Re: content management ideas?

2002-09-17 Thread V. Cekvenich

One Struts content managment is basicPortal.sf.net.
V.

Hajratwala, Nayan (N.) wrote:
 Unfortunately,  I don't believe this is a very practical approach.
 
 A content editor may inadvertantly make a change to a tag without even
 noticing it (search  replace, fat-finger, etc).  Then after they upload
 their change to the server and spend a few hours trying to figure out why it
 is displaying an error, they call you, the developer to debug the problem.
 You then compare the previous version (you are using source control, right?)
 with the modified version to see what the problem is... yada-yada.
 
 We use an approach of having a template which contains all of our base
 html .. header, footer, etc.  The content editors can create whatever they
 want (we encourage valid XHTML, but usually don't get anything for our
 efforts), and upload it to the test servers.  Our framework then pulls the
 content into the template via a custom tag (using java.io.*).
 
 Hope this helps... Happy to provide more details if you need.
 
 ---
 - Nayan Hajratwala
 - Chikli Consulting LLC
 - http://www.chikli.com
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Kenny Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:01 PM
 To: Struts Users Mailing List
 Subject: RE: content management ideas?
 
 
 Hi Bryan,
 
 ..but that's what JSP is designed to be... html developer friendly. Once you
 create the page with all of the struts tags, they should just be able to
 code the html and content around the JSP. I know it's not exactly what you
 were expecting, but my suggestion would be to let them modify the JSP, just
 instruct them that they are not supposed to touch the JSP tags.
 
 Kenny Smith
 JournalScape.com
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Bryan Field-Elliot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 1:09 PM
 To: Struts Users Mailing List
 Subject: content management ideas?
 
 
 I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
 Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
 static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
 probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
 access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
 middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
 page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic content being
 built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want the
 aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.
 
 Opinions appreciated on how this compromise can best be reached,
 
 Bryan
 
 
 
 
 
 --
 To unsubscribe, e-mail:
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 For additional commands, e-mail:
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




Re: content management ideas?

2002-09-13 Thread Donald Ball

On 9/12/2002 at 2:08 PM Bryan Field-Elliot wrote:

I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic content being
built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want the
aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.

allow webdav access to the directory, but forbid webdav access to the jsp
pages.

- donald


--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




content management ideas?

2002-09-12 Thread Bryan Field-Elliot

I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic content being
built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want the
aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.

Opinions appreciated on how this compromise can best be reached,

Bryan






RE: content management ideas?

2002-09-12 Thread Kenny Smith

Hi Bryan,

..but that's what JSP is designed to be... html developer friendly. Once you
create the page with all of the struts tags, they should just be able to
code the html and content around the JSP. I know it's not exactly what you
were expecting, but my suggestion would be to let them modify the JSP, just
instruct them that they are not supposed to touch the JSP tags.

Kenny Smith
JournalScape.com

-Original Message-
From: Bryan Field-Elliot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 1:09 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: content management ideas?


I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic content being
built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want the
aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.

Opinions appreciated on how this compromise can best be reached,

Bryan





--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




RE: content management ideas?

2002-09-12 Thread Hajratwala, Nayan (N.)

Unfortunately,  I don't believe this is a very practical approach.

A content editor may inadvertantly make a change to a tag without even
noticing it (search  replace, fat-finger, etc).  Then after they upload
their change to the server and spend a few hours trying to figure out why it
is displaying an error, they call you, the developer to debug the problem.
You then compare the previous version (you are using source control, right?)
with the modified version to see what the problem is... yada-yada.

We use an approach of having a template which contains all of our base
html .. header, footer, etc.  The content editors can create whatever they
want (we encourage valid XHTML, but usually don't get anything for our
efforts), and upload it to the test servers.  Our framework then pulls the
content into the template via a custom tag (using java.io.*).

Hope this helps... Happy to provide more details if you need.

---
- Nayan Hajratwala
- Chikli Consulting LLC
- http://www.chikli.com


-Original Message-
From: Kenny Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:01 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: RE: content management ideas?


Hi Bryan,

..but that's what JSP is designed to be... html developer friendly. Once you
create the page with all of the struts tags, they should just be able to
code the html and content around the JSP. I know it's not exactly what you
were expecting, but my suggestion would be to let them modify the JSP, just
instruct them that they are not supposed to touch the JSP tags.

Kenny Smith
JournalScape.com

-Original Message-
From: Bryan Field-Elliot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 1:09 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: content management ideas?


I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic content being
built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want the
aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.

Opinions appreciated on how this compromise can best be reached,

Bryan





--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




RE: content management ideas?

2002-09-12 Thread Sandra Cann

Bryan,

I am sure there are many suggestions. I will convey what has worked for
us in practice. Our site utilizes our Struts based content management
system (CMS) called eContent. Since much of our site is dynamically
generated our users update dynamic content via the CMS directly.
Basically a resource can be comprised of defined attributes which are
pieces of data related to the one resource. An example of this is any of
our project summary pages: where each piece of data on the summary page
is an attribute of a project, i.e. Description, Stable version, License,
Status etc. The formatting is done by a template. 

If formatting changes are desired, a request for change is made or for
more detailed changes a mockup is provided to the administrator to
modify the template.  

Static content is edited in Webphere Studio and is either uploaded
directly to the site or via the CMS system (the later when the
page/content requires authentication to access onsite). When uploaded
via the CMS, we sometimes utilize a workflow process, i.e. for
verification before publishing; or to ensure the file is checked into
CVS as the case may be.

Hope this is helpful.

Regards
--
Sandra Cann
http://www.jcorporate.com
Open Standards based Java components

Our separation from each other is an optical illusion of
consciousness. (Albert Einstein) 

 -Original Message-
 From: Bryan Field-Elliot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
 Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:09 PM
 To: Struts Users Mailing List
 Subject: content management ideas?
 
 
 I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates 
 with Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which 
 much of the static content (including things like the CSS 
 stylesheet) will probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like 
 to open it up for easier access, such as via FrontPage, so 
 that I (the programmer) am not in the middle of such changes. 
 But the site is very dynamic, with almost all page fetches 
 resulting in a database query and dynamic content being 
 built. So the site needs to be JSP-based, and I don't want 
 the aforementioned Frontpagers modifying the raw JSP pages.
 
 Opinions appreciated on how this compromise can best be reached,
 
 Bryan
 
 
 
 



--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]




RE: content management ideas?

2002-09-12 Thread Andrew Hill

Another approach might be to ditch the JSPs in favour of another approach to
rendering your view.
One alternative that springs to mind is using Velocity. I havent used it
myself but I do know that there are tools to help you use it in a struts
application.
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/index.html
Im not sure however that this is quite what you are looking for, as it
stills seems to me require use of some kind of scripting on the page to deal
with dynamic content, which of course the page designers would need to
learn.

or for something completely different...

There is another alternative, but there isnt much existing support for using
it with struts (ie: you will need to do a lot more work), and that is to
make direct use of DOM manipulation. I am using such a system myself in my
current application, and it allows for a nice seperation of layout and
content. (At the price of heavier memory usage and slower response times
compared to using the JSP tags - whether this is a significant problem
rather depends on the application you are creating. (Ie: do you expect 100
or 1000 users an hour...))

My own approach is homegrown and application specific (with all the 'fun'
that entails) however it is inspired very strongly by the open source XMLC
(which supports html as well as xhtml) library. The basic idea with XMLC, is
that a page designer can use their favorite html editing tool to make the
layout, XMLC will give you a means of getting this page as a DOM (it
actually generates java source code that will build the dom at runtime!) and
the programmer uses Java (proper Java, where it belongs - in classes not on
a layout page!) to insert the dynamic bits. (And can also modify the page in
a more flexible way than a custom taglib ever could). The way the designer
indicates where the dynamic content is to go is usually by means of the id
attribute that all the html elements support. (The designer and programmer
agree on the values to use for the various id's beforehand). You can take a
look at the following link for more info on XMLC:
http://xmlc.enhydra.org/

The Barracuda framework, (another mvc framework for webapps) makes use of
XMLC for its view rendering.

If you want to use XMLC in struts however, you will have quite some work to
do, as among other things you will need to duplicate of lot of the struts
taglib functionality using the XMLC DOM based methodology (which means
digging around in the struts tag source code to see how they do their thing)
as of course XMLC itself knows nothing about ActionForms etc...


-Original Message-
From: Hajratwala, Nayan (N.) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 04:40
To: 'Struts Users Mailing List'
Subject: RE: content management ideas?


Unfortunately,  I don't believe this is a very practical approach.

A content editor may inadvertantly make a change to a tag without even
noticing it (search  replace, fat-finger, etc).  Then after they upload
their change to the server and spend a few hours trying to figure out why it
is displaying an error, they call you, the developer to debug the problem.
You then compare the previous version (you are using source control, right?)
with the modified version to see what the problem is... yada-yada.

We use an approach of having a template which contains all of our base
html .. header, footer, etc.  The content editors can create whatever they
want (we encourage valid XHTML, but usually don't get anything for our
efforts), and upload it to the test servers.  Our framework then pulls the
content into the template via a custom tag (using java.io.*).

Hope this helps... Happy to provide more details if you need.

---
- Nayan Hajratwala
- Chikli Consulting LLC
- http://www.chikli.com


-Original Message-
From: Kenny Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:01 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: RE: content management ideas?


Hi Bryan,

..but that's what JSP is designed to be... html developer friendly. Once you
create the page with all of the struts tags, they should just be able to
code the html and content around the JSP. I know it's not exactly what you
were expecting, but my suggestion would be to let them modify the JSP, just
instruct them that they are not supposed to touch the JSP tags.

Kenny Smith
JournalScape.com

-Original Message-
From: Bryan Field-Elliot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 1:09 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: content management ideas?


I was wondering how people handle frequent content updates with
Struts/JSP? At my company, I'm building a site for which much of the
static content (including things like the CSS stylesheet) will
probably undergo frequent revision. I'd like to open it up for easier
access, such as via FrontPage, so that I (the programmer) am not in the
middle of such changes. But the site is very dynamic, with almost all
page fetches resulting in a database query and dynamic