A greeting and a feedback from a Sling lover...

[Fabrizio Scarcello <fa...@gmail.com>]

Hi to all, and a great new (not so much now... :-) ) year to all Sling-ers
in the world! :-D
Note: after writing the mail i noted that it was too long, so i divided it
in two parts: the first is just an introduction (ok, a loong introduction...
but i had to write it!): jump it if you are not interested in my general
propositions for a Slinged 2010... :-D


-- 1 --

I'm developing a fully-modifiable site (a sort of customized cms..) and i'm
obviously enjoying a lot the beautiful features of Sling...
I'm a Java (M-S-EE) programmer, but when i started to discover Sling (two
months ago) i had absolutely no experience with Sling and its background
technologies (jcr, osgi, maven), so i think to be a good "target" to test
documentation-related aspects from a "totally beginner" point of view...
I really love Sling and i would like to give all contributes i can, so i
would like to share all my sling-related work, mainly:

- give feedback, collect and share common problems, from a beginner point of
view (that is, the point of view of a developer who wants to build it's
first web-site using Sling but is still in a pre-jcr state... :-)). I worked
around some little difficult, and i still have several questions to ask,
just because most of the documentation (obviously) assumes that the
developer already knows the thecnologies Sling uses: i would like to collect
them and write a tutorial targeted to developers like me, without experience
with the Sling technologies, just to help the widespreed Sling MUST have...
(this tutorial would concern commmon aspects a beginner must address, like
dbms configuration, services registration and so on...).

- clean and release sources of my little cms: it has the power to build a
whole localized, fully-modular site by simply defining two html files (view
and edit mode) for the site-structure and for every module one wants to use
in the site (ex: an image gallery, a text paragraph with an image, ecc.).
All the site is then completely buildable and editable from the web
interface (pages and menu items can be added and managed thanks to a sitemap
page, modules in each page can be managed with their own edit-mode file)...
The project can localize each content (not just the scripts) and uses ajax
to inject modules in pages; it also includes some javascript (pure native
js, no js framework required) and java (& esp..) utility code to access main
sling functions.
I know it's not immediate to describe it in a few lines, but i think it can
be a good starting point to understand Sling features (coupled with the
tutorial, i hope it can help Sling beginners to rapidly understand and use
the main Sling concepts...); and obviously it's also a start-point to build
a full Sling site with a very small learning curve, just to enter the Sling
world (knowing html and the few helper ECMA functions is enough to build a
complete custom site)...

The project is now functional and ready to use, but i would like to clean it
(the code is now a bit confused...) and to complete it with several useful
Sling features i just skipped at the moment (because i'm still a Sling
beginner too, and i had some difficulty to use them)....


-- 2 --

In reference to the FAQ "How do I render a script for a star "*" resource?":
 i modified just a bit the path-based-rtp, to provide the resource type ONLY
in the case of star resources: from my point of view, it's a natural
behaviour to infer the type of a star resource from the request path, so
that the problem accessed by the FAQ simply disappears... i used this
modified version in my project and all works fine (without interferences
with resources that already have their resource-type)...
So this is only a feedback: i think this approach can be generally useful
(maybe in the most general form to provide a resource path ALWAYS, if the
addressed resource hasn't its own...), as the default Sling behaviour or as
a bundle ready to activate (in the Sling bundle repository)... is it right?
Or there is a conceptual error in my vision?

I would like to ask several questions to the mailing list in the next days
(i collected and tried to resolve them along my development, but they are
still in my TO-DO list... :-) )... my willing is to reorder and share the
informations i will receive, writing the tutorial i mentioned above (in the
loong introduction part)...
What is the best way to ask several questions to the list? Have i to collect
them and write a single mail, or it's better to write a separate mail per
question?

A big greeting to you all,
thanks for your patience,
Fabris

Re: A greeting and a feedback from a Sling lover...

[Fabrizio Scarcello <fa...@gmail.com>]

Hi again!


> > I worked
> > around some little difficult, and i still have several questions to ask,
>
> Feel free to ask.
>

Thanks.. ;-)


> > (this tutorial would concern commmon aspects a beginner must address,
> like
> > dbms configuration, services registration and so on...).
>
> Good idea.
>

I will do it, that's a promise! ;-)
I will collect the answers to my problems (i think they are common and
probably frequent barriers to beginners...) and try to organize them in a
friendly way... :-)

Are you saying, you want to contribute this to Sling ? You are, without
> question, very welcome to do so ;-)
>

Yes, i'm thinking to make a bundle of my project, that could be further
hosted in the Bundle Repository if you wish...
:-)
I'm only waiting to refine and clean it, so that it can be also read like a
sort of tutorial-example for the features it addresses ...

I do not understand this part... Are you talking of the path-based-rtp?
>

> Its goal is exactly to provide a resource type for resources, which do
> not have a sling:resourceType property and the primary node type is not
> appropriate to be used as a resource type.
>

Ok, i misunderstood... excuse me...


> So, if you don't mind, I would prefer a very small number of related
> questions per message. This might also help people later searching the
> archives.
>

Perfect, i'll do so... :-)
My mails will arrive soon... :-)

Greetings again,
Fabris.

Re: A greeting and a feedback from a Sling lover...

[Felix Meschberger <fm...@gmail.com>]

Hi Fabris,

On 11.01.2010 18:03, Fabrizio Scarcello wrote:
> Hi to all, and a great new (not so much now... :-) ) year to all Sling-ers
> in the world! :-D

Thanks ;-)

> Note: after writing the mail i noted that it was too long, so i divided it
> in two parts: the first is just an introduction (ok, a loong introduction...
> but i had to write it!): jump it if you are not interested in my general
> propositions for a Slinged 2010... :-D
> 
> 
> -- 1 --
> 
> I'm developing a fully-modifiable site (a sort of customized cms..) and i'm
> obviously enjoying a lot the beautiful features of Sling...
> I'm a Java (M-S-EE) programmer, but when i started to discover Sling (two
> months ago) i had absolutely no experience with Sling and its background
> technologies (jcr, osgi, maven), so i think to be a good "target" to test
> documentation-related aspects from a "totally beginner" point of view...
> I really love Sling and i would like to give all contributes i can, so i
> would like to share all my sling-related work, mainly:

You are very welcome !
> 
> - give feedback, collect and share common problems, from a beginner point of
> view (that is, the point of view of a developer who wants to build it's
> first web-site using Sling but is still in a pre-jcr state... :-)). I worked
> around some little difficult, and i still have several questions to ask,

Feel free to ask.

> just because most of the documentation (obviously) assumes that the
> developer already knows the thecnologies Sling uses: i would like to collect
> them and write a tutorial targeted to developers like me, without experience
> with the Sling technologies, just to help the widespreed Sling MUST have...
> (this tutorial would concern commmon aspects a beginner must address, like
> dbms configuration, services registration and so on...).

Good idea.

> 
> - clean and release sources of my little cms: it has the power to build a
> whole localized, fully-modular site by simply defining two html files (view
> and edit mode) for the site-structure and for every module one wants to use
> in the site (ex: an image gallery, a text paragraph with an image, ecc.).
> All the site is then completely buildable and editable from the web
> interface (pages and menu items can be added and managed thanks to a sitemap
> page, modules in each page can be managed with their own edit-mode file)...
> The project can localize each content (not just the scripts) and uses ajax
> to inject modules in pages; it also includes some javascript (pure native
> js, no js framework required) and java (& esp..) utility code to access main
> sling functions.
> I know it's not immediate to describe it in a few lines, but i think it can
> be a good starting point to understand Sling features (coupled with the
> tutorial, i hope it can help Sling beginners to rapidly understand and use
> the main Sling concepts...); and obviously it's also a start-point to build
> a full Sling site with a very small learning curve, just to enter the Sling
> world (knowing html and the few helper ECMA functions is enough to build a
> complete custom site)...

Are you saying, you want to contribute this to Sling ? You are, without
question, very welcome to do so ;-)

> 
> The project is now functional and ready to use, but i would like to clean it
> (the code is now a bit confused...) and to complete it with several useful
> Sling features i just skipped at the moment (because i'm still a Sling
> beginner too, and i had some difficulty to use them)....
> 
> 
> -- 2 --
> 
> In reference to the FAQ "How do I render a script for a star "*" resource?":
>  i modified just a bit the path-based-rtp, to provide the resource type ONLY
> in the case of star resources: from my point of view, it's a natural
> behaviour to infer the type of a star resource from the request path, so
> that the problem accessed by the FAQ simply disappears... i used this
> modified version in my project and all works fine (without interferences
> with resources that already have their resource-type)...

Ok. I am not readily familiar with the potential consequences. But I
invite you to provide the patch in a JIRA issue, such that we can
consider it for inclusion (or otherwise explain, why we might reject it).

> So this is only a feedback: i think this approach can be generally useful
> (maybe in the most general form to provide a resource path ALWAYS, if the
> addressed resource hasn't its own...), as the default Sling behaviour or as
> a bundle ready to activate (in the Sling bundle repository)... is it right?
> Or there is a conceptual error in my vision?

I do not understand this part... Are you talking of the path-based-rtp?

Its goal is exactly to provide a resource type for resources, which do
not have a sling:resourceType property and the primary node type is not
appropriate to be used as a resource type.

> 
> I would like to ask several questions to the mailing list in the next days
> (i collected and tried to resolve them along my development, but they are
> still in my TO-DO list... :-) )... my willing is to reorder and share the
> informations i will receive, writing the tutorial i mentioned above (in the
> loong introduction part)...

Excellent. I suggest you start out in the Wiki, which is public. Over
time, we may consider moving it to the main site.

> What is the best way to ask several questions to the list? Have i to collect
> them and write a single mail, or it's better to write a separate mail per
> question?

Generally, short mails are best. Also, IMHO single-subject mails are
better than longish mails with tons of more-or-less unrelated questions.

So, if you don't mind, I would prefer a very small number of related
questions per message. This might also help people later searching the
archives.

> 
> A big greeting to you all,
> thanks for your patience,
> Fabris
>