port to version 2. Consolidate discrepencies between ``literal()``
and ``markupsafe.Markup``.
- webhelpers.html.converters:
Delete markdown and textilize, which are thin wrappers around
external packages. Port the other helpers (format_paragraphs, nl2br)
to version 2, possibly moving them to another package.
- webhelpers.html.grid:
Spin off. Owned by Ergo, so he'd have to maintain it.
- webhelpers.html.tags:
Port to version 2.
- webhelpers.html.tools:
Do we really need ``auto_link``, ``button_to``, ``js_obfuscate``,
and ``mail_to``? I've never used them. ``strip_tags`` has been
superceded by ``format_paragraphs`` (in converters); the former
remains only for compatibility. The only helper I consider valuable is
``highlight``.
- webhelpers.media:
Port to version 2. (Or spin off; they depend on PIL.)
- webhelpers.mimehelper:
Delete. It depends on WebOb and has Pylons-specific features. Its
generic features don't seem to add much value over the stdlib
mimetypes.
- webhelpers.misc:
Port to version 2. Delete ``all``, ``any``, and ``no``, which are
superceded by Python 2.5.
- webhelpers.number:
Port to version 2.
- webhelpers.paginate:
Spin off. Owned by Christoph Haas, so he'd have first priority for
maintaining it. It has Pylons-specific cruft, and could use a
rethinking of the API.
- webhelpers.text:
Port to version 2. Maybe delete the accent-conversion helpers if
the Unidecode distribution is sufficient. Note that wrap_paragraphs
overlaps with converters.format_paragraphs; consider moving to a
common package.
- webhelpers.util:
Delete. This is a bunch of old miscellaneous stuff, mainly support
code for other helpers. Do something with ``update_params``.
- webhelpers.pylonslib:
Delete. These all depend on Pylons. ``flash`` is superceded by
Pyramid's session.flash.
``grid`` is Plons-specific wrappers for webhelpers.grid. ``minify``
depends on Pylons and has external generic equivalents.
``secure_form`` is superceded by something in Pyramid sesions.
Does anyone have comments on the proposed restructuring, or would like
to help with it, or take over any of the spin-off packages?
The project will include fixing the doc link, and moving the
repository to GitHub.
--
Mike Orr <[email protected]>
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