Building a proof of concept

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 10/09/2009 14:34:42

Hello all,

I'm a newcomer to Grails and I just finished reading Grails in Action. I plan to build a proof of concept CMS and I was wondering if the weceem plugin would be a good fit. The requirements for the proof of concept include:

- Support for multiple sites on multiple domains
- Preview content in the site layout
- Dynamically configurable navigation
- Teasers

Does weceem provide support for these requirements?

Also it should be possible to share content between sites. Would the concept of Spaces map to my requirement for different domains? Can I use content from one space in another?

breun wrote:
- Support for multiple sites on multiple domains

This is not supported yet, but we plan to map domains to Weceem spaces. Please don't expect it to be in 0.3.

breun wrote:
- Preview content in the site layout

Sure, it's there.

breun wrote:
- Dynamically configurable navigation

I am not sure, what you mean with that. If you talk about menus, you could create them already using tags like <eachChild> even though it is a little effort.

We have created an additional support tag that will be in 0.3. We use the hierarchy of content as the basis for menus. The new <wcm:menu> tag, shows the current node, it's siblings and children as <ol>, <li> lists that are styled and can be used as menus. As an alternative, you can define your own renderer (= body of tag), to style menus using Javascript, <div>, etc.

breun wrote:
- Teasers

I am not sure if you talk about a teaser for the complete site or a part of the site, which would be just a regular content node (widget) referenced in the template or a teaser/excerpt for each page.

For the later you could extend HTMLcontent to include a teaser/excerpt field.

I am looking forward to see, how Weceem works for you!

Best Regards,
Stephan Albers

breun wrote:Also it should be possible to share content between sites. Would the concept of Spaces map to my requirement for different domains? Can I use content from one space in another?

Currently, the content in spaces is strictly separated, so you can link to content in another space, but you cannot include it. I am not sure, if we want to change this, because it makes security management a lot more complex.

Yes, spaces should map to different domains.

Best Regards,
Stephan Albers

Not being able to include content from other spaces is kind of a show stopper for me. I'm afraid I may have to build this proof of concept without weceem then.

I would say that perhaps Spaces are not what you need here. Can't you achieve what you want using a hierarchy in a single space currently?

I think this would make much more sense. After all currently "space" just performs two simple functions - supplied the root part of the URI (/spacename/) and reduces how much you see in the repository when editing, or when using tags like eachChild.

As for making VirtualContent reference nodes in other spaces, I currently feel like it is bad idea that could have bad consequences. Eg all the functions and tags that iterate over nodes are VirtualContent-aware and will dig into the virtual content target. This could have unforeseen effects, eg pulling news from one space into another by accident just because someone thought it would be a good idea to add a VirtualContent news item.

I don't think I know enough of weceem yet to know whether or not I'd need multiple spaces, but there is the requirement for multiple domains, which I was told would map to different spaces (although that is not in 0.2 yet and won't be in 0.3?).

I don't think I know enough of weceem yet to know whether or not I'd need multiple spaces, but there is the requirement for multiple domains, which I was told would map to different spaces (although that is not in 0.2 yet and won't be in 0.3?).

For the multiple domains mapped to spaces it may be possible to do this putting Apache Web Server in front of tomcat and using ModRewrite + ModProxy?

Yes, but if it is not possible to use content from one space in another, then I still have that problem.