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could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134131]

Tue, 26 May 2009 07:08

Eclipse User

Hello, all,
I would like to be able to make use of RAP's rich UI features, in a
public-facing wiki. It would have pages of content which can be directly
linked to. So browsing through the wiki would change the URL. Is there a
way that RAP could power such a conventional web site?
Thanks!
David Donohue

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134301 is a reply to message #134131]

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:43

Eclipse User

Hi David,

a RAP based wiki would be way cool :) Direct links to content would
be certainly possible one way or the other.
However I doubt that RAP is the best choice if the main purpose of
the application is to display mainly read-only interlinked content.
Nonetheless I would be glad to be proven wrong :)

Cheers,
Rüdiger

David Donohue wrote:
> Hello, all,
> I would like to be able to make use of RAP's rich UI features, in a
> public-facing wiki. It would have pages of content which can be
> directly linked to. So browsing through the wiki would change the URL.
> Is there a way that RAP could power such a conventional web site?
> Thanks!
> David Donohue
>

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134314 is a reply to message #134301]

Wed, 27 May 2009 22:13

Eclipse User

Rüdiger,
I am seeking to make a semantic wiki, which would be a hybrid between a
traditional wiki and a semantic taxonomy editor. So RAP would come in
handy for trees for moving around child & parent nodes, wizards for
finding appropriate RDFS/OWL classes to link to, etc. I might use RAP for
the editor interface only or perhaps for the whole wiki.

> Direct links to content would be certainly possible one way or the other.
This seems the crux of the issue. How can open RAP with parameters? So
if my RAP instance is running at
http://myapp.org/rap
Can I then pass params into RAP by GETting to
http://myapp.org/rap?selectedNode=my_semantic_object

If I wanted to, could RAP support changing the browser URL? So if the
user is on this page
http://myapp.org/rap?selectedNode=first_semantic_object
and then clicks a link to another page, could the browser go to this URL?
http://myapp.org/rap?selectedNode=second_semantic_object

Thanks!
David Donohue

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134513 is a reply to message #134314]

Fri, 29 May 2009 14:00

Eclipse User

Hi David,

What you are proposing is intriguing.

One issue with the user changing the browser URL (i.e., parameters
changed/added via link), is that given the current implementation of RAP,
the HTML session will be different every time you reload, which implies
that a new entry-point is run (the client-side application restarts). But
this is not necessarily a show-stopper.

You could embed all of the wiki functionality in RAP and have links that
change the content without actually changing the browser URL. The real
issue is permalinks, bookmarking etc. However, you could have code in
your entry point that will take a url argument and reconstruct the state
of the application that is driven/desired via parameter. You would just
have to have a place in the application for the user to generate a
"permalink". There would also be necessary work to make user accounts/
permissions work correctly (i.e, not forcing the user to log in again
every time the app reloads).

All of that said, there are plenty more options if you want to change the
way that RAP itself works. You can embed specialized javascript, hijack
the servlet, etc. Don't cringe Rüdiger. :-)

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134522 is a reply to message #134513]

Fri, 29 May 2009 22:22

Eclipse User

Thanks Austin again! That is what I expected to be the case. Similar
limitation with GWT. Hmm.

It would be useful if RAP would not create a new session each request, but
would honor any cookies present instead to identify the session. Can that
be done? This would permit RAP to power content-centric websites (like
wikis, feeds, etc.). This would permit the content in a RAP site to be
discovered by search engines. This is a critical use case! Otherwise RAP
is always limited to being a specialized console.

I could perhaps work on this but I have no idea where to begin. Any
suggestions?

Best,
David Donohue

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134611 is a reply to message #134522]

Mon, 01 June 2009 10:29

Eclipse User

Hello David,

Try looking at SettingStoreManager.java to see how a cookie is used to
load an ID (via cookie) that maps to server-stored user preferences. But
the meat and potatoes of what you are looking for are mostly under these
packages:

org.eclipse.rwt.internal.lifecycle
org.eclipse.rwt.internal.service

Hope that helps some.

Re: could i build a wiki using RAP? [message #134804 is a reply to message #134513]

Wed, 03 June 2009 01:02

Eclipse User

Austin Riddle wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> [ ... ]
> All of that said, there are plenty more options if you want to change
> the way that RAP itself works. You can embed specialized javascript,
> hijack the servlet, etc. Don't cringe Rüdiger. :-)
I am always interested in learning new ways to (ab)use RAP :)

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