Ross, Thorsten,
Back online here. Let me summarize the current state of affairs. First,
the relevant portion of the forrest.properties file:
# where content is located
project.content-dir=/home/moshe/web/disaggregate/site/src/documentation
project.raw-content-dir=${project.content-dir}/content
# put the site in a tmp directory, otherwise it will be
# backed up, which is completely unnecessary!
project.site-dir=/home/moshe/web/disaggregate/site/tmp/builds/${project.skin}
project.temp-dir=/home/moshe/web/disaggregate/site/tmp
# skins and plugins
project.skins-dir=${project.content-dir}/skins
# (known issue: ought to be otherwise configurable)
forrest.plugins-dir=tmp/plugins
(1) The problem with project.skins-dir occurs when I use an *absolute
path name* for project.content-dir. In those instances, the output of
the log says:
check-skin:
Unable to find dir
/usr/local/share/forrest-current/main/webapp/skins/disaggregate
Unable to find file
/usr/local/share/forrest-current/main/webapp/skins/disaggregate.zip
Unable to find dir
home/moshe/web/disaggregate/site/src/documentation/skins/disaggregate
While at the same time, the forrest properties "echos" tell me that:
| //where to put the result
| project.site-dir =
/home/moshe/web/disaggregate/site/tmp/builds/disaggregate
In other words, absolute pathnames work for some project properties, and
not for others.
When I change project.content-dir to a relative path name:
project.content-dir=src/documentation
Then I have no problem with project.skins-dir and the build proceeds.
(2) project.plugins-dir isn't read. As you stated, this is a known
problem, and I get around it by setting forrest.plugins-dir. Another way
to get around this problem would be to seed forrest as root, once;
that'd work for me, as a single user, but in a multi-site, multi-user
system, as someone might specify a plugin and then require root to place
it in the correct directory.
(3) raw-content-dir not working as expected. Thanks for the pointer to
<http://forrest.apache.org/docs_0_70/upgrading_07.html#raw>; I'd already
seen that page.
However, finding the "raw-content-dir" variable in the seeded
forrest.properties file led me to believe that it would do something;
after examining main/targets/site.xml, I see that it doesn't actually
work in 0.7. This is a non-issue -- I will move files in order to
conform with the new regime, or modify site.xml if I can figure out how!
(4) Thorsten asked if I used a package manager. I installed this package
via Debian's package manager. I maintain the site itself in my /home
directory, and build it using my non-root login; that causes me to bump
into the issues I've outlined. I will keep my eye on 0.8. Thorsten is
also correct that putting this in user space creates multiple copies of
the plugins.
Thank you, everyone, for your patience and help.
If there are user-contributed doc pages anywhere, such as a Wiki, I'll
document these "gotchas" there.
