[AgileWiki] Applications--install, deploy, create

[Bill la F. <bil...@su...>]

I want to start my recalling the initial work that Sougata did on 
applications. Really very helpful. Up to that point, I had not thought 
very deeply about applications--always there was something else of 
higher priority to think about. Now all that is changed and applications 
are the highest priority. And I've given a lot of thought to the issues 
that Sougata uncovered.

First things first--the package. All the code for an application should 
be in a single package. Makes it easy to add and easy to purge. And the 
only hooks are in the rolons.txt, commands.txt and fields.txt files. So 
eventually we may want some property file which describes an application 
and a utility which updates these files accordingly. That would be cool, 
but not pressing. (And a nice standalone java program, if anyone is 
interested.)

Now once the administrator has installed the bits, updated the .txt 
files and rebooted the server, we're ready to deploy. I figure every 
application would have a deploy command which is scoped for the 
DuDrawerRolon and is applicable to anyone with update access. A user 
then visits the DescriptorUnits Drawer and runs the deploy command. This 
is when the application's descriptor unit(s) is created.

Then we have the application's create command(s). These commands would 
only be applicable when the appropriate descriptor unit has been 
installed in the current Cabinet's DescriptorUnits Drawer.

Additional commands for the application are scoped to the application's 
own rolons. Further, these rolons can override the docEvent method, for 
custom displays when appropriate.

What do you think?

Bill