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Posted to modperl@perl.apache.org by Chris Winters <ch...@cwinters.com> on 2001/02/07 03:57:55 UTC
ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
I'm jazzed to announce the public release of OpenInteract, an
extensible web application framework using mod_perl and the Template
Toolkit as its core technologies. But the README already does all the
heavy lifting:
<<<<<<<<<<
WHAT IS IT?
=========================
OpenInteract is an extensible application server using Apache and
mod_perl built for developers but also to be manageable almost
entirely via the web browser. It includes:
- A robust system of components built on templates that can access
your data just about any way that you can think of.
- A very flexible separation of presentation and data access: you can
use one template for accessing data from different sources (e.g., a
listing of users from the system, from an LDAP server, from an NT/SMB
authentication controller, etc.) or you can use one set of data to
fill multiple templates.
- A consistent security mechanism makes it a snap to control security
for users and groups not only at the task level, but also at the
individual data object level.
- A simple user and group-management system that allows users to
create their own accounts and an administrator to assign them to one
or more groups.
- A convenient packaging system that makes it simple for developers
to distribute code, configuration and all other information necessary
for an application. It also makes the installation and upgrading
processes very straightforward.
- An integrated, database-independent method for distributing data
necessary for a package. You should be able to install any
package on any database that's been tested with OpenInteract. (Some
of this work must be done by the package authors, but OpenInteract
tries to make this as painless as possible.)
>>>>>>>>>>
OpenInteract is available via CPAN in a bundle form
('Bundle::OpenInteract') for EZ install. SourceForge currently hosts
CVS and mailing lists at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openinteract/
Other information about the project (including press releases) is
available at:
http://www.openinteract.org/
OpenInteract is available under the same Artistic/GPL license as
Perl. Hope you find it as much fun as I do!
Chris
--
Chris Winters (chris@cwinters.com)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.
Re: [Templates] Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by Chris Winters <ch...@cwinters.com>.
* L.M.Orchard (deus_x@pobox.com) [010207 00:07]:
> So, I'm trying to install OpenInteract now since from 50,000 ft it sounds a
> lot like what I was trying to do with Iaido. Using Template Toolkit for the
> presentation... abstracted data management... Need to look around more.
> I'd be more than glad to help you and maybe even have Iaido get eaten up by
> your project since I seem to have lost the momentum to sustain it by myself.
> There are a lot of neat things going in in Iaido, and still on my TODO list
> for it to get completely tossed, though. (Like, I really want to get that
> FTPd interface to the data store up and running again :) )
>
> Anyway, having major problems getting past the oi_manage install_sql step so
> far, maybe I'll post to the -dev list or the bugs on sourceforge.
It's probably early to talk about one project swallowing another :-)
I'm certainly not shy about looking for great ideas wherever they
are. And now that OpenInteract is out I hope to take a step back and
look at other environments for inspiration. (Building some services on
top of POE would be extremely cool, for starters.)
One of the things OpenInteract has going for it is that a company
(intes.net) uses it constantly and pays people to develop applications
for it. I'm finding how difficult it is to do more programming after
hours, even fun stuff like this.
This is getting rapidly OT. Moving this onto the -dev list is a good
idea.
Thanks,
Chris
--
Chris Winters (chris@cwinters.com)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.
Re: [Templates] Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by "L.M.Orchard" <de...@pobox.com>.
From: "Chris Winters" <ch...@cwinters.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 08:14 PM
> From Perrin:
> > And just out of curiosity, are you familiar with any of the similar
> > projects that others have worked on, like Iaido (formerly Iaijutsu) or
> > Jellybean?
>
> I've looked into both of them at one time or another -- OpenInteract
> has been under construction for about a year and SPOPS (and ancestors)
> more another half-year before that. I'm jealous of Jellybean's
> self-sufficiency, of the cool apps built on Iaido so far and of the
> clean model of both of them. I hope to swipe (with generous
> attribution) as much as possible.
Hey, it's me poking my head briefly out of hiding here... I'm the lout
responsible for Iaido and it's subsequent (temporary?) mothballing. Glad
you think I have some cool apps with it, few that they are. My problem is
that all my round tuits and copious amounts of free time dried up with a new
job and a promotion. That's about when I disappeared from around this
mailing list and stopped updating my projects on SourceForge. (Got a new
one on the way, though, new employers permitting)
So, I'm trying to install OpenInteract now since from 50,000 ft it sounds a
lot like what I was trying to do with Iaido. Using Template Toolkit for the
presentation... abstracted data management... Need to look around more.
I'd be more than glad to help you and maybe even have Iaido get eaten up by
your project since I seem to have lost the momentum to sustain it by myself.
There are a lot of neat things going in in Iaido, and still on my TODO list
for it to get completely tossed, though. (Like, I really want to get that
FTPd interface to the data store up and running again :) )
Anyway, having major problems getting past the oi_manage install_sql step so
far, maybe I'll post to the -dev list or the bugs on sourceforge.
--
Leslie Michael Orchard <de...@pobox.com>
ICQ Home: 492905 / ICQ Work: 11082089
Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by Chris Winters <ch...@cwinters.com>.
* Perrin Harkins (perrin@primenet.com) [010206 22:43]:
> Hi Chris,
>
> I've been reading the docs for the last couple of days and it looks very
> interesting. It's great to see a well-documented open source project.
> I have a couple of specific questions, which I guess are really about
> SPOPS more than OpenInteract.
Hi Perrin,
Thanks for the doc comments! More work always remains....
> First, how much control do I have over what gets loaded when in objects
> with dependencies? For example, if I have an object with relationships
> to other objects, some of which are expensive to fetch from the
> database, can I defer certain parts from loading until I actually use
> them?
Nothing gets loaded until you do a fetch() on an object or on one of
its dependent objects. For instance, in the standard user/group way of
doing things:
# Fetch the user object
my $user = My::User->fetch( $user_id );
# None of the associated group objects get fetched until you ask for
# them like this
my $group_list = $user->group;
That said, efficiency hasn't been at the top of the list yet. (Some
basic caching hooks are there but nothing attached yet.) I'm following
Andy Wardley's example with the Template Toolkit -- make it right
first and fast second :-)
> Second, how hard is it to override the default load/save stuff in a
> SPOPS object in order to do some fancy SQL? I've had situations before
> with O/R mappers where I want to use some more complex SQL for
> efficiency reasons (optimizer hints, etc.) or to load a set of objects
> at once (like a tree structure). Is that possible with SPOPS?
It's not too difficult. The SQL stuff for DBI SPOPS objects actually
goes through two layers -- one dealing with more abstract notions of
'save()' and 'remove()' and the other dealing with more concrete
INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statements.
The second one (SPOPS::SQLInterface) is quite flexible but at a lower
level which should enable you to do custom statements. You can do as
much or as little as you like -- passing a fully-formed SQL statement
with a list of values to bind does the right thing.
So if you wanted to modify how objects get saved but not removed, you
should just be able to override the 'save()' interface of SPOPS::DBI
and nothing else. But I haven't tried this yet :-)
> Finally, if I'm using a SQL database, what support is provided for
> evolving the data model? Do I have to change my schema and write
> conversion scripts every time I change an object attribute, or does
> SPOPS try to use some sort of "generic" schema?
It's actually much simpler than that. Since SPOPS doesn't save any
schema information in the database itself, all you have to do is add
the field to your database (with an 'ALTER TABLE' statement or
whatnot) and add the field name to the SPOPS configuration definition
in the 'field' key. Removals are the same. And datatype definitions
shouldn't require any changes at all, as long as the DBD supports
datatype discovery sufficient for SPOPS to bind variables smartly.
It's a more lightweight approach than Tangram or Alzabo but deals with
most of the issues I've run across in a few years of web (etc.)
programming.
> And just out of curiosity, are you familiar with any of the similar
> projects that others have worked on, like Iaido (formerly Iaijutsu) or
> Jellybean?
I've looked into both of them at one time or another -- OpenInteract
has been under construction for about a year and SPOPS (and ancestors)
more another half-year before that. I'm jealous of Jellybean's
self-sufficiency, of the cool apps built on Iaido so far and of the
clean model of both of them. I hope to swipe (with generous
attribution) as much as possible.
Chris
--
Chris Winters (chris@cwinters.com)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.
Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by Perrin Harkins <pe...@primenet.com>.
Chris Winters wrote:
>
> I'm jazzed to announce the public release of OpenInteract, an
> extensible web application framework using mod_perl and the Template
> Toolkit as its core technologies.
Hi Chris,
I've been reading the docs for the last couple of days and it looks very
interesting. It's great to see a well-documented open source project.
I have a couple of specific questions, which I guess are really about
SPOPS more than OpenInteract.
First, how much control do I have over what gets loaded when in objects
with dependencies? For example, if I have an object with relationships
to other objects, some of which are expensive to fetch from the
database, can I defer certain parts from loading until I actually use
them?
Second, how hard is it to override the default load/save stuff in a
SPOPS object in order to do some fancy SQL? I've had situations before
with O/R mappers where I want to use some more complex SQL for
efficiency reasons (optimizer hints, etc.) or to load a set of objects
at once (like a tree structure). Is that possible with SPOPS?
Finally, if I'm using a SQL database, what support is provided for
evolving the data model? Do I have to change my schema and write
conversion scripts every time I change an object attribute, or does
SPOPS try to use some sort of "generic" schema?
And just out of curiosity, are you familiar with any of the similar
projects that others have worked on, like Iaido (formerly Iaijutsu) or
Jellybean?
- Perrin
Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by Chris Winters <ch...@cwinters.com>.
* Stephane Bortzmeyer (bortzmeyer@pasteur.fr) [010208 08:28]:
> On Tuesday 6 February 2001, at 21 h 57, the keyboard of Chris Winters
> <ch...@cwinters.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm jazzed to announce the public release of OpenInteract, an
> > extensible web application framework using mod_perl and the Template
> > Toolkit as its core technologies.
>
> Anyone compared it to Zope <http://www.zope.org/>? I'm hesitating.
Hi Stephane,
Sorry I missed the conversation earlier. Rotten time for the power to
go out on my mail server...
Well, everyone who has worked on OpenInteract would certainly be
flattered by such a comparison. I think a lot of people have been
inspired (and even made a little jealous) by Zope and the attention
its drawn to Python. Competition is a healthy thing. :-)
To be honest, I don't know as much about Zope as I probably
should. However, after tooling around with it for a bit there were a
number of lessons I've drawn.
* Make it easy to develop custom modules. Like Zope, OpenInteract makes
it pretty simple to write a self-contained module that implements some
functionality, package it all up and send it to someone else to
install on their server.
* Make installation easy. Zope has an easier time of this because it's
more self-contained, but it's extremely important for people to
install the server without going through painful contortions. My
experience with many other software packages has been this -- if I can
get something running quickly, it's worth my while to look into it
further.
* Be consistent. In Zope, everything is (or is supposed to be) an
object. We try to do the same thing. This makes certain tasks (like
object/task security or relating entirely disparate things) possible
and even pretty easy. Once you've got the mindset it also opens up
interesting possibilities :-)
* Even awkward browser-based tools can work. Using TEXTAREA boxes to
create templates and pages is clunky but amazingly handy. And for most
people it's all they need. People who know what they're doing can
import templates to the database in their sleep, but don't design
everything around them.
I'm sure there are more similiarities and differences. (Along with
strengths and weaknesses, but we can do that on the openinteract-dev
mailing list. :-) I'd be interested in what people who know more about
Zope think are its strengths and weaknesses.
Chris
--
Chris Winters (chris@cwinters.com)
Building enterprise-capable snack solutions since 1988.
Re: Content management tools
Posted by Will Wiley <wi...@windriver.com>.
Look at a combination of Interwoven and ArborText.
Thanks
At 11:19 AM 2/8/01 -0800, Michael wrote:
>Could someone recommend a content management tool that is oriented
>toward the end user who is not necessarily very technically adept or
>html savvy. Don't really care about the developer tools,
>the developers can fend for themselves. The application is to provide
>the website owner with the ability to manage new content on their
>page but not have to know a lot technically.
>
>There appear to be many choices and evaluating each for this set of
>qualities is not going very well since the documentation is written
>with the administrator/developer in mind.
>
>Thank in advance for your comments.
>
>Michael
>Michael@bizsystems.com
>
---------------------------------------------------------
Will Wiley Sr. Web Technologist
Wind River Systems, Platform Engineering
Tel : +1(510)749-2476 Fax : +1(510)749-2010
mailto:will.wiley@windriver.com http://www.windriver.com
Re: ANNOUNCE: OpenInteract Web Application Server
Posted by Michael <mi...@bizsystems.com>.
> On Tuesday 6 February 2001, at 21 h 57, the keyboard of Chris
> Winters <ch...@cwinters.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm jazzed to announce the public release of OpenInteract, an
> > extensible web application framework using mod_perl and the Template
> > Toolkit as its core technologies.
>
> Anyone compared it to Zope <http://www.zope.org/>? I'm hesitating.
>
>
So does OpenInteract have a web site???
Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org
Re: Content management tools
Posted by Matt Sergeant <ma...@sergeant.org>.
On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Michael wrote:
> Could someone recommend a content management tool that is oriented
> toward the end user who is not necessarily very technically adept or
> html savvy. Don't really care about the developer tools,
> the developers can fend for themselves. The application is to provide
> the website owner with the ability to manage new content on their
> page but not have to know a lot technically.
>
> There appear to be many choices and evaluating each for this set of
> qualities is not going very well since the documentation is written
> with the administrator/developer in mind.
Thats a huge question, and the requirements of "I need a CMS" don't give
much to go on. As yet there is only one publicly available mod_perl "CMS",
though I don't think it fits your bill, and its the Mason one.
Depending on your budget the market for CMS' is pretty huge, so its hard
to recommend anything particular.
--
<Matt/>
/|| ** Director and CTO **
//|| ** AxKit.com Ltd ** ** XML Application Serving **
// || ** http://axkit.org ** ** XSLT, XPathScript, XSP **
// \\| // ** Personal Web Site: http://sergeant.org/ **
\\//
//\\
// \\
Content management tools
Posted by Michael <mi...@bizsystems.com>.
Could someone recommend a content management tool that is oriented
toward the end user who is not necessarily very technically adept or
html savvy. Don't really care about the developer tools,
the developers can fend for themselves. The application is to provide
the website owner with the ability to manage new content on their
page but not have to know a lot technically.
There appear to be many choices and evaluating each for this set of
qualities is not going very well since the documentation is written
with the administrator/developer in mind.
Thank in advance for your comments.
Michael
Michael@bizsystems.com