[Opensource] Yet Another Proposal: Improved Model 2 functionality

[Michael Rimov]

At 05:29 PM 7/16/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Here is yet another proposal to improve Expresso.

[General Replier's Note to Proposal:  I like I like I like I like I 
like!  :-)  ]

>- Create an XML action-mapping file that Expresso uses to map actions to
>URL's (JSP's, servlets, whatever) that allows different mappings for success
>and failure, mappings from page to transaction class and state, etc. The
>existing Action objects in expresso require hardcoding of locations, and I
>think that all the information that we are currently passing around as
>hidden form fields and query strings could be better managed in a single XML
>file.

I especially think this will prove _extremely_ flexible and easy to 
implement (From the page designer perspective, that is :-) ) .  I think one 
of the greatest strengths of this will be in Web application 
prototyping.  A series of short screens in JSP in this manner would be 
_extremely_  easy to set up

Also, I just want to confirm that I understand you.  So if a form has three 
possible actions, say, Submit, Reject, Feedback.  Then each of these 
actions will be in the XML file and you can then modify the links that way?


>- Standardize the way form errors are handled, logged, reported, and
>displayed back to the user.

I think this will be especially important to help protect our servlets from 
"rogue" input that might cause problems.  I think this is great!


>- Use a custom tag library similar to the one used in STRUTS to clean up JSP
>pages.

<snip> <snip>

I'd like to add a request for an additional tag that's a modification from 
the CheckLogin kind of tag.  I'd like to be able to specify a series of web 
pages (in this case JSP)  that have access restrictions.  (Basically, a 
modification to Apache's BASIC authentication mechanism)   This will 
probably require other modifications to the underlying database object.

Here's my thought goals:

         -Assign a string that identifies the PageGroup that this belongs 
to in each             page.

         -In the database security matrix, specify which user group may 
access which page group.

The custom tag will then perform a "CheckLogin" that has been modified to 
perform the above described security check.

I think this kind of mechanism would be common enough to warrant inclusion.

Regarding XML project inclusion:
First of all, I'm really excited about it.  I recently had one heck of a 
time installing Apache's Turbine and Jetspeed, solely because of the 
problems that seem to crop up due to different versions of various 
libraries floating around.   In Jetspeed's case, if I used the most recent 
version of Turbine, it would crash.   Is there a way to minimize this, or 
are the DOM and SAX api's still fairly in flux?

Comments?

                                         -Mike