Chris Holmes ha scritto: ... > Ok, I don't want to dictate technology choices at all, since I won't > be working with the codebase. But I do want REST as a first class > citizen, in some ways even more so than the UI. So from my > perspective it seems like having a technology that can handle both > would reduce the amount of code overhead of adding new options. > > From a product stand point, what I'm currently thinking is to have a > pure javascript, map driven interface that will allow much more > intuitive configuration of GeoServer. Not the full configuration, > but the 20% that 80% of people will want to do - upload shapefile, > pick the keywords and meta information, style the sld, turn > geowebcache on, stick on google maps or google earth. This will all > use the rest api. > > I do agree that on the java side we don't want to rely on external > developers - we don't want to make potential contributors learn > javascript so they can configure their service. But it likely is > going to get less investment. From my perspective I want a java gui > that's really easy to add new options to, but it doesn't need to do > non-trivial configuration. I'm also leery of picking a framework > based on anticipated needs, like 'complex mapping', as we've been > hearing about that for years and it still hasn't come. It's a very > advanced thing to just get right on the code, and I'm not convinced > that funding for a real configuration GUI will come for at least a > couple years. I've seen potential funding for this stuff, but none > included easy to use gui on the list. By the time it comes there may > even be other options.
Even redoing the current user interface you'd probably want something better than what we have today. Sortable tables, ajaxy forms with some client side validation, that's something we'll need unless the UI you're picturing is way 90s. With freemarker we would end up writing that by hand, adding javascript by hand (so in the end you'd end up having to learn javascript anyways), then figuring out a i18n strategy, then solving again the submit-back-submit problem with forms, writing our sortable tables, and so on.... I just recently tried to make a very small site based on just restlet and freemarker, and gave up because it was just too hard. I tried that road because I thought it would have been simple, but found out that in practice it was just a dream, in practice I had to struggle in an IDE that provides no support for that technology, and then struggle again to add javascript, and so on... Templating a decent user interface is more than expanding just a few variables here and there... Looked around in the restlet forums, and found no one asking directions to follow this kind of approach either. The approach might work fine for simple sites written in a dynamic language where you can develop live and it's ok to mix python _and_ javascript to get the result you want, but so far I have the impression that does not work very well in a pure java context. Cheers Andrea ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. Use priority code J8TL2D2. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone _______________________________________________ Geoserver-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel
