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Posted to dev@forrest.apache.org by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org> on 2004/02/11 18:29:24 UTC
Sites built from sites
I have a use case that requires me to compile site.xml files from
multiple component sites. Basically, I have a site that contains study
materials for various courses. At present everything is all in one
site.xml file so whenever I build the site all courses are there. What I
want to do is build different configurations of the site:
Suppose I have four courses A, B, C and D. I may want to be able to
build one site with courses A & B and another with A & D and another
with A, C & D. Currently the only way to do this is to comment out
portions of the site.xml file for each build. I can safely do this
because none of the courses directly reference any of the other courses,
that is they all work as a complete site on their own.
So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this instance
each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml, site_B.xml etc.)
then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site files:
<site>
<import site="site_A.xml">
<import site="site_B.xml">
</site>
We could have a number of these files, one for each version of the site
you want to build. Then we just pass the name of the site we wish to
build to forrest (it would default to using site.xml). If we added the
ability to override forrest.properties and skinconf.xml inside of
site.xml we could create a different look and feel for each site as well.
The other solution I am considering is that this should happen at the
source format level and that I should be generating the site.xml and all
necessary config files in my translation from source to forrests
intermediate formats.
So the question is where do you think I should do this, in Forrest or in
the transition from source to site.xml.
Ross
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
On Feb 12, 2004, at 2:07 PM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> Clay Leeds wrote:
>> I want to update the FOP web site to fix the breadcrumb problem, and
>> to
>> add Whole Site PDF. I do not get errors using the most current version
>> from the following "snapshot" link (HEAD branch), but the result (on
>> my
>> system) is always "MyProj":
>> http://cvs.apache.org/snapshots/xml-fop/
>
> OK I tried building with the last nights CVS Head of Forrest and the
> most recent snapshot of FOP. First of all I got the problem with
> skinconf recently discussed on this list. So I patched your
> Skinconf.xml file (sent offlist)
>
> Then I had a problem with your sitemap.xmap. It doesn't parse
> correctly. I was going to patch this but there is a large number of
> customisations all over the place so didn't even try. I just thought
> I'd give it a go with the default Forrst sitemap (I renamed your
> old one to get it out of the way, also renamed the 0.5 version of the
> sitemap that was in there).
Wow! I was able to get it to work (without copying the default Forrest
sitemap files!). It still has weird breadcrumb trails (myGroup >
myProject which never actually grows when I click a link), but I should
be able to figure out how to fix that now.
> This worked OK.
>
> Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest run".
Again, I typed "forrest seed" and hit [enter] (actually, it was
"forrest -Dskip.contentcheck=yes seed" since I alread have a src/ dir),
then "forrest" and hit [enter]. I haven't tried "forrest run" and then
[enter]. How will that change things?
> What you need to do is verify that any needed customisations in your
> original xmap are copied across (I've not looked to see if any are
> actually needed).
That will take some time, as I don't understand the difference between
what it "should be" and what it "is". I'll probably start off with
doing a "diff" and seeing which lines are changed. Thanks for the tip,
though.
>> I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I don't
>> think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead.
>
> You have to have either site.xml or book.xml. sitemap.xmap is nothing
> to do with these files, it manages how the site is built.
I'm beginning to think the culprit may've been a problem in the source
I'd downloaded to test with, since a more recent build seems to've
worked better (although it may've been the skinconf.xml issue).
>> Anyway, I
>> have problems generating the FOP web site from this src (Maintenance
>> branch, which I'm using mainly for testing Forrest):
>> http://apache.get-software.com/xml/fop/fop-0.20.5-src.tar.gz
>
> I should have read your mail properly before starting. I didn't try
> the above with this branch.
>
>> At this point, I'd like to be able to build locally, the current FOP
>> web
>> site. Once there, I'd like to fix the problems indicated above.
>
> Try the above, if it doesn't work I'll have another look using the
> maintenance version of FOP.
>
> Ross
So, now that I've generated a site, I can play a bit more and see what
happens. The tips and/or tricks you've recommended are appreciated.
Web Maestro Clay
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
Ross Gardler said:
> Tomcat as nothing to do with the forrest run target. Jetty is the
> Servlet engine that is used. You don;t need Tomcat naywhere near your
> machine. Just give it a go.
>
> Ross
I already tried 'forrest run' (before I sent that msg). Didn't work. Until
I fix the problem introduced when installing Java 1.4.2, I doubt I'll get
it working. The fact that TomCat isn't involved is nice to know, though.
--
Clay Leeds - cleeds@medata.com
Web Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com
PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Clay Leeds wrote:
> On Feb 13, 2004, at 9:53 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
>
>> Clay Leeds wrote:
>>
>>> Ross Gardler said:
>>>
<snip/>
>>
>> Well this should build the breadcrumbs OK and since they work in a run
>> they should work in a site. Run just starts up a version of Jetty and
>> you can point your browser at http://localhost:8888 to see you site,
>> much faster than building the site from scratch. You can also edit the
>> src, refresh the browser and see the changes.
>
>
> Actually, I've got problems with my TomCat, since upgrading my Mac OS X
> box to Java 1.4.2. As a result, I probably won't be able to do the Jetty
> thing until that's resolved. In any case, I've also done some research
> on "forrest run" and found out how it works. Looks promising, but I
> think I'll just patiently use 'forrest" instead.
Tomcat as nothing to do with the forrest run target. Jetty is the
Servlet engine that is used. You don;t need Tomcat naywhere near your
machine. Just give it a go.
Ross
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
On Feb 13, 2004, at 9:53 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> Clay Leeds wrote:
>> Ross Gardler said:
>>> Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest
>>> run".
>> This might be one of the problems I was running into: I never did a
>> "forrest run". Since I don't know what 'Jetty' and 'jetty.run' are, I
>> never tried those... I did the following from the command line:
>> forrest -projecthelp
>> forrest seed
>> forrest site
>
> Well this should build the breadcrumbs OK and since they work in a run
> they should work in a site. Run just starts up a version of Jetty and
> you can point your browser at http://localhost:8888 to see you site,
> much faster than building the site from scratch. You can also edit the
> src, refresh the browser and see the changes.
Actually, I've got problems with my TomCat, since upgrading my Mac OS X
box to Java 1.4.2. As a result, I probably won't be able to do the
Jetty thing until that's resolved. In any case, I've also done some
research on "forrest run" and found out how it works. Looks promising,
but I think I'll just patiently use 'forrest" instead.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Web Maestro Clay
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Clay Leeds wrote:
> On Feb 13, 2004, at 9:53 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
>
>> Clay Leeds wrote:
>>
>>> Ross Gardler said:
>>>
>>>> Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest run".
>>>
<snip/>
> As for the breadcrumb, I was successful at changing 'mygroup >
> myProject" to "apache > xml.apache" but I still need to append " > FOP"
> to that. Here's the relevant portion of skinconf.xml:
The skinconf.xml bit you copied is not the relevant part. you need is:
<!-- Some skins use this to form a 'breadcrumb trail' of links. If
you don't
want these, set the attributes to blank. The DTD purposefully
requires them.
-->
<trail>
<link1 name="apache" href="http://www.apache.org/"/>
<link2 name="xml.apache" href="http://xml.apache.org/"/>
<link3 name="" href=""/>
</trail>
just change the name and href elements in link1, link2 and link3 as you
require.
<snip/>
>> I just took a look. The site is using the old book.xml method. This
>> will still work fine. But it will be worth moving to the new site.xml
>> method. It's easier to manage. But one step at a time. Stick with
>> book.xml for now.
>
>
> Is there an XSL stylesheet which'll help me move from book.xml to site.xml?
No, this would not be possible because of the way site.xml works.
However, it is really quite simple and documented reasonably well. But I
wouldn't touch this until you have everything working the way you want.
Ross
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
On Feb 13, 2004, at 9:53 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> Clay Leeds wrote:
>> Ross Gardler said:
>>> Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest
>>> run".
>> This might be one of the problems I was running into: I never did a
>> "forrest run". Since I don't know what 'Jetty' and 'jetty.run' are, I
>> never tried those... I did the following from the command line:
>> forrest -projecthelp
>> forrest seed
>> forrest site
>
> Well this should build the breadcrumbs OK and since they work in a run
> they should work in a site. Run just starts up a version of Jetty and
> you can point your browser at http://localhost:8888 to see you site,
> much faster than building the site from scratch. You can also edit the
> src, refresh the browser and see the changes.
Ahh... I'll try that and play with it a bit. So I can edit the src .xml
files, then refresh the browser and it'll update the .html file I'm
viewing? Cool!
As for the breadcrumb, I was successful at changing 'mygroup >
myProject" to "apache > xml.apache" but I still need to append " > FOP"
to that. Here's the relevant portion of skinconf.xml:
<searchsite-domain>xml.apache.org</searchsite-domain>
<searchsite-name>Apache XML</searchsite-name>
<!-- mandatory project logo
skin: forrest-site renders it at the top -->
<project-name>FOP</project-name>
<project-description>Apache FOP Project</project-description>
<project-url>http://xml.apache.org/fop/</project-url>
<project-logo>images/project.png</project-logo>
<!-- Alternative static image:
<project-logo>images/project-logo.gif</project-logo> -->
<!-- optional group logo
skin: forrest-site renders it at the top-left corner -->
<group-name>Apache XML</group-name>
<group-description>Apache XML Projects</group-description>
<group-url>http://xml.apache.org/</group-url>
<group-logo>images/group-logo.gif</group-logo>
<!-- Alternative static image:
<group-logo>images/group-logo.gif</group-logo> -->
(NOTE: that it does not include "apache" and "www.apache.org" anywhere
in there... Where does that come from?
>>> What you need to do is verify that any needed customisations in your
>>> original xmap are copied across (I've not looked to see if any are
>>> actually needed).
>> I'll check that out with the developers. Unfortunately the primary
>> developer who worked (I think) on this portion is no longer actively
>> contributing, although I may be able to contact him.
>
> You should be able to worki it out by reading the sitemap.xmap file.
> Fortuneatly the customisations are clearly marked. You can then check
> to see if there is now an equivalent in Forrest.
Sounds good.
>>>> I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I
>>>> don't
>>>> think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead.
>>>
>>> You have to have either site.xml or book.xml. sitemap.xmap is
>>> nothing to
>>> do with these files, it manages how the site is built.
>> As far as I can tell, this file does not exist in any of the
>> distributions
>> to which I have access (did you find it in your download src?):
>
> I just took a look. The site is using the old book.xml method. This
> will still work fine. But it will be worth moving to the new site.xml
> method. It's easier to manage. But one step at a time. Stick with
> book.xml for now.
Is there an XSL stylesheet which'll help me move from book.xml to
site.xml?
>> That's why I thought perhaps they were using sitemap.xmap instead.
>
> sitemap.xmap governs how each request is managed. see
> http://xml.apache.org/forrest/sitemap-ref.html
I read up on sitemap-ref, but since I was having problems getting the
site to build in the first place, I found it difficult to understand
how my changes would affect the site. Now that I can build something,
it should move easier.
Web Maestro Clay
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Clay Leeds wrote:
> Ross Gardler said:
>>Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest run".
>
>
> This might be one of the problems I was running into: I never did a
> "forrest run". Since I don't know what 'Jetty' and 'jetty.run' are, I
> never tried those... I did the following from the command line:
>
> forrest -projecthelp
> forrest seed
> forrest site
Well this should build the breadcrumbs OK and since they work in a run
they should work in a site. Run just starts up a version of Jetty and
you can point your browser at http://localhost:8888 to see you site,
much faster than building the site from scratch. You can also edit the
src, refresh the browser and see the changes.
>>What you need to do is verify that any needed customisations in your
>>original xmap are copied across (I've not looked to see if any are
>>actually needed).
>
>
> I'll check that out with the developers. Unfortunately the primary
> developer who worked (I think) on this portion is no longer actively
> contributing, although I may be able to contact him.
You should be able to worki it out by reading the sitemap.xmap file.
Fortuneatly the customisations are clearly marked. You can then check to
see if there is now an equivalent in Forrest.
>
>
>>>I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I don't
>>>think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead.
>>
>>You have to have either site.xml or book.xml. sitemap.xmap is nothing to
>>do with these files, it manages how the site is built.
>
>
> As far as I can tell, this file does not exist in any of the distributions
> to which I have access (did you find it in your download src?):
I just took a look. The site is using the old book.xml method. This will
still work fine. But it will be worth moving to the new site.xml method.
It's easier to manage. But one step at a time. Stick with book.xml for now.
> That's why I thought perhaps they were using sitemap.xmap instead.
sitemap.xmap governs how each request is managed. see
http://xml.apache.org/forrest/sitemap-ref.html
> Thanks for your help! I should've asked for help *months* ago!
Well once we have you up to speed with Forrest you can come back and
help us too ;-), in the meantime I'm sure the FOP folk will appreciate
you fixing their site,
Ross
Re: Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
Ross Gardler said:
> Clay Leeds wrote:
>> I want to update the FOP web site to fix the breadcrumb problem, and to
>> add Whole Site PDF. I do not get errors using the most current version
>> from the following "snapshot" link (HEAD branch), but the result (on my
>> system) is always "MyProj":
>>
>> http://cvs.apache.org/snapshots/xml-fop/
>
> OK I tried building with the last nights CVS Head of Forrest and the
> most recent snapshot of FOP. First of all I got the problem with
> skinconf recently discussed on this list. So I patched your Skinconf.xml
> file (sent offlist)
Got it. I'll try it out. Thanks!
> Then I had a problem with your sitemap.xmap. It doesn't parse correctly.
> I was going to patch this but there is a large number of customisations
> all over the place so didn't even try. I just thought I'd give it a go
> with the default Forrst sitemap (I renamed your
> old one to get it out of the way, also renamed the 0.5 version of the
> sitemap that was in there).
>
> This worked OK.
>
> Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest run".
This might be one of the problems I was running into: I never did a
"forrest run". Since I don't know what 'Jetty' and 'jetty.run' are, I
never tried those... I did the following from the command line:
forrest -projecthelp
forrest seed
forrest site
forrest
forrest validate
> What you need to do is verify that any needed customisations in your
> original xmap are copied across (I've not looked to see if any are
> actually needed).
I'll check that out with the developers. Unfortunately the primary
developer who worked (I think) on this portion is no longer actively
contributing, although I may be able to contact him.
>> I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I don't
>> think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead.
>
> You have to have either site.xml or book.xml. sitemap.xmap is nothing to
> do with these files, it manages how the site is built.
As far as I can tell, this file does not exist in any of the distributions
to which I have access (did you find it in your download src?):
/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml
That's why I thought perhaps they were using sitemap.xmap instead.
>> Anyway, I
>> have problems generating the FOP web site from this src (Maintenance
>> branch, which I'm using mainly for testing Forrest):
>>
>> http://apache.get-software.com/xml/fop/fop-0.20.5-src.tar.gz
>
> I should have read your mail properly before starting. I didn't try the
> above with this branch.
The above branch isn't really necessary. What I was trying to eplain was
that when I had problems doing the FORREST build thing, I tried the
MAINTENANCE branch tosee if it worked. It didn't do what I wanted either.
>> At this point, I'd like to be able to build locally, the current FOP web
>> site. Once there, I'd like to fix the problems indicated above.
>
> Try the above, if it doesn't work I'll have another look using the
> maintenance version of FOP.
>
> Ross
Don't bother with the maintenance version.
Thanks for your help! I should've asked for help *months* ago!
Web Maestro Clay
--
Clay Leeds - cleeds@medata.com
Web Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com
PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
Problems with FOP site (Was: Re: Sites built from sites)
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Clay Leeds wrote:
> I want to update the FOP web site to fix the breadcrumb problem, and to
> add Whole Site PDF. I do not get errors using the most current version
> from the following "snapshot" link (HEAD branch), but the result (on my
> system) is always "MyProj":
>
> http://cvs.apache.org/snapshots/xml-fop/
OK I tried building with the last nights CVS Head of Forrest and the
most recent snapshot of FOP. First of all I got the problem with
skinconf recently discussed on this list. So I patched your Skinconf.xml
file (sent offlist)
Then I had a problem with your sitemap.xmap. It doesn't parse correctly.
I was going to patch this but there is a large number of customisations
all over the place so didn't even try. I just thought I'd give it a go
with the default Forrst sitemap (I renamed your
old one to get it out of the way, also renamed the 0.5 version of the
sitemap that was in there).
This worked OK.
Your breadcrumbs are correct and the site look fine with "forrest run".
What you need to do is verify that any needed customisations in your
original xmap are copied across (I've not looked to see if any are
actually needed).
>
> I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I don't
> think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead.
You have to have either site.xml or book.xml. sitemap.xmap is nothing to
do with these files, it manages how the site is built.
> Anyway, I
> have problems generating the FOP web site from this src (Maintenance
> branch, which I'm using mainly for testing Forrest):
>
> http://apache.get-software.com/xml/fop/fop-0.20.5-src.tar.gz
I should have read your mail properly before starting. I didn't try the
above with this branch.
> At this point, I'd like to be able to build locally, the current FOP web
> site. Once there, I'd like to fix the problems indicated above.
Try the above, if it doesn't work I'll have another look using the
maintenance version of FOP.
Ross
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
Ross Gardler said:
> Clay Leeds wrote:
>> p.s. Keep in mind that my Forrest experience is minimal, involving
>> mostly frustrating experiences getting Forrest to build my test site
>> (FOP's web site). When I run Forrest on the xml-fop/ directory, I either
>> see a shiny new "MyProj" web site (instead of xml-fop), or I get an
>> error indicating site.xml is not valid. I've been spending free time
>> trying to fix the problems with the FOP web site (breadcrumb) and get a
>> whole site PDF. (I'm running Forrest 0.51 on Mac OS X 10.3.2 w/ JDK
>> 1.4.2).
>
> We're here to help, post your specific problems and I'm sure we can
> help. After all we use FOP extensively and it is a real bonus for my
> work. I promise to respond to your mails if I can help.
>
> Ross
Thanks for the offer of help. As with FOP, I'm sure there are always
people ready to respond. I guess I was just too embarassed to ask. :-)
I want to update the FOP web site to fix the breadcrumb problem, and to
add Whole Site PDF. I do not get errors using the most current version
from the following "snapshot" link (HEAD branch), but the result (on my
system) is always "MyProj":
http://cvs.apache.org/snapshots/xml-fop/
I get errors stating 'site.xml is not valid'. Heh... actually, I don't
think the file exists, as they're using sitemap.xmap instead. Anyway, I
have problems generating the FOP web site from this src (Maintenance
branch, which I'm using mainly for testing Forrest):
http://apache.get-software.com/xml/fop/fop-0.20.5-src.tar.gz
I've followed the instructions here, (result is shown above):
http://xml.apache.org/forrest/your-project.html
At this point, I'd like to be able to build locally, the current FOP web
site. Once there, I'd like to fix the problems indicated above.
Thanks in advance for your help!
--
Clay Leeds - cleeds@medata.com
Web Developer - Medata, Inc. - http://www.medata.com
PGP Public Key: https://mail.medata.com/pgp/cleeds.asc
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Johan Kok wrote:
> IMHO, the easiest would be to have a pre-processing 'template' that
> defines the menu hierarchy, and the related content, which would then
> generate a sitemap and tabs for these. That would also provide a load
> of other flexibility in web generation to forrest much like static
> versions of a CMS delivery, targeted at specific audiences. The same
> would apply to having seperate sites documents in process, vs released
> documents etc.
Yes, I think this is the case too. However, I was just wanting to see if
the sub-site thing is a common use case. I need to do it somewhere and
if it would be useful in the core Forrest distribution then I'm willing
to do it there. I'm aware of the fact that many people who use Forrest
don't have a source format they write directly in Forrests
"intermediate" format.
Of course composition of Learning Objects is a different matter and has
no place in Forrest itself. If anyone is interested in this will be
starting such a project very soon so mail me offlist I'll keep you
informed (Johan already has :-)
Ross
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Johan Kok <jk...@messianic.dyndns.org>.
Dave Brondsema wrote:
>That sounds really big. Do they all need to be integrated? I would suggest
>making each course it's own site and have one master site that consists mainly
>of external links to all the seperate course sites.
>
>
In my case it is not as simple as that..... Let's take project
management as an example. I have five different classes of audiences,
excluding the special requests covering basically the same content.
However, that 'same' is not exactly the same, in being disfferent mixes
of the same material at various levels. In my case (it seems to be the
same with Ross') the only real solution is to look at a type of
publishing framework (Sort of CMS) to decide which portions is included
in which course, and provide the right sequence for that.
This would also be a typical problem for any OD design where course
integration is done via outcomes based parameters/criteria. A selection
of learning objects are done to comply with the criterlia, ideally one
wants to be able to autmatically generate the course from these criteria
on a large set of learning objects, the same would apply to generating
the web-site from such.
IMHO, the easiest would be to have a pre-processing 'template' that
defines the menu hierarchy, and the related content, which would then
generate a sitemap and tabs for these. That would also provide a load
of other flexibility in web generation to forrest much like static
versions of a CMS delivery, targeted at specific audiences. The same
would apply to having seperate sites documents in process, vs released
documents etc.
Regards
Johan Kok
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Dave Brondsema wrote:
> Quoting Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>:
>
>
>>
>>Clay Leeds wrote:
>>
>>>On Feb 11, 2004, at 9:29 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this
>>>>instance each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml,
>>>>site_B.xml etc.) then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site
>>>>files:
>>>>
>>>><site>
>>>> <import site="site_A.xml">
>>>> <import site="site_B.xml">
>>>></site>
>>>
>>>
>>>I would think that Forrest's TAB system would suffice to accomplish this
>>>type of task (the building of sub-sites), and would create one tab for
>>>each sub-site.
>>
>>I already extended the tab system to have two layers of tabs, now I am
>>outgrowing that. But the main thing is that I need to provide different
>>courses for different institutions. I teach at three different places.
>>Not all of them have the same courses, so I really need different sites.
>>
>
>
> That sounds really big. Do they all need to be integrated? I would suggest
> making each course it's own site and have one master site that consists mainly
> of external links to all the seperate course sites.
Well, I'm not really telling the whole story. I run the sites
dynamically and my ultimate objective is to build different sites for
different students. So if a student is taking courses A, B and D they
only see those courses.
Of course I could do this by having separate sites as you suggest and
just generate the "index" site for each individual student. In fact, I
went that way about three months ago, but I recently reintegrated
everything into one site. The reason being that I do alot of xincludes
across courses and this proved to be really difficult as I had to
xinclude from the live site. This made testing impossible unless online,
since this is a third world country connectivity isn't as good as I'd
grown used to in the UK :-)
Perhaps I am tackling this in the wrong way?
Ross
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Dave Brondsema <da...@brondsema.net>.
Quoting Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>:
>
>
> Clay Leeds wrote:
> > On Feb 11, 2004, at 9:29 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> >
> >> So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this
> >> instance each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml,
> >> site_B.xml etc.) then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site
> >> files:
> >>
> >> <site>
> >> <import site="site_A.xml">
> >> <import site="site_B.xml">
> >> </site>
> >
> >
> > I would think that Forrest's TAB system would suffice to accomplish this
> > type of task (the building of sub-sites), and would create one tab for
> > each sub-site.
>
> I already extended the tab system to have two layers of tabs, now I am
> outgrowing that. But the main thing is that I need to provide different
> courses for different institutions. I teach at three different places.
> Not all of them have the same courses, so I really need different sites.
>
That sounds really big. Do they all need to be integrated? I would suggest
making each course it's own site and have one master site that consists mainly
of external links to all the seperate course sites.
--
Dave Brondsema
dave@brondsema.net
http://www.brondsema.net - personal
http://www.splike.com - programming
http://csx.calvin.edu - student org
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Clay Leeds wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2004, at 9:29 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
>
>> So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this
>> instance each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml,
>> site_B.xml etc.) then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site
>> files:
>>
>> <site>
>> <import site="site_A.xml">
>> <import site="site_B.xml">
>> </site>
>
>
> I would think that Forrest's TAB system would suffice to accomplish this
> type of task (the building of sub-sites), and would create one tab for
> each sub-site.
I already extended the tab system to have two layers of tabs, now I am
outgrowing that. But the main thing is that I need to provide different
courses for different institutions. I teach at three different places.
Not all of them have the same courses, so I really need different sites.
I do have a tab for each site, and the second layer gives the
subsections of that site. However, this doesn't enable me to build a
version of the version of the main site without one of the sub sites. To
do that I need to comment out the references to it in the site.xml 8and*
the tabs.xml file.
> p.s. Keep in mind that my Forrest experience is minimal, involving
> mostly frustrating experiences getting Forrest to build my test site
> (FOP's web site). When I run Forrest on the xml-fop/ directory, I either
> see a shiny new "MyProj" web site (instead of xml-fop), or I get an
> error indicating site.xml is not valid. I've been spending free time
> trying to fix the problems with the FOP web site (breadcrumb) and get a
> whole site PDF. (I'm running Forrest 0.51 on Mac OS X 10.3.2 w/ JDK 1.4.2).
We're here to help, post your specific problems and I'm sure we can
help. After all we use FOP extensively and it is a real bonus for my
work. I promise to respond to your mails if I can help.
Ross
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Clay Leeds <cl...@medata.com>.
On Feb 11, 2004, at 9:29 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this
> instance each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml,
> site_B.xml etc.) then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site
> files:
>
> <site>
> <import site="site_A.xml">
> <import site="site_B.xml">
> </site>
I would think that Forrest's TAB system would suffice to accomplish
this type of task (the building of sub-sites), and would create one tab
for each sub-site.
Web Maestro Clay
p.s. Keep in mind that my Forrest experience is minimal, involving
mostly frustrating experiences getting Forrest to build my test site
(FOP's web site). When I run Forrest on the xml-fop/ directory, I
either see a shiny new "MyProj" web site (instead of xml-fop), or I get
an error indicating site.xml is not valid. I've been spending free time
trying to fix the problems with the FOP web site (breadcrumb) and get a
whole site PDF. (I'm running Forrest 0.51 on Mac OS X 10.3.2 w/ JDK
1.4.2).
Re: Sites built from sites
Posted by Nicola Ken Barozzi <ni...@apache.org>.
Ross Gardler wrote:
> I have a use case that requires me to compile site.xml files from
> multiple component sites.
It in interesting that you have posted this mail the same day I started
having the same need :-)
Basically, what I have to do is a site for Incubator Depot. We have two
codebases in it, Version and Ruper, each with their own site. Let's see
what we can do...
...
> So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this instance
> each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml, site_B.xml etc.)
> then site.xml brings together then necessary sub-site files:
>
> <site>
> <import site="site_A.xml">
> <import site="site_B.xml">
> </site>
Wait a second, first we need to define what we intend by "subsites".
Let me explain:
1-subsite mounting
sites that are seen by Forrest as a single site, by including subsites
in their parent sites
example: a project has different software components that are in
different directories and want their docs to be in their
dirs, but that are to be seen as integrating part of the
main site
2-subsite interlinking
sites that remain separate but where pages can be linked between them
example: a project that has separate sites but that wants to have
simple links between pages
3-subsite navigation interlinking
sites where parts of the navigation are common and defined in the base
site, and where the base site has a smple reference to sub-sites
example: Jakarta has docs that are to be referenced by all child
projects, and needs to link to them
IMHO what we need to handle is especially case 3, as it's the most
common one, and later case 1. Case 2 is not so important as usually
sites that need it also employ case 1.
HOWTO 3-subsite navigation interlinking
---------------------------------------
This is the Jakarta example, or the Cocoon example, where a base site
serves for an umbrella to other sites.
In this case, a build of the base site shall not trigger a build of the
subsites, as they are indipendent. But all the subsites would need to
have a common navigation.
A proposal that would make this run very simply is to make a skin for
the projects, that all project will use, with the common navigation
parts inserted in the skin itself. In this way every site would
automatically get all the base settings of the skinconf (copyright,
colors, credits, etc), as I have inserted skinconf overriding in CVS :-)
HOWTO 1-subsite mounting
---------------------------------------
This seems a tad more difficult, as it implies that the build of a base
site would trigger the build of all other sites. Hmmm... maybe it's not
as difficult as it seems if i follow your suggestion.
...
> I may want to be able to build one site with courses A & B
...
> Currently the only way to do this is to comment out portions of the
> site.xml file for each build. I can safely do this because none of
> the courses directly reference any of the other courses, that is they
> all work as a complete site on their own.
>
> So, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have sub-sites. In this
> instance each course would have its own site.xml (site_A.xml,
> site_B.xml etc.) then site.xml brings together then necessary
> sub-site files:
>
> <site> <import site="site_A.xml"> <import site="site_B.xml"> </site>
I like this. Let's expand:
<site>
<import site="A/site_A.xml">
<import site="the/other/site/site_B.xml">
</site>
IIUC the site.xml imported by the first line should have all links
prepended with A/, and the other one by the/other/site/.
Or maybe we can simply do something like:
<site>
<A dir="A">
<import site="site_A.xml">
</A>
<the dir="the ">
<other dir="other ">
<site dir="site ">
<import site="site_B.xml">
</site>
</other>
</the>
</site>
Go ahead and see what can be done :-)
> We could have a number of these files, one for each version of the site
> you want to build. Then we just pass the name of the site we wish to
> build to forrest (it would default to using site.xml). If we added the
> ability to override forrest.properties and skinconf.xml inside of
> site.xml we could create a different look and feel for each site as well.
This is a good suggestion too... actually it's a very good usecase for
moving the forrest.skin property in skinconf.xml. Shall we do this move?
--
Nicola Ken Barozzi nicolaken@apache.org
- verba volant, scripta manent -
(discussions get forgotten, just code remains)
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