Scott T weaver wrote:
Hmm, I don’t think I can agree with that. SiteMesh, AFAIK, can
aggregate from whole host of markup sources to produce a “finished
product”. I don’t see how that can be accomplished in the example you
presented or with Wicket in general, not with out a lot of work that is.
This is the main reason I stopped trying to use Wicket to produce
portal layouts.
Well, you didn't try hard enough :-). So what happens is that the only
thing that would be hard to accomplish with Wicket (I'm not the wicket
expert either) would be to aggregate different sources into the same
page, like put to the right bar the html source generated by a php
application etc. For creating "portal like" interfaces, if you don't
want to use another markup sources like other php/html etc sites to
aggregate markup, I think java/markup inheritance in wicket is enough. I
asked the exact same question when I first heard about wicket but I
admit now that, except for the case you want to aggregate into your page
markup generated by other server/context/webapp, there is no need for
sitemesh. And you have to agree that aggregating different web
applications (written even in other languages) in a single interface is
a pretty exotic use case.
I think sitemesh does an excellent job for "action oriented" java web
frameworks , but, as a sitemesh user (I still use it in the projects
where I don't have the luck to be able to choose wicket or tapestry) I
didn't feel the need of it in wicket applications. To add a "portlet"
like component e.g. a login portlet to the left you just add a sign in
panel to the parent of all the pages that need the signing panel and do
the same for all.
There could be still possible a limited use of sitemesh, if you would
want to decorate wicket pages, I think it is possible but with some
exceptions. You're limited if you want to decorate based on url, except
the situation when you want to decorate ALL the pages from th wicket
application, case in which you'll map the decorator to the same url the
wicket application is mapped, e.g. /wicket-examples*. Decoration based
on meta tags ( meta decorator="mydecorator" placed in each page) should
also work. With some exceptions I think this should work since sitemesh
is basically a servlet filter.
I have to say that these are just "it may work" opinions based on my
previous Sitemesh and recent Wicket experience, and I didn't actually
used/implemented anything from the use case above since I really didn't
need to.
If you fell like you need to use Sitemesh with Wicket and you don't
use/need anything from outside sources like other web
applications/sites, I think that you probably have to take a closer look
at Wicket component approach, markup inheritance, and get rid of
"request/response" way of thinking in action frameworks and start to
think (statefull) OOP and components again :-D.
It is more effort than it is worth to try and get a single
component/page merge arbitrary markup. The whole “one markup source
per component” tends to break down very quickly in this type of
setting and is, IMOHO, a short-coming of most of component-based web
frameworks that are popping up. That last thing I want to do is
require my layout and decoration designers to create new component
classes for each layout they come up with.
Don’t get me wrong; Wicket is wonderful for straight-forward
application development. However I feel it lacks the flexibility to
work well as a generalized, light-weight layout engine.
Well, I don't know. I think I could be able to say something in a more
specific use case. Just maybe :-)
Not everything is a nail ya’ know ;-)
If any of the Wicket gurus out there feel I have misspoken, please let
me know as I would still love to replace Jetspeed 2’s existing
layout/decoration mechanism with Wicket.
I'm none of those gurus but ... I think Wicket is best suited for web
application development. It's not (yet) suited for portlet development
(I head something a while ago, about some portlet development support in
wicket but nothing ever since) but even if it would be, I think you
would write *individual* portlets with it. And they would be still
layouted by a portal/portlet engine. I don't think Wicket is/will be a
replacement for a portal. But maybe I'm wrong. I let it to the gurus
you've mentioned above :-)
Argh ! long reply. too long.
Regards,
Scott T. Weaver
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Andrew
Berman
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:57 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [Wicket-user] SiteMesh and Wicket are compatible?
There is no need to use SiteMesh if you are using Wicket. Wicket has
mechanisms which accomplish the same thing but even better. Take a
look at Borders, Panels, and markup inheritance
(http://www.wicket-wiki.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Markup_inheritance)
--Andrew
On 10/26/05, *Jeff Miller* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
Has anyone attempted to use SiteMesh
(http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/) with Wicket? If yes, are there
any issues or limitations?
Thanks,
Jeff
Jeff Miller
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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