Fixing FOR-533 (was RE: review list of scheduled issues for 0.8 release)

["Gav...." <br...@brightontown.com.au>]

> ------------------------
> FOR-533     Auto Generate plugins.xml entry
> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FOR-533
> 
> Last time Ross said:
> > This should stay in 0.8, it's a fairly minor job, I've done most of the
> > preparatory work (I think).
> 

I have looked at this issue and the commits so far, can you explain what is
Left to do on this so I can have a go.

Gav...

Re: Fixing FOR-533 (was RE: review list of scheduled issues for 0.8 release)

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

Gav.... wrote:
>>------------------------
>>FOR-533     Auto Generate plugins.xml entry
>>http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FOR-533
>>
>>Last time Ross said:
>>
>>>This should stay in 0.8, it's a fairly minor job, I've done most of the
>>>preparatory work (I think).
>>
> 
> I have looked at this issue and the commits so far, can you explain what is
> Left to do on this so I can have a go.

First, a disclaimer... take a careful note of the "(I think)" at then 
end of my comment above and bear in mind that this issue was put forward 
for moving to 0.9. If there is more work in it than I estimate then 
consider moving it.

Second, another disclaimer... I'm really tired right now so what I type 
below may not be 100% accurate. Hopefully it will be enough to get you 
started.

I've done some work to define all the information that is needed in each 
plugins entry of plugins.xml within the build.xml file of that plugin. 
There may be a field or two missing, but they can be added very easily.

We then need to create an XSL that will generate the plugins.xml entry 
for that plugin.

Next we need to use that XSL to create the complete plugins.xml file by 
looking up all the build.xml files in the defined plugins directory.

There is no need to write the generated plugins.xml file to disk (other 
than to the SVN temp workspace when deploying), however, this will be 
the first easy hack to do. This would be a hack because we will be 
writing to the Forrest source tree with the build files - a definite 
nono, but it will allow testing.

Once this is working we will need to reuse the plugins.xml generating 
XSL in the core sitemp so that when we request plugins.xml, in order to 
generate the plugins index page, it will dynamically generate it from 
the available plugins.

(I have a feeling I am missing something important in this last paragraph)

Ross