Hi,

>  I'd like to implement the above using RIFE/CRUD (Is that the right way
>  to go?).  I'd like to persist the data to Derby.

Personally I wouldn't do this in RIFE/Crud if you want Ajax. Currently
RIFE/Crud is geared towards old-style administration screen for
database tables. Doing anything that changes too much from the default
workflow or presentation will be more customization trouble than it's
worth. You have to realize though that the implementations of each
RIFE/Crud element are really very short and that most of the work is
done by the core framework itself.

>     - Is it a good idea to start w/ RIFE/CRUD?

As said above, I don't think so.

>     - How should I handle the AJAX bit?

Until now, and I don't think that will change, we've always seen Ajax
and presentation matters as something that's not handled by the
framework. There are so many client-side technologies out there with
all their individual strengths, that we prefer to keep the focus on
the server-side and allowing anything to integrate with RIFE.

So, for the Ajax bit, you have several options:

* write most of your application regular HTML, with Ajax snippets
using Ext/JS, YUI, Prototype, JQuery, ...
* write your entire application as a RIA and use OpenLaszlo, Flex, ...

It sounds to me that you'd like to do option 1.

What you then have to decide is how to do to the data marshaling. RIFE
ships with integrated support for DWR if you want to call complicated
Java logic on the server-side easily on the client-side. I don't think
this is what you need. In your case, I would create a couple of simple
RESTful elements that return XML responses instead of HTML for the
Ajax form submission and the list. Then you can use what Ajax
libraries provide to tie it together. My personal preference here is
ExtJS (http://extjs.com/). I've done several projects with it and it
has always been very good to me. A close second would be YUI imho
(http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/).

>     - Is not worrying about numerous Posters at this stage a bad idea
>  or OK?

I think you should immediately design your application to have the
concept of a poster and be able to identify what belongs to him.
Initially you can always work with a default poster, and later you can
then add the authentication and user management part.

>  Furthermore, direction on how to get started, and any input on
>  anything else I may not yet have thought of would be much appreciated.

It's always difficult for me to say how to get started from a new user
perspective. Of course, I would start with the jumpstart and then
create the domain model as bean with meta data constraints. If you
want, you can use RIFE/Crud here to get an instant visual UI that
allows you to see how your data model behaves and if it's what you
want. Then, scrap the RIFE/Crud sub-site and focus on your first
job-poster page. Use the content query manager to get the beans from
the database through the easy data access methods it provides and
create a semantically correct, barebones HTML template to output the
results. Add a second element that is able to receive a form
submission as a bean, validate it and store it t the database. Decide
upon an XML format here that will be returned, instead of HTML. Then
create the form in ExtJS that is able to communicate with the
back-end.

For the rest, the steps would be quite similar, just adapted to the
tasks at hand. All in all, it looks like a nice and simple intro
application that will let you get acquainted with the basics. You'll
also be happy when you'll add authentication and identification later
on, since you'll see what RIFE's 'behavioral inheritance' is all about
(or 3D web application flow). It really allows you to worry about
things like this later on.

>  I'm happy, once I get this project up and running, to work on
>  documentation w/ someone on it and make it available through
>  refers.org if Geert is open to it.

I'm totally open to it and very excited. I think this might be an
excellent resource for other people too.

Thanks!

Geert


-- 
Geert Bevin
Terracotta - http://www.terracotta.org
Uwyn "Use what you need" - http://uwyn.com
RIFE Java application framework - http://rifers.org
Music and words - http://gbevin.com

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