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Posted to users@tapestry.apache.org by Erick Erickson <er...@gmail.com> on 2009/06/18 18:29:29 UTC

Where did all the components come from?

An utter Tapestry newbie here, although I was at some recent training Howard
gave.

My question is, "Given a page composed of components, is there an easy,
visual
way to analyze the structure in terms of custom components *from the browser
*?".
The problem I'm trying to address is the most efficient way to bring someone
new
(me, in this case <G>) up to speed on a project.

A person can use some of the browser tools to examine the HTML, but that
doesn't relate very well back to the raw files (components) they came from.

I hacked together a script that inserts an <img> tag in all my local copies
of
the .tml files, with a title attribute of the file path that .tml came from.
Now,
when I'm viewing prior art I can hover over the icons I've inserted and see
the
full file path that the  .tml came from.

This allows me to figure out that component X contains component Y which
in turn contains component Z in a *visual* way, which makes it *much* easier

to understand the relationships between components,  as well as know  what
the visual result of using a component is. Of course  there's no way I'd
consider
checking this in, it's strictly for local usage. This is more
proof-of-concept, but
even in this crude form I'm finding it very helpful.

Now when presented with another page to implement, I have a better chance of
saying "Look, page X does something similar, and uses components Y and Z.
I wonder if those components are a good place to start?".

Of course, this messes with the formatting of the page, things move around,
etc,
but that's not important for me now.

My question for the list is "Is anything similar already built into Tapestry
but
I just haven't found it yet?". Or are there any best practices others have
used?

Best
Erick

Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by Piero Sartini <li...@pierosartini.de>.
Am Donnerstag, 18. Juni 2009 22:24:39 schrieb César Lesc:
> By the way Smalltalk Seaside framework has a special mode called
> "Halos", when this mode is enabled all the components have an enclosed
> div with a toolbar, and you can inspect his state and  the html that
> this component is generating, would be great to have something like
> that in tapestry :)

Yeah... I really love this feature. Not only inspect the state and html - you 
are able to change the code on the fly! Seaside is so beautiful in so many 
ways, but most of that is because of the very dynamic nature of smalltalk.

From a productivity point of view this can hardly be beaten by any other web 
framework I have seen so far. It's plain fun to work with.

That said - we all have hard times to explain to people why we want to use 
tapestry instead of JSF or Struts... I don't want to test how people react to 
seaside and smalltalk :D

	Piero





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Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by César Lesc <ce...@gmail.com>.
By the way Smalltalk Seaside framework has a special mode called
"Halos", when this mode is enabled all the components have an enclosed
div with a toolbar, and you can inspect his state and  the html that
this component is generating, would be great to have something like
that in tapestry :)

here is the link http://www.seaside.st/about/examples/halos

César.

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Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by Howard Lewis Ship <hl...@gmail.com>.
I'm focusing on documentation for the moment, so code enhancements are going
to be deferred.

Tapestry 3 had "the Inspector" a way of digging down through the structure
of the page. I've floated the idea of a special development-mode-only query
parameter that would display the structure of the page rather then render it
normally. Another option was another query parameter to enable comments that
would trace what components were responsible (i.e., a comment at the start
and end of each component's render).

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Erick Erickson <er...@gmail.com>wrote:

> An utter Tapestry newbie here, although I was at some recent training
> Howard
> gave.
>
> My question is, "Given a page composed of components, is there an easy,
> visual
> way to analyze the structure in terms of custom components *from the
> browser
> *?".
> The problem I'm trying to address is the most efficient way to bring
> someone
> new
> (me, in this case <G>) up to speed on a project.
>
> A person can use some of the browser tools to examine the HTML, but that
> doesn't relate very well back to the raw files (components) they came from.
>
> I hacked together a script that inserts an <img> tag in all my local copies
> of
> the .tml files, with a title attribute of the file path that .tml came
> from.
> Now,
> when I'm viewing prior art I can hover over the icons I've inserted and see
> the
> full file path that the  .tml came from.
>
> This allows me to figure out that component X contains component Y which
> in turn contains component Z in a *visual* way, which makes it *much*
> easier
>
> to understand the relationships between components,  as well as know  what
> the visual result of using a component is. Of course  there's no way I'd
> consider
> checking this in, it's strictly for local usage. This is more
> proof-of-concept, but
> even in this crude form I'm finding it very helpful.
>
> Now when presented with another page to implement, I have a better chance
> of
> saying "Look, page X does something similar, and uses components Y and Z.
> I wonder if those components are a good place to start?".
>
> Of course, this messes with the formatting of the page, things move around,
> etc,
> but that's not important for me now.
>
> My question for the list is "Is anything similar already built into
> Tapestry
> but
> I just haven't found it yet?". Or are there any best practices others have
> used?
>
> Best
> Erick
>



-- 
Howard M. Lewis Ship

Creator of Apache Tapestry
Director of Open Source Technology at Formos

Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by Erick Erickson <er...@gmail.com>.
Thanks all, at least I didn't overlook something obvious. I'm not surprised
that
someone's thought of this kind of thing, and, under any circumstances there
*has* to be a more elegant way than the hack I used <G>....

I'm always reluctant to raise a JIRA on a project before I know I haven't
overlooked
something.. and in this case there already is one....

I'll keep an eye on 742. If I get really crazy I might even see if I can
make a patch.
In which case I'll no doubt bother folks on the dev list to get more
guidance.

Thanks again
Erick

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo <
thiagohp@gmail.com> wrote:

> Em Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:29:29 -0300, Erick Erickson <
> erickerickson@gmail.com> escreveu:
>
>  An utter Tapestry newbie here, although I was at some recent training
>> Howard gave.
>>
>
> Welcome to the Tapestry mailing list and community!
>
>  My question is, "Given a page composed of components, is there an easy,
>> visual way to analyze the structure in terms of custom components *from
>> the browser *?".
>> The problem I'm trying to address is the most efficient way to bring
>> someone new (me, in this case <G>) up to speed on a project.
>>
>
> Howard thought of something like that, but in the form of comments, but
> hasn't implemented it yet: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TAP5-742.
> Your proposition can also be a debugging tool. :) By the way, Tapestry's
> JIRA is the place to post bugs and requests for enhancements.
>
> Tapestry is veeeeery configurable, so I guess it is possible to do
> something like that with a ComponentClassTransformWorker or decorating some
> Tapestry service I don't have the time to find out which one now.
>
>  Now, when I'm viewing prior art I can hover over the icons I've inserted
>> and
>>
>
> This mention to prior art reminded me of software patent discussions in
> Slashdot . . . hehehe
>
> --
> Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo
> Independent Java consultant, developer, and instructor
> http://www.arsmachina.com.br/thiago
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tapestry.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tapestry.apache.org
>
>

Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by "Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo" <th...@gmail.com>.
Em Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:29:29 -0300, Erick Erickson  
<er...@gmail.com> escreveu:

> An utter Tapestry newbie here, although I was at some recent training  
> Howard gave.

Welcome to the Tapestry mailing list and community!

> My question is, "Given a page composed of components, is there an easy,
> visual way to analyze the structure in terms of custom components *from  
> the browser *?".
> The problem I'm trying to address is the most efficient way to bring  
> someone new (me, in this case <G>) up to speed on a project.

Howard thought of something like that, but in the form of comments, but  
hasn't implemented it yet: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TAP5-742.  
Your proposition can also be a debugging tool. :) By the way, Tapestry's  
JIRA is the place to post bugs and requests for enhancements.

Tapestry is veeeeery configurable, so I guess it is possible to do  
something like that with a ComponentClassTransformWorker or decorating  
some Tapestry service I don't have the time to find out which one now.

> Now, when I'm viewing prior art I can hover over the icons I've inserted  
> and

This mention to prior art reminded me of software patent discussions in  
Slashdot . . . hehehe

-- 
Thiago H. de Paula Figueiredo
Independent Java consultant, developer, and instructor
http://www.arsmachina.com.br/thiago

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Re: Where did all the components come from?

Posted by Sergey Didenko <se...@gmail.com>.
I made a temporary hackish solution for this, see
http://wiki.apache.org/tapestry/Tapestry5HowToVisualizeComponentHierarchy
. Hope this helps.

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Erick Erickson<er...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An utter Tapestry newbie here, although I was at some recent training Howard
> gave.
>
> My question is, "Given a page composed of components, is there an easy,
> visual
> way to analyze the structure in terms of custom components *from the browser
> *?".

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