Hi Stephane, > On 22 Aug 2019, at 09:39, Stéphane Laurière <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Vincent, Hi all, > >> Hi Stephane and all, >>> On 7 Aug 2019, at 14:22, Stéphane Laurière <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Hi everyone, >>> >>> I'm following up on a thread started in 2015 about the best practices >>> regarding app pages organization: >>> >>> - https://xwiki.markmail.org/message/657vcm6ylkz4yytc >>> - >>> https://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/ApplicationDevelopmentBestPractices >>> >>> In this thread, the idea of introducing a dedicated common root area for >>> all application technical pages was suggested by Denis: >>> >>> https://xwiki.markmail.org/message/kk5l3dwjmpfelkzp >>> >>> I'm wondering why this idea was not pushed further (it's not strictly >>> incompatible with the current best practices, but most of the recent >>> applications have their top level area, except a few like Notifications or >>> ChartJS). >> Indeed, right now, the best practice is a top level space named after the >> app >> (https://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/ApplicationDevelopmentBestPractices). >> I guess the reason we didn’t do anything else is because we lacked an agreed >> proposal simply. >>> Comparing with how other platforms do is inspirational (Microsoft Windows >>> "Program Files" was mentioned in the thread). On Debian, the Maven package >>> is installed in /usr/share/maven/ while files used and produced by Maven >>> can be located anywhere. Along the same line, I would see as a userand >>> developer experience improvement if we had the following structure: >>> >>> 1) Code: >>> >>> XWiki >>> |- MyApp >>> |- MyAppClass >>> |- MyAppSheet >>> |- … >> I don’t think it’s a good idea to put the apps directlyunder the XWiki >> space. I feel it would be better to have an “Applications” subspace as in: >> XWiki >> |_ Applications >> |_ MyApp >> |_ … >> |_ Users >> |_ … >> This allows to put other things in the XWiki space, such as users for >> example. >> Note that for me the main reason to avoid putting spaces at the root isto >> avoid using up namespaces that can then no longer be used by users. In this >> spirit the minimum we could do is reserve only the “XWiki” space. >>> 2) Data: the pages created by MyApp could then typically be located >>> bydefault in a MyApp space at the root of the wiki, the user could >>> howeverchoose which default space to use, or leave it empty (then the space >>> from where the user fires the create action could be used, for instance, or >>> any scriptable rule). >> Why not. I’m just not sure I would mix app data pages with purecontent pages >> and use up namespaces at the root (you end up with the same issue as I >> mentioned above and you below). I agree that data pages shouldn’t go in the >> /XWiki/Applications space though which should be readonly. >> So there are some other options: >> * In /XWiki/Data/MyApp >> * Reserve another namespace entry at the root (“Data”):/Data/MyApp >> You said " the user could however choose which default space to use”. How >> would you plan to implement this? Right now, this would work only if the app >> provides a template and the user uses this template to create a new page. >> For example the FAQ app doesn’t do that and it provides a UI to create a new >> FAQ entry and this goes in /FAQ/ directly. > > The default implementation I would propose would consist in creating data in > the space from which the creation request occurs. Do you foresee some issues > with that behaviour?
Yes, having data scattered eveyrwhere in the wiki instead of in a single place. And have data saved in places you don’t want because you’re not paying attention to the location you’re at. This then makes it very hard to remove all data, move it to somewhere else, put permissions on them, etc. Any bulk action becomes hard and requires scripting. > If needed, we could add a field in the TemplateProvider class that would > accept a script letting developers or users implement any rule for > determining which space should be used. By "this would work only if the app > provides a template", do you mean a TemplateProvider? Would this be then that > TemplateProviders are not considered as a best practice already? As you said it’s a best practice only not something mandatory. For example the FAQ app doesn’t provide a template provider right now and even if it did, it still has a UI to create new entries. So that would also need to be removed. Is that good or bad, I don’t know for sure. It has both pros and cons. > >>> Another issue I see with the current practice (raised by Clément A. orally) >>> is that some application names may conflict with names the user would like >>> to use for content that is not strictly related to the app. Not necessarily >>> a big deal with one thousand of applications, but might become one with >>> more, wouldn't it? >> Sure and you get the same issue with your proposal of putting app data at >> the root under /MyApp, no? > > It's different imho because my proposal is that, outside the "XWiki" space, > only users would create new spaces, never the applications directly without > first asking the user for a space name explicitely. > > I'm wondering if it's a good idea to reserve a space for data and to have one > data subspace per app: first, along the operating system analogy, it's not > very common to store files per their application origin basis, is it, or is > the analogy irrelevant? On Windows at least this concept exists as you have 2 locations: * Location for app code * Location for app data And then users created directories and folders for their own data. It’s the same for all OSes AFAIK. On unix, you get /var/… for app data. > Second, the line between what we call "data" and "content" is getting more > and more blurry (the Jupyter notebooks, just like XWiki are good examples of > this), so the user may end up with page hierarchies that are difficult to > understand. I don’t know what Jupyter notebooks are but what I know is that mixing apps with content is hard for users and thus it would make sense to me to have a location for app data that is separate by default from pure content created by users. This has been asked countless times and we’re doing hacks to try to spearate them (for ex, see the Applications Panel and the Navigation Panels). > > Regarding the "XWiki" space, we probably agree that it is meant to be a > "system" space, do we? Yes. > If that's the case, I'm wondering if storing the users and groups in that > space is the best option, because they are actually writable data. Sure. We could consider users as app data for the User App. And thus put them in the User app data location for example. > It's a bit specific since they are transversal, and their classes come with > the platform, but it remains writable data. Their code could be located in > the XWiki space, but the instances could be elsewhere, in a configurable > location. Also, prefixing each user and group page with "XWiki" may not > please all developers imho This is a different topic. The goal here is to have a user/group API independent of the implementation and storing users and groups in the wiki would be just one implementation. This means slome mapping between user/group id and storage location. > : imagine you develop a Facebook like, should the user wall URLs contain > "XWiki"? It's always possible to add URL rewriting rules, but that's more > complex. The underlying reason could be brand marketing though, which is > important. > > Following up on the operating system analogy, we could also consider log > files (and possibly other aspects?). Even though most of the XWiki logs are > currently stored on the file system, that could be interesting at some point > to store some of them directly in the wiki for easing their archiving and > consultation, couldn't it? In that case, we could also reserve a dedicated > root space for them. Having very few top level reserved spaces such as > "Logs", "Users", "Groups" (provided their name is configurable, also for > localization reasons) might be acceptable, what do you think? I think I would prefer just 2 top level: “XWiki” and “App Data”. Regarding logs they could be considered as app data from a System app for example. Interesting discussion, more feedback needed too :) Thanks -Vincent > >>> I understand that the layout proposed above would raise technical issues >>> (XWiki space permissions for instance, mentionned in the 2015 thread, and >>> others), however what's your view on it from a design perspective? (sorry >>> if I overlooked strong arguments already expressed against it) >> Thanks for starting this thread again. >> One other point missing in this discussion is the migration from the current >> status to any target. How would we achieve it? How do we migrate anapp to >> follow any new best practice without breaking users? (Idea: >> https://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/DocumentAliases). > > This looks powerful, I'm looking into it. > > Cheers > > Stéphane > > >> Let’s start the discussion ;) >> Thanks >> -Vincent >>> >>> Cheers >>> >>> Stéphane >>> > > > -- > Stéphane Laurière > XWiki – https://xwiki.com
