Hi Jason Thanks for your comments. That is a lot of information there. I will take a bit of time to understand its ramifications. I am very much interested in taking ACMS to completion with or without Cheyenne. In fact, I already have a journal management system that I plan to do using ACMS. Usually there will be the 20:80 rule at work (A lot can be achieved in 20% of the time but to achieve the balance one needs 80% of the time) One way to beat the 20:80 rule is to think of 200% things to implement, so I guess all this are steps in the right direction.
Regards Sabu Francis Jason Cunliffe wrote: > Hi Sabu > > thanks for your notes. I've been looking into Anabelle further.. the > more I read the more I like it ! > It reminds me _conceptually_of ZOPE and its RESTful design. Zope is/was > brilliant, but was just a hungry monster, even at birth. > Keeping up with all the options and developments, meant printing about a > suitcase load of docs each month. > Its first version ate the entire development crew alive. Zope3 is > another beast, claims to be tamed, but I am not so sure. > > Anyway, been too busy all day with other work - not yet had time to get > Anabelle running on Cheyenne. > Just have to figure the various configs tweaks for linking in htdocs, > paths - Where to put things ? > But I think it will run nicely... This weekend hope to have time. > Any specific tips you can offer now will be most welcome. > > My #1 *optimist* suggestion is that soon as you have time [after 2-Oct] > you download latest Cheyenne and test ACMS on it ! > Then report back to us all, and maybe in parallel with SoftInnov's > blessings and participation, a joint Cheyenne-Anabelle [Cheyanabelle ??] > easy-distro project could be set in motion > This could help speedup docs, examples, demos etc. Get some nice group > dev momentum going > > latest version is 13-July-2007 Cheyenne v0.9.16 > download link and news at http://softinnov.org/cheyenne/blog.cgi > > VANILLA concept was genius, and still is, but needs a next generation effort > Docs are almost non-existent or deeply oddly buried > > *Great features of Vanilla* > - Snip dyna apps and those cool .metadata rebol block files [just > waiting for Anabelle methinks] > - selectors and template potential > - nice easy access to file system > - .metadata > > *What sucks about Vanilla* > - hard to maintain; personal variants get out of sync fast > - spaghetti confusion of form content and presentation > - needs robust lucid templating and consistent CSS placement > - security and permissions > - backups, locking and management of simultaneous edits > - insufficient role distinctions > - System code is all mumbled and scrunched up with user code and content > - No good mechanism for resolving simultaneous edits > - No current means of collaborative editing. {I really want this} and > think it is quite doable via clever use of metadata and inlcuding XMPP > transport. > > We need something as versatile as Zope permissions. with the pragmatic > gymnastic ability of TextPattern, simplicity of vanilla syntax, and > cool strong concept of Anabelle :-) > Thanks to rebol, Vanilla metadata files are one of the coolest things > I've seen. So much one can/could do with them. > Most of the features I plan are based on extending the creative access > and uses of snip .metadata files > One problem is that giving them more power means they are more of a > security risk. However, reading your description of ACMS, I think > vanilla .metadata files should be handled the same way, placed out of > harms reach, only accessible through sysadmin back door controls, or > well defined internal protected hidden functions and params. > > One of the things I lie about metadata blocks in vanilla is that you can > use them to store system wide params, but also group or individual ones. > Keywords, permissions, source and control references, stats, and > template handling metadata. For example each snip can be assigned a > block of template names and conditions. > For example: if a snip .metadata has a 'default' template setting, then > unless some thing else in vanilla overrides, then the snip will display > with the named default template > If it has an 'auto' template, then it will try to use that. In the same > manner, 'next' or 'previous' could be used to define the next template > to be used. > This approach could really open up the MVC idea more lucidly and > creatively than I yest seen in wikilog display for presentation design > strategies. > Sequences and play lists, remote control of web sequences... lots of > good stuff to develop. > > What's been missing until now for Vanilla has been a strong extensible > architecture to support such enhancements. I think you may have got it > right. > What remains to be seen is if Vanilla has to be completely re-written, > how well Cheyenne performs and how well ACMS scales. > > If you like JQuery then also look into E4X > http://developer.mozilla.org/presentations/xtech2005/e4x/ > finally XML is not a nightmare :-) > > Jason > > Sabu Francis wrote: > >> Hi Jason >> Thank you for your detailed inputs. I'll try and offer some explanations >> >> In the .7z file, there is already a small Annabelle based application >> which can be used to develop a site that logs in users, saves forms >> containing any number of fields as an ACMS object and reads out files >> back into the browser. It demonstrates the power of ACMS inheritence >> mechanism in the following manner: On the root of the server, both the >> top and side menu of the website is displayed. But on the the sub-folder >> within the site (/test/ ) only the side menu is displayed, even though >> in both the cases the HTML file for viewing is more or less the same >> (except for additional forms in the case of the second file, which >> anyway does not have anything to do with the display of the menus). >> >> The second file (the index.html at /test/) has two forms. One can also >> be used to create user registrations and the second does login (it sets >> a cookie) I was creating the example as I was coding so it is probably >> a very trivial example. I guess I need to document the step by step >> construction of the site. I am going out of my country shortly and would >> be back only on Oct 2, so I guess it would be after that. >> >> I am a big fan of Vanilla. It has a neat extension system. But I don't >> think it has any OOPs mechanism. I was more of a user of Vanilla rather >> than a developer, so I have not looked into its internals in detail. >> However I too believe the concepts of Vanilla can be used along with ACMS. >> >> One of the main goals of ACMS is to cleanly apportion the development of >> a complex website between various members: the overall website architect >> (who would also probably work on the models used in the site), designers >> (the one who sets up views), and programmers who write the controller >> code. With JQuery it is possible to do very neat things, like visual >> effects, AJAX, etc. The development work in JQuery is extremely fast. >> The only downside is that for JQuery to work, Javascript has to be >> switched on ... which I believe is on in most cases. >> >> ACMS has a natural connection with XML. It would be quite easy to port >> XML into ACMS, and even out of ACMS. I do not know XMPP much but it >> should be possible to get any XML structure into ACMS and then some more. >> >> Thank you very much >> >> Regards >> Sabu Francis >> >> -- To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to lists at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject.
