Re: The Forrest Option

[Robert Leland]

David Graham wrote:

--- Robert Leland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 

Don,

 I have one request and that is to leave the existing maven files
 in place since they do currently generate a web site with the reports.
   

I must be confused with the several projects I'm working on.  So, Maven is
already setup in Struts to run the builds?  If so, why are we going to add
Forrest to the builds?  Why not just start building the site and distro
with Maven?
 

The site was about like what Don had the front page, along with 
javadoc(current+legacy), clover reports, PMD, changelogs.
In fact it had all the features that the commons validator does, check 
it out:
   http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/validator/index.html
What was needed was to tie in the userguide, and other more detailed docs,
which should have been straight forward, but I have so little time now.

What wasn't setup in the builds was the sub-projects of contrib, etc...




David

 

Craig R. McClanahan wrote:

   

Don Brown wrote:

     

I know the discussion on whether to use Forrest or Maven to generate
       

the
   

Struts website was a few weeks back, but unfortunately, at the time, 
I was
too busy to participate.  I'd like to lay out a case for Forrest, not
       

to
   

insist Struts uses it, but rather to make sure the decision is made
       

with
   

all the available information.

In short, Forrest offers these benefits over Maven's website
       

generation:
   

- Multiple output formats including PDF and HTML
- SVG to PNG rendering
- Built for handling and aggregating multiple XML sources like RRS
       

(soon
   

wiki and Docbook)
- Power and features of Cocoon including charting, web services
integration, scripting support, etc.
Further, deciding between Forrest and Maven isn't an either/or 
situation.
There exists a Forrest plugin for Maven and it would be easy to 
integrate
Maven's reports into a Forrest site build.

To me, the key feature of Forrest is the first one listed, multiple
outputs.  This is especially useful for documentation as PDF is much
better than HTML for printing for the many users that like hard
       

copies.
   

Finally, Forrest content is built to be presented in not only
       

multiple
   

output formats, but multiple skins.  To demonstrate this, I've
       

quickly
   

redone the Struts site into Forrest format (which is very similiar to
       

the
current format thanks to the xhtml work of late).  I've only 
converted the
menu and the main page, which should be sufficient.

Please note, this examples are not polished and only serve to 
demonstrate
the skinability of Forrest.

Krysalis style:           http://www.twdata.org/dakine/site/
Avalon/Tigris style:      http://www.twdata.org/dakine/site1/
Forrest/XML Apache style: http://www.twdata.org/dakine/site2/
If we did decide to go with Forrest, I'm willing to convert the old
       

site
   

over and help handle any integration.  I'm most definately not an
       

expert
   

at Forrest, but am familiar with Cocoon and thankfully, Forrest is 
pretty
easy.

       

Looking at the potential here, I'm inclined to suggest we accept Don's
     

offer to help set this up -- although perhaps at first in a standalone
     

directory structure that can be undone if we discover that we don't 
like it.  One advantage is that we can do it without having to migrate
     

the build system to Maven first.

As for skins, I sure like the Avalon/Tigris or Krysalis examples, and 
sure wonder why the Forrest developers chose the native style they 
ship with, when they could do something as nice looking as either of 
these.  But, if I understand what you're saying, skins is essentially 
a runtime (when you're generating the HTML) choice; we don't have to 
make an irrevocable decision at any point in time.

     

Don

       

Craig



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