As I've mentioned before I've been refining and factoring the tools
used to build and manage UXF, but I've been doing this over on the
backplanejs project.
Those tools are pretty much ready to be integrated into UXF, so if
anyone has time to help with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
I'd like to do this step-by-step, first checking that I've correctly
listed the prerequisite tools, and that the installation instructions
are clear. Then I'd like to move on to look at how to configure the
tools, before finally doing a build of UXF (and uploading it to Google
Code), creating the documentation (and uploading it to Google App
Engine), and playing with some of the testing options.
So first off, perhaps volunteers could follow the instructions on this page:
<http://code.google.com/p/backplanejs/wiki/InstallingTools>
Are the instructions clear? Any typos, broken links or incorrect
versions? Do the instructions work on all operating systems (or
alternatively, could you say what OS you used, so that we can
cross-reference)?
By the end of the instructions you should have:
* Ant
* Python
* Mercurial
* the backplanejs build tools
* Ruby
* Sprocketize
* Google App Engine
(Note that the only reason you need Mercurial at this stage is to get
the backplanejs tools. Although they will soon be provided as a zip
file, you still might as well get Mercurial now, because we plan to
switch UXF away from SVN in the not too distant future. Also, the only
reason we need Ruby is to support Sprocketize, and we will be moving
away from that too at some point, at which time neither install will
be needed.)
Once we've got a few people past this stage, we'll try the next step.
Thanks in advance, for your help!
Regards,
Mark
--
Mark Birbeck, webBackplane
mark.b...@webBackplane.com
http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
webBackplane is a trading name of Backplane Ltd. (company number
05972288, registered office: 2nd Floor, 69/85 Tabernacle Street,
London, EC2A 4RR)
Welcome to the group!
I'm looking forward to getting your fixes into the code base -- you
certainly sound like you've been busy, and they sound like some
excellent fixes.
If you want to send a patch or two in that we can start looking at and
discussing then please do so on the Contributors list:
<http://groups.google.com/group/ubiquity-xforms-eng>
In terms of the general environment, the way that UXF is currently
hanging together using the YUI loader is very difficult to maintain,
so we're moving to a single roll-up file, which is what the
backplanejs tools do.
In your code are you still using the UXF-style YUI-loader code, or
have you tried the backplanejs tools to create a roll-up file?
Another *major* problem with the current incarnation (and actually
what prompted me to work through restructuring things) is that people
tend to test by using local files, setting all sorts of weird options
in the browser to allow file saving and loading, local use of XBLs and
HTCs, and all sorts of other mystical magic.
In this environment, loading forms from a web-server was regarded as
out of the ordinary!
However, with the new system we say that testing against a web-server
is the 'norm', and anything else is up the developer, based on their
requirements. (We don't want to rule out applications that load files
from a hard-drive, we're just saying that they are out of the
ordinary.)
The consequence is that library developers are testing in the same
environment as form authors who are using the library -- with no weird
configuration settings.
This does mean that you need to have a local web-server, but that is
not exactly unusual; developers are free to choose their own
configuration (Apache, IIS, etc.), but also the backplanejs tools have
settings for Google App Engine.
Anyway, the upshot is that we need to start migrating to that test
environment, so it would help greatly if we could work through that.
So, first step...I can't quite tell if you're saying that you've tried
using the build tools, or whether you're using the tools in UXF?
Regards,
Mark
--
Mark Birbeck, webBackplane
mark.b...@webBackplane.com
http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
webBackplane is a trading name of Backplane Ltd. (company number
05972288, registered office: 2nd Floor, 69/85 Tabernacle Street,
London, EC2A 4RR)
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Sorry for not being clear on that. On our production server we build the roll-up file using the ubiquity build tools (build-ux.bat). For the test suite that I ran, as described in my post, I generated it through Apache Ant and the new backplane build tools. I have to say I'm glad you're moving in a different direction there; I develop on a mac and have had to open cmd.exe in parallels every time I made an update to ubiquity. This way it's much easier to plug it into the cross-platform build process of the rest of our application.
- Frankie
No...I think you were clear! I just wanted to be doubly sure. :)
I'm a Mac user too, and just about everything I've been doing of late
has been about removing the platform-dependent aspects of UXF. The key
to that is of course using Ant to specify everything.
I've also started to use Eclipse, which can control Ant builds from
within the environment, which I think is very powerful.
And in the past we've used Buildbot, which used Ant builds to give us
continuous integration. This is currently broken, but as we migrate to
the new tools we should easily be able to get it working again.
Best regards,
Mark
From: | Frankie Dintino <fdin...@gmail.com> |
To: | ubiquit...@googlegroups.com |
Date: | 06/15/2010 10:34 AM |
Subject: | Re: [ubiquity-xforms] Re: Testing and using the backplanejs tools |
From: | Mark Birbeck <mark.b...@webbackplane.com> |
To: | ubiquit...@googlegroups.com |
Date: | 06/14/2010 10:37 AM |
Subject: | [ubiquity-xforms] Testing and using the backplanejs tools |
Sorry for not being clear on that. On our production server we build the roll-up file using the ubiquity build tools (build-ux.bat). For the test suite that I ran, as described in my post, I generated it through Apache Ant and the new backplane build tools. I have to say I'm glad you're moving in a different direction there; I develop on a mac and have had to open cmd.exe in parallels every time I made an update to ubiquity. This way it's much easier to plug it into the cross-platform build process of the rest of our application.