Re: Defining Views Terminology

[David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>]

During the various ApacheCon talks i noted some
terms and words that people were using when they
tried to describe views and its components.
Maybe these are helpful to find new names.

Stucture
Glue
Controller
Style
Presentation
Theme
Nugget
Aggregate

If we clearly define what each phase of the
processing does, then names will become apparent.
Surely there would be other names in the dictionary
once we know what we are looking for.

David

Re: Defining Views Terminology

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

Ross Gardler wrote:

> We should also remember our Forrest 1.0 Working Draft which addresses 
> this issue from an implementation independant perspective
> 
> http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/forrest/trunk/site-author/content/xdocs/TR/2004/WD-forrest10.html 
> 


Hmmm... I was just reviewing this document. It seems it is no longer 
implementation independant since it talks about forrest:views and 
templates etc. I should have picked up on this when the original changes 
were made, but I didn't,

We need to revisit this document (in the context of this thread) and 
remove all implementation specific details.

Ross

Re: Defining Views Terminology

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

Ferdinand Soethe wrote:
> Sorry, I'm late to respond, as usual ...

Better late then never :-)

> Ross Gardler wrote:
> 
>>>Stucture
> 
> Thanks for starting this definition drive. That is really helpful.

Thanks for taking the time to go over it, I was concerned it would get 
lost in the archives. Bringing it back to current like this is important.

>>This was used in two contexts: structure of the final output page (as in
>>forrest:view) and structure of the src page that an editor is concerned
>>with (i.e. Lenya).
> 
> 
> Perhaps here we should go into more detail:
> 
> - structure of content:
> 
>   The semantic (=meaning based) structure of the document as defined
>   by the grammar and implemented by the author using the grammar to
>   write her content as an xml-document that adheres to this grammar.

yes

> - structure of site:
> 
>   The structure of the complete site and the position of a document
>   within it. This is currently defined by the grammar and limitations of
>   site.xml and implemented by the author or editor assembling a site
>   from different data sources.

yes

>   In future plug-ins may allow for alternative grammars to replace
>   site.xml for example of a simpler directory-hierarchie like
>   type.

Not "in the future", but now. See the IMS Manifest plugin and the Daisy 
plugin for examples.

> - structure of hooks
> 
>   The structuring of the assembled page where all content is in place
>   and structured with div and span-elements to provide hooks for
>   theming.

Yes

>   Seems to me that this stage might not be required for all kind of
>   output media. Or do we image xml-fo transformations implementing a
>   similar kind of theming to css?

Personally, I think we will end up with a similar theming in other 
output formats. I would love to be able to change the layout of my PDF 
pages on a per page basis like I can with HTML. This would make the 
creation of, for example, newsletters using Forrest much more realistic.

> - structure of final output page
> 
>   The structuring done by type-setting the final result with css or
>   xsl:fo.

Yes, but it is not limited to CSS or XSL:FO, think of the text or 
voiceXML plugins.

Ross

Re: Defining Views Terminology

[Ferdinand Soethe <fe...@apache.org>]

Sorry, I'm late to respond, as usual ...

Ross Gardler wrote:

>> Stucture

Thanks for starting this definition drive. That is really helpful.

> This was used in two contexts: structure of the final output page (as in
> forrest:view) and structure of the src page that an editor is concerned
> with (i.e. Lenya).

Perhaps here we should go into more detail:

- structure of content:

  The semantic (=meaning based) structure of the document as defined
  by the grammar and implemented by the author using the grammar to
  write her content as an xml-document that adheres to this grammar.

- structure of site:

  The structure of the complete site and the position of a document
  within it. This is currently defined by the grammar and limitations of
  site.xml and implemented by the author or editor assembling a site
  from different data sources.

  In future plug-ins may allow for alternative grammars to replace
  site.xml for example of a simpler directory-hierarchie like
  type.


- structure of hooks

  The structuring of the assembled page where all content is in place
  and structured with div and span-elements to provide hooks for
  theming.

  Seems to me that this stage might not be required for all kind of
  output media. Or do we image xml-fo transformations implementing a
  similar kind of theming to css?


- structure of final output page

  The structuring done by type-setting the final result with css or
  xsl:fo.



--
Ferdinand Soethe

Re: Defining Views Terminology

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

David Crossley wrote:
> During the various ApacheCon talks i noted some
> terms and words that people were using when they
> tried to describe views and its components.
> Maybe these are helpful to find new names.

Thanks David. Here is what I remember their definition to be. As before 
this is meant to facilitate discussion, I am sure other people have 
different recollections.

> Stucture

This was used in two contexts: structure of the final output page (as in 
forrest:view) and structure of the src page that an editor is concerned 
with (i.e. Lenya).

> Glue

I have no recollection of this.

> Controller

This was one of Thorstens favourite terms from the pattern he is 
following. To me the controller is the sitemap (but I may be over 
simplifying).

> Style
> Presentation
> Theme

I think all these terms became encapsulated in theme as I defined it in 
the start of this thread.

Style is usually used in the context of an HTML output. Presentation is 
more generic, referring to the look and feel of an output format.

Theme is the Forrest:Views term for both of these together.

> Nugget

Is a bit of dynamic content inclued in a forest:view by a 
forrest:contract. By dynamic we mean that it may change between 
invocations of Forrest (or between requests if Forrest is running 
dynamicaly).

> Aggregate

Forrrest:views aggregate various nuggets (which include the src 
document) in a single output document.

> If we clearly define what each phase of the
> processing does, then names will become apparent.

+1

See my summary thread from ApacheCon there are some ASCII diagrams in 
which I tried to define this processing, perhaps we should move those 
into this thread so we can agree on the processing stages alongside the 
terminology.

We should also remember our Forrest 1.0 Working Draft which addresses 
this issue from an implementation independant perspective

http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/forrest/trunk/site-author/content/xdocs/TR/2004/WD-forrest10.html

Ross