Using XConf extensions

[Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>]

Alex Batlin wrote:
> Ross,

A couple of things about this mail list. First, please do not CC 
individual developers. We all get the mails via the dev list, CC'ing 
only serves to doubles the mail to one developers inbox and can easily 
result in replying to the wrong message, meaning the reply does not go 
to the list.

Secondly, please create a new thread for each new topic, this makes the 
mailing list much easier to follow, especially in the archives.

Now, to your mail..

> I was excited to see the addition of xconf capability into plugins. See
> http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs?rev=227190&view=rev.
> 
> I rebuild cocoon with authentication and session blocks, and added the jars
> to 'plugin/lib' and the xconf files from the
> 'cocoon-2.2.0-dev\build\webapp\WEB-INF\xconf' to 'plugin/conf'.

...

> So am bit confused, on two counts:
> 1. if xpatch is required, how do I generate this file?
> 2. why are we using xpatch, when the current cocoon.xconf uses includes,
> can't we do the same here?

This was a rather hasty commit of mine that I have not yet fixed, even 
though David spotted it as soon as I committed. Sorry that it has stung you.

My original solution for including config files for plugins was to use 
the XPatch utility. This sat on my hard drive for some time because I 
had a few minor issues to iron out before committing. Then somebody 
needed some functionlaity from my local "branch" that also contained the 
XConf code. I committed in a hurry, not noticing that I still used the 
XPatch method.

The good news is that I have also enabled the XConf includes 
functionality. But this has not yet been leveraged for plugins.

There are two short term workarounds for you:

1) Use the XPatch facility (see Cocoon docs on XPatch)
2) is to edit the main/webapp/cocoon.xconf and add the include you need, 
it will work ust fine.

If you opt for one be aware that we will be removing this in favour of 
using the includes at some point before the 0.8 release.

The long term solution to the problem is to create a plugin.xconf file 
that s built each time Forrest is run, much the same as we do with the 
sitemap mounts for plugins. We would welcome a patch for this, I can 
help point you in the right direction if you fancy tackling it.

Could you please create an issue for this and point to this thread in 
the archives so I do not forget again.

Ross