David M Johnson wrote:
Thanks Allen.
Based on Allen's feedback, I think the Roller Support project should offer:
These required components (with docs)
Required Webapp Jars for Roller - for Webapp only
Required Source Jars for Roller - for building from source only
And these optional components (with docs)
Optional page-plugins for Roller (JSPWiki page plugin)
Optional editor add-ins for Roller (Ekit and JavaScript enhanced
plugins)
Optional themes for Roller (Ocadia and Spring)
I think that sounds good.
I also suggest that for Roller 3.0 we move some of the current themes
and plugins out to the support project and just make sure and tell our
users that during their upgrade if they want to keep those addons they
need to add them back on. I suppose we could do that now if it makes
more sense to do it all in one pass.
I think the biggest reasoning for this is that the core project should
be focused on the software and not have to maintain lots of addons. So
I think we should only maintain a few themes and a couple plugins.
-- Allen
And as a result the Roller docs will changes as follows.
The install guide installation docs will explain only:
- How to get and install the missing Hibernate jars from the Hibernate
project
- The Roller Support project exists and has helpful downloads for
installers
The Install Guide upgrading Roller section will explain only that:
- The JSPWiki plugin, Ekit editor and JavaScript enhanced editor have
been removed
- The Roller Support project exists and has helpful downloads for upgraders
I'll make these changes and prepare RC2, hopefully by sometime Monday.
Anybody else want to weigh in?
- Dave
On May 6, 2006, at 12:46 PM, Allen Gilliland wrote:
David M Johnson wrote:
On May 5, 2006, at 11:54 PM, Allen Gilliland wrote:
Just a little nit pick, but I think we can find a better way to
describe the extra downloads than "unshippables". Maybe the Roller
"required libraries" and "optional libraries" or something like
that. I think that is a little easier to understand to a first
time user trying to get the files.
That's good feedback.
If you read the Installation Guide you'll see that I explain how to
get the Hibernate and other jars from the original "vendors" and not
from the "Roller Support" project. I *do* reference the Roller
Support project, but I never say specifically that you can getting
all of the missing jars there.
If you read the text on the Roller Support project (a project that
is supposed to be separate and independent from Roller) you'll see
that there are two "unshippable" downloads:
** Webapp Unshippables for Roller - all of the missing files
(Hibernate, JSPWiki, XMLP JavaScript XML parser, etc.) arranged in
Roller webapp directory structure, so that you can just unzip them
ontop of a Roller install.
** Source Code Unshippables for Roller - all of the missing files
(Hibernate, JSPWiki, XMLP JavaScript XML parser, etc.) arranged in
Roller source directory structure, so that you can just unzip them
ontop of a Roller install.
yes, i understood all of that, but what i am saying is that to me
"unshippables" as a term doesn't mean anything. i think that is a
confusing way of labeling that download and i think we can come up
with something better.
So "required libraries" isn't correct, since the downloads contain
both required and optional files and not just libraries. And
"optional libraries" isn't quite right either.
okay, then we just need to pick better terms, but there has to be a
way to separate out the required elements from the optional ones.
I considered breaking everything up into separate optional and
required downloads (listed below), but that defeats the purpose of
the unshippables downloads, which is to make installation as easy as
possible. Eventually, I'd like to move the optional parts to the
Roller Support project entirely with build scripts that package them
up as add-ins (and try to make that process easy), but for now, I
think two unshippables downloads is the easier route to support
Roller users.
- Hibernate jars (required)
- EJB 1.1 jar (required at buildtime)
- JSPWiki plugin and jars (optional)
- text-js editor and associated JavaScript classes (optional)
personally, i don't like the idea of packaging the required and
optional stuff together so that the user just gets everything. i
definitely want to make it as easy for the user as possible, but the
whole point of something being "optional" is that users are supposed
to choose to use it. what you have now means that someone could
download the package just to get at the Hibernate jars which are
required, and they end up with the wiki and editor stuff that they
don't even want.
so i still think required vs. optional packages makes some sense. it
sounds like the required webapp addons is just the Hibernate jars, and
the required source addons are Hibernate + EJB 1.1. everything else
is optional.
i also think it is ideal that for the optional package we don't set it
up to automatically overlay a Roller build and dump everything into
the distribution. assuming we want the optional package to contain
lots of stuff, like a whole set of plugins, themes, editors, etc.
either that, or we should be *very* vocal about the fact that
overlaying the optional package will add lots of things to the
standard distribution and users may want to add them individually
instead.
-- Allen
And one other point, perhaps we should have the "unshippables"
discussion on the Roller Support project mailing list, since this is
really not Apache business.
- Dave
-- Allen
Dave Johnson wrote:
I've put together a first release candidate (RC1) for Roller 2.3
and updated the user and installation docs. Please take a look.
Here's a summary of what's available for 2.3:
*What's new*
I updated the Roller 2.3 what's new page to include the 2.2
features and to mention that the release no longer includes the
Hibernate jars, the spell checker and the text-js editor.
http://rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Roller_2.3_WhatsNew
*The release files*
Roller is now distributed as two files:
1) the webapp download named apache-roller-X.Y-incubating.tar.gz and
2) the source code download named apache-roller-src-X.Y.tar.gz
You can get those files for Roller 2.3 RC1 here:
http://people.apache.org/~snoopdave/roller-2.3-rc/
*The documentation*
I updated the Roller Installation Guide to explain how to get the
missing HIbernate and other jars. The User Guide has also been
updated for 2.3. You can get both of these docs here:
http://people.apache.org/~snoopdave/roller-2.3-rc/
*The Roller Support project*
I'm going to re-purpose Roller's former Java.Net home as the
"Roller Support" project, which will be devoted to supporting
Roller. It will host new plugins, themes and add-ons that we're
not ready to support in Roller or cannot distribute in Roller due
to licensing issues. It also hosts the "unshippables" -- a couple
of downloads helpful when installing Roller.
https://roller.dev.java.net/
