[opencms-dev] Writing a simple MasterModule

[Joachim Arrasz]

Hi all,

the last few weeks we did a lot of wordk in implementing some new
backoffice-modules for opencms. One is the Calendar-Module, another is a
voting or a RSS-Feed Module.
We did this in the following way. We had a look at the
FlexCacheAdministration Module, and built our modules in the same way. The
xml-file is just used to forward the requests to the jsp Page which is the
representation from the backoffice view.
Some of stephans requested features we did for theese modules, for example
the "Add n Links" feature. This we built for n Possibilities to build a
new Vote!
> Regarding the runtime vs. compiletime issue I also have thought about
> configuring at runtime. My current plans are to target a version 1 that
> allows only a limited runtime configurability and would still require
> an underlying Java class that must be developed manually.



> If the new
> data module API comes out as flexible and powerful as I currently hope,
> a version 2 might add a runtime configuration interface that
> automatically generates the required underlying Java class.

this should be a can feature not a normal case. I don`t want to tell our
customers how to reconfigure their modules via a backoffice-module. This
will be surely a potential error point.
> Would you be able to help in the development of such a new data module
> mechanism? If so, depending on the amount of time you can spend on this
> project I am sure the result would match your desires more or less
> closly.

A absolutely needed thing is something like a scheme for the needed
DB-tables which should automatically build the needed tables for the
specialiced module. Something like TORQUE`S Ant Files. At the target
"Init" the tables becomes created. This must be done at installation time
from the module. So nobody has to build special classes who do this, like
it actually is with this module feature.
Hope anybody understood me :-)

Bye

Joachim Arrasz

Synyx oHG


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