Proposal: New directory structure for Tomcat

[co...@costin.dnt.ro]

Hi,

According to the "release plan" we are in "freeze" mode,
and we should focus on building and testing tomcat.

It's up to Sam to decide if this can go into the 
current build ( changes only in makefiles and docs),
I think it would be good ( sooner we do it - fewer docs
we need to edit). 

Please send your feedback, vote or better solutions.

1. tomcat/bin : to include all shell or bat scripts
( what is now in tomcat/ directory ).
We already have 8 script files, and that will grow 
with the addition of deployment tools, etc. 
It is also similar with almost all packages I know,
including apache.

2. tomcat/etc : to include all configuration files
( but not SimpleStartup.java !). That includes 
server.xml 

3. tomcat/doc : README, FAQ and other documents 
related with tomcat installation ( only what's
important to start tomcat - the rest should
be served by tomcat from webpages directory ).

4. tomcat/lib/[os.name]/[os.arch]/mod_xxx.so :
The "final" binary distribution should collect
all module binaries ( so user will not have to
download multiple packages ). 

5. tomcat/webapps : will include the webpages
and examples directory, plus any other web application.
The user can specify web applications installed in
other directories as well, but by default we'll
install applications in this directory.

5.1. Inside tomcat/webapps use directory names
that encode the contextPath of that application.
( either java or URL encoding ).
In next release tomcat will automatically load
and configure a context per directory, using the
decoded path and default settings.

There is no reason to ask the user to edit 
a configuration file if he uses the default 
settings, and even if we'll use tools - it
doesn't hurt to have standard deployment as
simple as unziping a war file in a directory.

6. tomcat/src to include all tomcat sources
( it can go into an optional package ). 
The source is the best ( and most of the time 
only ) documentation, and it will help people
to find workarounds/resolve problems.


Costin