Forum OpenACS Q&A: Custom index for subsite

I've got an instance of acs-subsite mounted at /subsite. Under it I've got forums, news, etc moutned at /subsite/forums, /subsite/news etc. That all works fine.

I want to customize the page returned at /subsite. In addition to the normal behavior of listing the nodes mounted under /subsite, there are a few other things I need.

So I created a directory /www/subsite and copied the index* files from /packages/acs-subsite/www into it. The intent was to start from there and customize.

The problem is that even before I begin doing any customization, it bombs---the sql queries, which work fine normally, don't work when I copy the files over. Here's the top of the error trace:

Database operation "0or1row" failed (exception NSDB, "Query was not a statement returning rows.")
    while executing
"ns_pg_bind 0or1row nsdb0 {
    select acs_object.name(:package_id) from dual
}"
    ("uplevel" body line 1)
    invoked from within
"uplevel $ulevel [list ns_pg_bind $type $db $sql"
    invoked from within
"db_exec 0or1row $db $full_name $sql"
    invoked from within
"set selection [db_exec 0or1row $db $full_name $sql]"
    ("uplevel" body line 2)
    invoked from within 

I'll add that the query works fine if I go into psql and type it in by hand. I'm using the 4.6 release code.

Tilmann, I'm having fun with precisely the same issue right now, and your suggestion doesn't work I'm afraid. Suggestions highly welcome.

This is a really good question, which I have too been thinking about some time. More generally, is the way Matthew has done the right way (tm) to go when you want custom front pages for any packages?

I think one probably wants to have a custom front page for subsite, but often this is also the case for some other package instance, such as forums.

Some documentation concerning these things would be very nice to have, as it's the ease of use in the real world that is going to make OpenACS more widely adopted.

Regarding package specific customization, check out this proposal on the table for 4.7:

https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=63062

Regarding the original bug, I believe this has to do with "oacs_root/tcl/zz-postload.tcl" only loading query files within the "oacs_root/www" and "oacs_root/tcl" directories.  The hack is to change this line in "zz-postload.tcl":

set dirs {www tcl}

to:

set dirs {www tcl add_your_dirs_here}

The REAL answer is to probably recursively descend through the oacs_root/www hierarchy looking for and loading *.xql files.

Thanks Robert, this works like a charm. I just tested it nested two levels deep.

Later today I will reclassify #193 to a doc suggestion, or just close it.

Well, all *.xql files below www are loaded, and it is possible to put the named queries for subsites into, say, index.xql in /www. I just checked it. However I find this solution a bit messy. IMHO it is more elegant to keep all files belonging to a particular subsite in a single directory, specified through the subsite parameter.

I will add an explanatory comment to the bug report, and let the powers that be decide what, if anything, should be done about it.

Jeff, I would certainly not mind giving a hand with testing. Feel free to mail it to me, though I will go to bed in a few hours. I'm currently running 4.6.1-beta1. Let me know if I should use something different.

Well thanks everybody for the help.  My (current) problem is all cleared up---clearly I need to check in with this forum more frequently since while I was busy teaching today I missed all your messages.

Right now I have the zz-postload file hand patched but tomorrow I'll put Jeff's patch into production and give it a thorough workout.