[Self-platform-dev] Some questions

[Nagarjuna G.]

On Feb 1, 2008 8:04 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,

first of all thanks for taking time to dig into the code.

> I am Matías Bordese, and I was asked by the Self people to take a look and
> try the Self Platform products.
> I spent some time installing and configuring the products (as described in
> http://www.nongnu.org/self-platform/ and
> http://trac.gnowledge.org/trac/wiki/SelfInstallation) and I finally got it
> to work (I had some problems with gnowsys and localfs versions, and with
> GNOWSYSArchetypes that didn't get installed if the user was different from
> 'admin').


even if the user is different but has manager role, it should work.

> After using a little the platform, I had some questions. I wanted to add a
> course to shelf, but my user doesn't seem to have a shelf (the addToShelf
> script fails when trying to get the shelfId with getNeighbourhood (it
> returns [[]])).

will check this and get back to you. by default each user is attached
to a shelf, this is done by the schema.

> Is there something that should be done to give a shelf to
> a user? I also have some issue with the getCourses script. It returns no
> courses for any category, although the courses exists.

I will pass this question to Bipin, who can answer the specifics.  But
I am afraid he will come to office only on Monday, unless he sees this
email this weekend.

> In the other hand I understand that the product is being migrated to use a
> postgres db instead of the ZODB. That functionality is (fully?)
> implemented in the selfApp last sources, but not integrated in the
> interface that still manages everything in the ZODB, right?

Migration of storage to postgresql is fully completed.  We have now
started working on connecting the templates.  Most of the work will be
now happening in the subfolder skins, so you may keep looking at
that.

I am currently writing documentation for installation and API of the
new selfApp.

> That's all for now. I would probably have some more questions, is this the
> correct place to ask them? Thanks.

yes, this is the best place, since this is publicly archived list,
other developers may find our conversations useful.


>
> PS: I'm using self-platform-0.1, gnowsys-09 and selfApp from the CVS sources.
>
>

please note, self-platform-0.1 uses GNOWSYS-07 if my understanding is
correct.  The module GNOWSYS-09 is GNOWSYS with version control, but
within the zodb.  We abandoned this, since storage is zodb is not
giving us good results.

In the version that we are using for beta.selfplatform.eu we have
unfortunately made some changes in the Plone-cmf product, however
minor the changes be.  This is completely avoided in selfApp.

Some notes on selfApp:

selfApp now comes with the GNOWSYS integrated.  No need to separately
download GNOWSYS.  The code for storage of GNOWSYS exists in the
subfolder Extensions/gnowsys-pg/ folder.

The product is built as a Plone archetype with the following design,
following MVC pattern:

  - the model of the application is in the module gnowsys-pg,
    distributed in the Extensions folder.

  - the control layer of the application is in the selfApp main
    folder.  Which includes the webservice class gnowQL, and the
    wrapper classes that interface with GNOWSYS storage.

  - the views layer is in the skins folder. Some methods required for
    views are getting written in that folder as and when required.
    Currently not much thought has gone in organizing the methods
    required.  At a latter date we need to tidy this up and organize.
    any suggestions are welcome.

Depedency on plone is minimal in selfApp, except for the skins. User
data are also stored in the postgresql. In the version that is running
at beta.selfplatform.eu the content is stored as plone archetype
content objects, with their mirror objects holding the metadata within
GNOWSYS. But in selfApp all the data, is stored in postgres including
the content and all metadata.

Only exception to this will be the uploaded files in the platform.
each uploaded file will have all the metadata stored in GNOWSYS and
the file stored in the folder named <URI>, which is dynamically
calculated.  These folders are stored within in the INSTANCE_HOME of
the Plone, usually the var/GB/.

We also use this folder to store the view of the node stored as a
pickle for each snapshot of the object.

In a latter version, we plan to use difflib to eliminate some
redundancy in the current storage for both content as well as the
pickled storage in the file system.

will post more documentation soon.

Nagarjuna



-- 
Nagarjuna G.
http://www.gnowledge.org/
http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/n/nagarjun/viewObject