[Bese-devel] Re: looking for advice: mixing applications and other content

[Jan Rychter]

> Jan Rychter wrote:
> > The non-application part is not static for the most part, so simple file
> > serving won't do. I'd like to use yaclml or TAL to generate most of the
> > content there, some dynamically and some offline.
> > 
> > How do people deal with this using UCW?
> 
> with a macro like this: this is not the actual code i use (i don't have
> that code at hand on this machine) but it's the general idea.
> 
> (defmacro deftalpage (url args &optional (template-name url))
>   "defines an entry-point for url which calls a template and puts all of
> the query-params passed to the url into the page's tal environement (for
> easy access via the $foo syntax"
>   `(progn
>      (defcomponent ,(intern url :my-package)
>          (template-component window-component)
>        ((args :initarg :args))
>        (:default-initargs :template-name ,template-name))
>      (defentry-point ,url (:application *my-app*) ,args
>        (call ',(intern url :my-package)
>              :args (list ,@(mapcar (lambda (a)
>                                      (if (listp a) (first a) a))
>                                    args))))
>      (defmethod template-component-environment nconc
>          ((template ,(intern url :my-package)))
>        (slot-value template 'args))
>      ',url))
> 
> and then lots of these:
> 
> (deftalpage "" () "index.tal")
> (deftalpage "product" (p-id sku-id) "catalog/product.tal")
> (deftalpage "news" (news-id) "content/news.tal")

Thanks for the very precise advice!

I have one question though -- the component gets called but never
answers. When does it get garbage collected?

> > I've pondered running araneida with TBNL and UCW, but it seems like
> > overkill.
> 
> if we could get ucw to drop the session/frame stuff for certain
> entry-points then i'd agree. until then there is an overhead difference
> between the two which may (or may not) make the difference for you.

The overhead difference isn't significant for the moment, but will be in
the future.

A very, very desirable feature would be to have entry-points without
sessions. When the user lands at an entry point, he doesn't get a
session unless he clicks on a link or presents a valid cookie. By
default we present him with a page that possibly contains links leading
to entry points with sessions.

In the case of a blog site, for example, you'd get nice permanent
URLs and low overhead for most content, while still being able to offer
"applications" after the user logs in or enters a particular area of the
site. Best of both worlds, all in the same framework.

--J.