Hi, in 4.x we introduced UI Extensions (UIX) and "Extension Points", it allows applications to come and plug their bits of UI where it is possible [1]. 5.x is a good time to provide a list of useful Extension Points (UIXP) in our velocity templates, allowing applications to plug themselves in, for example : the header, before the content, the footer, etc.
To allow this I can think of 2 strategies: == 1) Manually add UIXPs == Actions: * Discuss where are the common places where applications would like to plug (in our opinion) * Make a lengthy list * Vote it * Introduce an API call (services.uix.getExtensions()) for each item in the list * Commit it Pros: * We can carefully build the UI API Cons: * We can't think of everything * Long process * Overridden templates won't display the extensions == 2) Instrument our templating mechanism with UIXPs == Actions: * Modify the #template macro so that it create UIXPs before and after the parseTemplate call. Calling #template.vm would create the following UIXP: ** platform.template.global.before (or: platform.template.global.above, platform.template.global.top) ** platform.template.global.after (or: platform.template.global.below, platform.template.global.bottom) * Commit it Pros: * A lot of available UIXPs * We've worked on our template architecture for a long time, UIXP would benefit from that * Quick process Cons: * It'd make our current template architecture an API ... but since templates can be overridden in skins, it already is one. * A lot of API calls (but tests with YourKit shows that it doesn't impact performance) Note: 2) doesn't exclude 1), we'd probably still need to introduce UIXP within templates, but we'd have way less UIX API calls with this method. WDYT ? I guess it's quite obvious that my opinion is biased, I've started playing with 2) and it's quite cool :) [1] http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/UIExtension+Module Thanks, JV. _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
