I'm evaluating WebWare for possible uses at my company. However, I'm distressed by how heavyweight and html-specific WebKit.Page is. I think it is bothersome, a little confusing, and not very graceful when it comes to wanting to write a webapp that extends the toolkit.
My primary gripe is that Page seems to be the only reasonable extension point for writing things, and many things I need to write may not actually produce HTML. If I want to do MVC-like actions where decisions are made and then forward()'ed away to a PSP, writeHTML() is pure overhead. If I want to generate a PNG, CSV or other type of content, it's confusing to override writeHTML() in my derived class. I suggest a new class, maybe named HTTPAction, be put between HTTPServlet and Page. It should contain all the much of what is called early in a Page (like respondToGet, respondToPost, and _respond) as well as general utility methods (like forward()) but leave defaultAction(): *blank* (or possibly just throwing an exception). Page should then override defaultAction() to call writeHTML(), which it provides along with all the HTML-specific helper-methods. With this, people who want to write a differently templated page (maybe something simpler like writeHeader(), writeBody(), writeFooter()) can derive from this class. Also, people who want to write elements that produce something other than a page of HTML have a more natural extension point that includes the handy _action_ functionality and utility routines I've mentioned. This can be done easily and without breaking current applications simply by pushing some methods into a new class. If this sounds reasonable, I'll write a patch. Please respond and comment. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Some people have a way with words, while others... erm... thingy. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: IT Product Guide on ITManagersJournal Use IT products in your business? Tell us what you think of them. Give us Your Opinions, Get Free ThinkGeek Gift Certificates! Click to find out more http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/guidepromo.tmpl _______________________________________________ Webware-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webware-devel
