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Posted to dev@cocoon.apache.org by Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de> on 2003/10/15 14:42:44 UTC
Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Hello Cocooners,
wanted to introduce the OS-project I've worked on in the last 6 month.
It is based on Avalon- and XSLT-concepts so I thought it could be
another flavour to the cocoon-frontend discussions.
Wobzilla is a Mozilla Application with XForms-like and also
document-centric editing capabilities. It is written in JavaScript and
most processing is done without server-interaction.
Wobzilla doesn't use a XSLT-processor it just borrows the XSLT-concept and
-syntax. In fact the Wobzilla-language is just an Avalon-configuration written
in XSLT-syntax. This approach facilitates a very declarative and
side-effect-free way of designing user-interfaces.
Wobzillas components already cover a majority of the xslt 1.0
functionality (including sorting and variables). On the editing side
there are features like undo/redo, context-menus, tables and tree-like
structures.
Still in scratchpad are the following two components:
1. A component that integrates the mozile richtext-editor
(currently no undo/redo support and some focus problems)
2. An active image uploading component, as in linotype.
(currently the server-side mechanisms is missing)
I've also experimented with the inclusion of a midas like component
(e.g. linotype). There's only the one drawback that the components size
is fixed for midas.
I'm still in the process of translating the german documentation
into legibly english and have already translated large parts.
See
http://wobzilla.sf.net
for further information and a demo.
Wobzilla was originally intended to be a frontend for cocoon. But I
soon got facinated by the use of XPath, DHTML and avalon on the
client-side and focused on implementing this part of the editor.
So the cocoon integration is still an almost white paper. Although
parts already exist: There is for instance is a stylesheet for the
generation of editors from XSD-description (annotated or not) that
should be processed by cocoon.
If there is interest in the cocoon community, I would like
to further concentrate on integrating wobzilla into cocoon.
Any feedback or ideas on how to accomplish this are greatly
appreciated.
If there's no interest, that does'nt matter much. Wobzilla was part of
my diploma-thesis, so I had to do it anyway. (But considering the
work I invested into this project, I would probably try promoting it
to other projects. :-)
Regards
Christopher
RE: Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Robert Koberg <ro...@koberg.com>.
Works for me on my mac.
Mac OSX 10.2.8 with (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X
Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624).
-Rob
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefano Mazzocchi [mailto:stefano@apache.org]
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 2:58 AM
> To: dev@cocoon.apache.org
>
>
> On Thursday, Oct 16, 2003, at 09:12 Europe/Rome, Steven Noels wrote:
>
> > Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
> >
> >> There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
> >> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id!0204
> >> but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
> >> Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
> >
> > ACK - looking nice.
>
> ?? still doesn't work on my mac! what browser are you using?
>
> --
> Stefano.
Re: Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
On Thursday, Oct 16, 2003, at 09:12 Europe/Rome, Steven Noels wrote:
> Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
>
>> There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
>> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210204
>> but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
>> Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
>
> ACK - looking nice.
?? still doesn't work on my mac! what browser are you using?
--
Stefano.
Re: Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
> There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
>
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210204
>
> but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
> Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
ACK - looking nice.
> Think it should work now as i don't use the menubar-element
> any more, but I could not test it on mac.
There's a comment somewhere about enabling the Mozile HTML text editing.
Any chance this would be made into a separate demo? ;-)
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source Java & XML An Orixo Member
Read my weblog at http://blogs.cocoondev.org/stevenn/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
Re: Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
On Thursday, Oct 16, 2003, at 12:36 Europe/Rome, Jeremy Quinn wrote:
>
> On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 08:28 AM, Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
>
>> There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
>>
>> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210204
>>
>> but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
>> Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
>>
>> Think it should work now as i don't use the menubar-element
>> any more, but I could not test it on mac.
>
> Appears to be working fine now on my Mac.
> Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.5)
> Gecko/20030925
Ahhh, I'm an idiot. Sorry, was a browser cache issue.
Expect comments soon.
--
Stefano.
Re: Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Jeremy Quinn <je...@media.demon.co.uk>.
On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 08:28 AM, Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
> There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
>
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210204
>
> but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
> Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
>
> Think it should work now as i don't use the menubar-element
> any more, but I could not test it on mac.
Appears to be working fine now on my Mac.
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.5)
Gecko/20030925
regards Jeremy
Menus should work now on MAC
Posted by Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de>.
There is a mozilla bug with menubars on mac
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210204
but i've made a workaround in the online-demo of wobzilla.
Sure the menus behave a bit, lets say odd, but they work.
Think it should work now as i don't use the menubar-element
any more, but I could not test it on mac.
Christopher
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <gi...@apache.org>.
Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
> Hello Cocooners,
>
> wanted to introduce the OS-project I've worked on in the last 6 month.
> It is based on Avalon- and XSLT-concepts so I thought it could be
> another flavour to the cocoon-frontend discussions.
>
> Wobzilla is a Mozilla Application with XForms-like and also
> document-centric editing capabilities. It is written in JavaScript and
> most processing is done without server-interaction.
Holy cow... it sure looks great and I can think of so many application
for it. I still have to grasp the whole picture and understand how
technically it's implemented but, hey... it sure looks good from my
10.000 feet quick view. I'll be back shortly with more comments!
Ciao,
--
Gianugo Rabellino
Pro-netics s.r.l. - http://www.pro-netics.com
Orixo, the XML business alliance - http://www.orixo.com
(Now blogging at: http://blogs.cocoondev.org/gianugo/)
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
Christopher Kohlhaas dijo:
> Hello Cocooners,
>
> wanted to introduce the OS-project I've worked on in the last 6 month.
> It is based on Avalon- and XSLT-concepts so I thought it could be
> another flavour to the cocoon-frontend discussions.
>
> Wobzilla is a Mozilla Application with XForms-like and also
> document-centric editing capabilities. It is written in JavaScript and
> most processing is done without server-interaction.
Looks great. It is a very fine idea.
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo.
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de>.
I posted to cocoon-dev because wobzilla needs a backend to further
evolve. If there is interest in the cocoon community, I would like to
develop wobzilla in that direction, and I wanted to ask the cocoon
communtity if wobzilla should be
a) a cocoon-block
b) a part of lenya (should I post to lenya?)
c) a separate sub-project of cocoon
d) outside of apache as a separate sourceforge project
(wouldn't get much attention, because its incomplete without a backend)
On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 05:10:59PM -0400, Javier del Gesu wrote:
> Your online demo is jaw-dropper, but to get rich functionality, you
> will probably have to package your application as an XPI with
> permissions to do all the naughty things the browser won't permit.
Like drag and drop your data from excel. Yes, but I want to avoid this
step as long as possible, and first do all the things the browser
permits. But sooner or later there will be components that demand for
more permissions.
> The application I am developing is similiar to yours, except that it
> deploys Cocoon on the client side. Syncrhonization of documents with
> the server and generation of the documents for display in Mozilla is
> very simple with Cocoon/Java. This comes from much experience with
> XPCOM and JavaScript. Java is more robust, easier to test, easier to
> deploy. Components can move from client to server or vice versa as
> performance dictates. Same with XML and XSLT.
Is it OS? Do you already have any protypes? I'm especially interested
in the backend parts. How do you perform the mapping with a database?
> Do you know of any similiar projects out there? Who else is creating
> a Mozilla based "e-forms" application?
I know only three other aproches
http://bitfluxeditor.org/
http://mozile.mozdev.org/
and linotype from stefano.
Christopher
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Javier del Gesu <de...@thinknola.com>.
* Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de> [2003-10-15 12:20]:
> Wobzilla is a Mozilla Application with XForms-like and also
> document-centric editing capabilities. It is written in JavaScript and
> most processing is done without server-interaction.
> Wobzilla doesn't use a XSLT-processor it just borrows the XSLT-concept and
> -syntax. In fact the Wobzilla-language is just an Avalon-configuration written
> in XSLT-syntax. This approach facilitates a very declarative and
> side-effect-free way of designing user-interfaces.
> Wobzillas components already cover a majority of the xslt 1.0
> functionality (including sorting and variables). On the editing side
> there are features like undo/redo, context-menus, tables and tree-like
> structures.
> Still in scratchpad are the following two components:
> 1. A component that integrates the mozile richtext-editor
> (currently no undo/redo support and some focus problems)
> 2. An active image uploading component, as in linotype.
> (currently the server-side mechanisms is missing)
> I've also experimented with the inclusion of a midas like component
> (e.g. linotype). There's only the one drawback that the components size
> is fixed for midas.
> Wobzilla was originally intended to be a frontend for cocoon. But I
> soon got facinated by the use of XPath, DHTML and avalon on the
> client-side and focused on implementing this part of the editor.
Hello Christopher
I am adopting Cocoon to create a document management interface that
uses Mozilla and XUL as a client. I have worked with Mozilla for a
year now. Using Cocoon as a backend for your Wobzilla is a sound
choice. I've migrated to Cocoon and Java away from Perl.
You and I are among many who are jumping on Mozilla as an Open
Source implemnation of the "e-forms" concept fowarded by Adobe and
Microsoft. There are many applicaitons out there that are document
centric, that do not lend themselves to an HTML forms
implementation. These applications are specialized enough that
cross-browser is not as much of a concern, but cross-platform is
always a plus. Targeting Mozilla is wise, especially when Microsoft
has a master plan involving a product called X-Docs (similiar to
your creation.) Mozilla lets you play on Widows, Linux, and OS X.
Mozilla is difficult to find, but for the problems your application
will solve, running an installer is not too much to ask. XPI makes
distribution of the JVM and Wobzilla itself simple.
Your online demo is jaw-dropper, but to get rich functionality, you
will probably have to package your application as an XPI with
permissions to do all the naughty things the browser won't permit.
The application I am developing is similiar to yours, except that it
deploys Cocoon on the client side. Syncrhonization of documents with
the server and generation of the documents for display in Mozilla is
very simple with Cocoon/Java. This comes from much experience with
XPCOM and JavaScript. Java is more robust, easier to test, easier to
deploy. Components can move from client to server or vice versa as
performance dictates. Same with XML and XSLT.
Do you know of any similiar projects out there? Who else is creating
a Mozilla based "e-forms" application?
--
Javier del Gesu - delgesu@thinknola.com
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Litrik De Roy <co...@litrik.com>.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Kohlhaas" <ch...@einfachanders.de>
<snip/>
>
> Does anyone knows a link to a simple, short javascript menu library?
>
> Christopher
>
I've used http://www.brainjar.com/dhtml/menubar/
Litrik De Roy
www.litrik.com
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de>.
On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 08:12:32PM +0200, Steven Noels wrote:
> No luck here on Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US;
I'm sorry for the errors on the macintosh. Will investigate, as soon
as I get to a mac. Never thought, that so many cocooners are mac-users.
I've heard of some issues with XUL menus on the mac a time ago but
I had hoped they were fixed.
> rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030728 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1
> Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure
> code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getIntPref]"
> nsresult: "0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED)" location: "JS frame ::
> chrome://cookie/content/cookieTasksOverlay.xul :: CookieTasksStartup ::
> line 84" data: no]
I use the same version of fireball on debian/linux and it works fine.
I never got this error, nor does wobzilla use any Wobzilla internal
XPCOMs except the standard XUL and it surely doesn't use
cookies. Currently I'm replacing the menus with javascript ones. Hope
that will fix your problems. I'll report when I've finished the
javascript menus.
Does anyone knows a link to a simple, short javascript menu library?
Christopher
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Christopher Kohlhaas wrote:
> Try again, I had the write permisson for some files enabled by
> mistake. That lead to incorrect demo-data, possible due to concurrent
> save request. The test sava-data.php wasn't made for this.
No luck here on Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US;
rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030728 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1
Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure
code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getIntPref]"
nsresult: "0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED)" location: "JS frame ::
chrome://cookie/content/cookieTasksOverlay.xul :: CookieTasksStartup ::
line 84" data: no]
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source Java & XML An Orixo Member
Read my weblog at http://blogs.cocoondev.org/stevenn/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <gi...@apache.org>.
Robert Koberg wrote:
> Yes, working now. Cool stuff! I would definitely replace the XUL stuff with
> JS. Then you would not only have a cross platform, but a cross browser tool
> (unless there is some other mozilla specific stuff??).
While I do understand Stefano's concerns (it's hard to find Mozilla at
an Internet Café in Peru), I still think that XUL makes _a lot_ of
sense. An application like this one could be easily (?) made standalone
and could be killer for quite a few XML editing needs.
> I will check out the source soon (this weekend?) and maybe there are some
> things I can add (are you looking for contributors?). Have you considered
> using the apache license?
It's BSD already, which is OK. I don't think that outside Apache you can
yous "the" Apache License.
Ciao,
--
Gianugo Rabellino
Pro-netics s.r.l. - http://www.pro-netics.com
Orixo, the XML business alliance - http://www.orixo.com
(Now blogging at: http://blogs.cocoondev.org/gianugo/)
RE: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Robert Koberg <ro...@koberg.com>.
Yes, working now. Cool stuff! I would definitely replace the XUL stuff with
JS. Then you would not only have a cross platform, but a cross browser tool
(unless there is some other mozilla specific stuff??).
Almost everybody I run into with regard to our CMS have not even heard of
Mozilla (or for that matter, that they can upgrade the IE browser that came
installed on their computer...).
I will check out the source soon (this weekend?) and maybe there are some
things I can add (are you looking for contributors?). Have you considered
using the apache license?
Best,
-Rob
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Kohlhaas [mailto:christopher@einfachanders.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 9:10 AM
> To: dev@cocoon.apache.org
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 06:54:35AM -0700, Robert Koberg wrote:
> > Also doesn't work on my WinXP (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
> > Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus show up
> but
> > get errors when accessing anything.
>
> Try again, I had the write permisson for some files enabled by
> mistake. That lead to incorrect demo-data, possible due to concurrent
> save request. The test sava-data.php wasn't made for this.
>
> As I said, there is still a server-backend missing (hope to integrate
> in cocoon).
>
>
> > On my Mac OSX 10.2.8 with (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC
> Mac
> > OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus do not show.
>
> Sorry, I thought they fixed the menu issue for mac in the new Mozilla.
> Will try to investigate this issue further (unfortunatly I don't have
> a mac, but I know someone who has one).
>
> I will probably replace the remaining XUL-Parts (the menus) with
> javascript equivalents. Its somehow dissapointing that it is still
> hard two write a cross-plattform application for the same browser
> version.
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Christopher Kohlhaas <ch...@einfachanders.de>.
On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 06:54:35AM -0700, Robert Koberg wrote:
> Also doesn't work on my WinXP (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
> Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus show up but
> get errors when accessing anything.
Try again, I had the write permisson for some files enabled by
mistake. That lead to incorrect demo-data, possible due to concurrent
save request. The test sava-data.php wasn't made for this.
As I said, there is still a server-backend missing (hope to integrate
in cocoon).
> On my Mac OSX 10.2.8 with (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac
> OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus do not show.
Sorry, I thought they fixed the menu issue for mac in the new Mozilla.
Will try to investigate this issue further (unfortunatly I don't have
a mac, but I know someone who has one).
I will probably replace the remaining XUL-Parts (the menus) with
javascript equivalents. Its somehow dissapointing that it is still
hard two write a cross-plattform application for the same browser
version.
RE: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Robert Koberg <ro...@koberg.com>.
Also doesn't work on my WinXP (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus show up but
get errors when accessing anything.
On my Mac OSX 10.2.8 with (Mozilla 1.4 -- Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac
OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624). The top menus do not show.
Interesting ideas, though.
Best,
-Rob
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefano Mazzocchi [mailto:stefano@apache.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 6:46 AM
> To: dev@cocoon.apache.org
>
>
> On Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003, at 14:42 Europe/Rome, Christopher Kohlhaas
> wrote:
>
> > http://wobzilla.sf.net
>
> Chris,
>
> still doesn't work on my mac :-( [using moz1.4,moz1.5rc2 and firebird
> 0.6.1]
>
> --
> Stefano.
Re: Avalon+XSLT+Mozilla = The Wobzilla-editor
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
On Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003, at 14:42 Europe/Rome, Christopher Kohlhaas
wrote:
> http://wobzilla.sf.net
Chris,
still doesn't work on my mac :-( [using moz1.4,moz1.5rc2 and firebird
0.6.1]
--
Stefano.