[Exist-development] betterform integration

[Joern T. <joe...@go...>]

Hi,

after we have added betterform to the trunk there are some questions
left to finish the first step:

1. we need to add ourselves to the start.config file. As we started as
a intaller in an existing installation we have created our own copy of
this file in the root of exist. I assume this is not the right way to
do it now that betterform has become a part of the tree. I further
assume that it's more appropriate to add our entries to
src/org/exist/start/start.config? If yes, which condition would be
appropriate - shall we use 'always'?

2. we need some guidance of how to integrate with the exist build
system. Our extension files do not need compilation as we added the
binaries to the extension but we need to:
- modify the web.xml when betterform is supposed to be activated
- add ourselves to the start.config (as mentioned above)
- deploy our resources to the webapp/resources dir in exist
- copy a xquery error page to the webapp/xquery dir

All this is done by calling 'ant install' in extensions/betterform.
The changes on the tree can be reverted with 'ant uninstall'.

Now the questions is: where in the exist build files should the
betterform build file be called? Or do you prefer a different
mechanism?

3. We have an issue with our demo application. This assumes that the
admin password is defaulted to 'betterform' which is hardly
appropriate any more. This there a way to determine this password from
within an xquery or how can we otherwise manage to 'patch' our demo
app files to have the right password. Of course we will remove this
hardcoded value when the app moves on but for the time being it's
necessary to make the demo run. Any guidance with this issue would be
great.

Ah, not to forget - the demo application can be installed by calling
'ant install-xrx' on our build.xml.

4. What about docs? Once we have figured out how to (de)activate
betterform i assume we need some docs about that. Is there someone
having the hat on for documentation? Of course it's up to us to
provide the docs but it should be linked from somewhere in the exist
site (developer guide?). Do you have particular wishes about which
docs you'd like to see?

Thanks,

Joern