Modified Design Coming

The last rewrite was hoped to be the last major rewrite, but I believe some changes are in order. This rewrite isn't nearly as huge as the last, but it does change the API. No CVS updates or other changes have been posted recently as I have been working out the design details on paper before doing any coding.

The 0.3.x system successfully divided presentation logic from business logic. However, this still led to some rather ugly coding on the part of the Contentlet designer. The new 0.4.x system further divides the presentation logic into what I refer to as "content logic" and "design logic". This really gets to the core of what I wanted in the first place. I want a content management system that does not require the content logic and design logic to be tightly bound.

Under the new system, Contentlets output data in generic "source classes"--which are basically generic XML or object data formats. Then a Transformer object is used to transform a document in the source class format to a "destination class" format--which are designed HTML, XHTML, VoiceXML, graphic formats, etc. With the next release any XSL 1.0 document can be used as the Transformer object or a Java class implementing the Transformer interface.

This release should fix a lot of the ugliness associated with the ContentletCommunication/ContentletRequest API. This release will also further abstract away from the Servlet API and restricts the capabilities of Contentlets as the system does not need to allow Contentlets to be fully functional servlet-type objects--the Servlet API should be used directly when such functionality is desireable.