Forum OpenACS Development: glossary is broken

Posted by Don Baccus on
For the hell of it I started whacking at glossary a couple of days ago.  The data model and many of the queries are now ported.

However, glossary's incomplete, or rather Walter McGinnis apparently got  part-way through a enhancement pass while still at aD and that part-way status is frozen in time.  This is probably related to the fact that he no longer works there :)  The Oracle version craps out when I add a term, for instance - a glossary with no definitions isn't very useful!

So I plan to fiddle today to see if I can fill in the missing pieces for the Oracle version and complete the PG version.

Of course, this package could be implemented as a spin on ETP rather than living life on its own.  One reason I decided to port it, though, is that it is very simple but still makes full use of the content repository (both text and images), templating, acs-workflow, and the form handler.    I think it's worthwhile as a short, relatively simple example of how all these pieces can be tied to together to make a coherent whole(and as time permits I'll tie it into the new search package structure, too).

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Posted by Walter McGinnis on
The ACS 4x Glossary Package never made it beyond alpha
stage.  Mainly because several acs-subsite and services issues
weren't resolved while I was still at aD (some still linger).

The design of the Glossary Package was meant to show how
one could make a simple ACS 3x module much more powerful
in the ACS 4 world via code reuse through acs-content-
repository, acs-workflow, and general comments.  In fact, it was
originally to be the basis of ASJ article.  These added
dependencies, all with their own issues, made the Glossary
impossible to finish in a clean manner at the time.  In other
words, its a great example of what's good and bad about the
unfinished ACS 4x platform.

At this point, OpenACS 4 is a huge step forward in resolving
ACS 4 pitfalls.  I think the Glossary can be a good stand alone
package, but one now has to look at what has changed in all its
dependencies as well.