[WebConsoel] ConfigurationPrinter service

[Felix Meschberger <fm...@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

FELIX-2649 introduced the facility to register a service as a
ConfigurationPrinter for the web console without actually implementing
the interface but merely being registered with a number of required
registration properties and implementing one of the ConfigurationPrinter
or ModeAwareConfigurationPrinter methods.

The problem now is, that FELIX-2649 introduced a new property allowing
the definition of the configuration printer modes located in the
WebConsoleConstants class. So we now have two situations: A
ConfigurationPrinter service (implementing the interface) has to
register the supported modes in a different registration property than a
ConfigurationPrinter not implementing the ConfigurationPrinter interface.

I think this inconsistency is bad and error-prone.

IMHO we should drop the newly introduced property
(WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES) and only use the old property
ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES. Alternatively we might define the
WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES to the same value as the
ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES constant.

Or we really mark the old ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES constant
deprecated and primarily use the new
WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES in all cases and only falling
back to the old property if a ConfigurationPrinter implementation does
not have the new property (to support existing implementations).

WDYT ?

Regards
Felix

Re: [WebConsoel] ConfigurationPrinter service

[Carsten Ziegeler <cz...@apache.org>]

Felix Meschberger  wrote
> Hi all,
> 
> FELIX-2649 introduced the facility to register a service as a
> ConfigurationPrinter for the web console without actually implementing
> the interface but merely being registered with a number of required
> registration properties and implementing one of the ConfigurationPrinter
> or ModeAwareConfigurationPrinter methods.
> 
> The problem now is, that FELIX-2649 introduced a new property allowing
> the definition of the configuration printer modes located in the
> WebConsoleConstants class. So we now have two situations: A
> ConfigurationPrinter service (implementing the interface) has to
> register the supported modes in a different registration property than a
> ConfigurationPrinter not implementing the ConfigurationPrinter interface.
> 
> I think this inconsistency is bad and error-prone.
> 
> IMHO we should drop the newly introduced property
> (WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES) and only use the old property
> ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES. Alternatively we might define the
> WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES to the same value as the
> ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES constant.
> 
> Or we really mark the old ConfigurationPrinter.PROPERTY_MODES constant
> deprecated and primarily use the new
> WebConsoleConstants.CONFIG_PRINTER_MODES in all cases and only falling
> back to the old property if a ConfigurationPrinter implementation does
> not have the new property (to support existing implementations).
> 
Thanks for bringing this up Felix - it was actually on my todo list, but I
forgot about it.

The new property is used to detect configuration printers not
implementing the interfaces - the name is more unique than the old value
(which is just "modes"). I think the mistake is that we used this short
name for the property in the first place.
Therefore I think we should deprecate the old value and use the new one
(falling back to the old prop if new is missing).

Carsten
-- 
Carsten Ziegeler
cziegeler@apache.org