Hello,

First, agreed with Thomas, we should make this generic and allow to 
define macros with all script languages we support.

I started to give it a shot, I think this would really accelerate the 
number of syntax 2.0 macro we can distribute (both written by us or 
contributions).
Below my findings / questions :

1. Initialization (creating the MacroClass if not present already)
This is going to be very hard to do oustide xwiki-core. One thing is 
that their is no store available as long as the main XWiki object is not 
initialized, and some work is needed to make this happen without having 
to wait for the first HTTP request (and even if we do that, we have the 
problem with virtual wikis, for which we need to update the macro class 
too). An alternative would be to create a component interface for code 
that needs initialization once a wiki is initialized (wiki store, 
notification/observation manager, etc available) and lookup and call 
initialization method for all implementations once a wiki is ready. Even 
with this, we need bridges for adding class/class properties. I'm not 
sure we want that really, I think having the component implementation in 
the core too is a better option.

2. Querying documents that have a MacroClass object
We don't have a bridge for that. My take is that we should have an 
interface like WikiMacroStore which default implementation would be in 
xwiki-core, and once we have the new model & storage we reimplement it 
in another place. The MacroManager would have this store as injected 
dependency. Maybe this implentation in core could be responsible to 
initialize the MacroClass too.

3. Observation
This is possible to have as a component implementation outside core, but 
would mean having to add a version property to the DocumentModelBridge, 
and overload methods from the DocumentAccessBridge adding a version 
parameter, since we need to compare things (was there a MacroClass 
object deleted ? etc.). I'm not very conviced by this, since its more 
bridge code that will need to be changed later. Alternatives I see are 
either a component implementation in core (maybe that WikiStore too) 
that would subscribe to notifications, compare things upon notify, and 
generate custom events that the MacroManager listens to (like 
WikiMacroDeleted, WikiMacroChanged, etc.) It would mean the macro 
manager component defines its own set of events. Third possibility is 
that the macro store (or whatever thing we create to listens to analyze 
macro related notifications in core) call itself the macro manager to 
register/unregister macors. But I don't think it's right this way.

So at the end, I see the MacroManager as a component thats knows how to 
register/unregister a "WikiScriptMacro" (in 
xwiki-rendering-macro-script, that extends the AbstractScriptMacro) 
implementation to/from the component manager. Upon initialization, it 
asks a WikiMacroStore to return all active macros in the wiki and 
register them. Then it listens to events from the observation manager to 
load/unload when a new macro is created, a macro is deleted or loses its 
programming right, etc.

As for where should it go, I think the rendering module is the best 
option, tell me if I'm wrong. (At least not xwiki-velocity if it 
supports several languages).

I did not started to look at parameters handling yet.

In advance, thanks for your feedback

Jerome.

PS: I created a JIRA issue for it: 
http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-3213

Thomas Mortagne wrote:
> +1 for the general principal of using rendering api from script in
> place of velocity macros.
>
> I would prefer a MacroClass which can support any script language.
> Thanks to jsr223, the only difference with what you described is that
> the macro content would be executed with a different engine depending
> on a "language" field of the MacroClass (and the name of the class
> would be different ;)). This field would be to "velocity" by default I
> guess.
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> We need to allow users to write macros using Velocity and still use
>> the same mechanism as the new rendering. Basically this means
>> transforming velocity macros into Rendering Macros. Once this is done
>> then the velocity macro will be able to be used as standard Rendering
>> Macros, they'll appear in the new WYSIWYG, etc.
>>
>> Here's a proposal for doing so:
>>
>> * Split xwiki-velocity/ module into 2
>>   - xwiki-velocity-engine/ (the one currently in xwiki-velocity)
>>   - xwiki-velocity-macro/ (the new one)
>> * In xwiki-velocity-macro create a VelocityMacroManager class that
>> does the following:
>>   - initialize itself at xwiki startup
>>   - create a VelocityMacroClass definition in the wiki if it doesn't
>> exist
>>   - query the wiki for all objects of type VelocityMacroClass
>>   - for each of them register them dynamically (we can already do
>> this) as a Rendering Macro
>> * The VelocityMacroClass has several fields:
>>   - macro name, parameter names, parameters description, macro
>> description, usage example, velocity content to execute (the macro
>> content)
>> * The VelocityMacroManager register itself against the Observation
>> component to receive notifications whenever a VelocityMacroClass is
>> modified (added, removed, etc)
>> * Users will then be able to add velocity macros by simply creating a
>> new page, adding the VelocityMacroClass in it, fill the values.
>> * We should also provide a VelocityMacroClassSheet so that the macro
>> page containing the VelocityMacroClass can display the help for the
>> macro (self-standing)
>>
>> The nice thing is that this keeps velocity macro handling in the xwiki-
>> velocity/ module and makes it completely optional (i.e. the wiki will
>> still work and there's no ties with this feature elsewhere).
>>
>> WDYT?
>>
>> Thanks
>> -Vincent
>> http://xwiki.com
>> http://xwiki.org
>> http://massol.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> devs mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
>>
>
>
>

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