Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] PHP-GW as backend to public site?

[Patrick Walsh (mr_e)]

> 1.  Forum uses nextmatches class, which refer to few things like
> PHPGW_TEMPLATE_DIR and theme colors.  It doesn't seem that we have
> access to theses things in the SiteMgr...

    I haven't looked at the NextMatches class recently, so I'm not sure what
needs to happen to make it work with SiteMgr.  If, however, you can make
calls to NextMatches that return data and not html (as one would hope is the
case) then it's just a matter of making a UI class to wrap it for doing
nextmatches in SiteMgr.
 
> 2.  There doesn't seem to be a system that allows to do things like
> $GLOBALS['phpgw']->link('/index.php','menuaction=forum.uiforum.index')
> to have direct access to the functions, which would allows me to just
> plug the ui as is...

    In fact, there is such a system.   In SiteMgr you can call one of two
functions: phpgw_link($url, $extravars) and sitemgr_link($url, $extravars).
These are in the functions.inc.php file.  Also, if you read the themes
readme file you'll see that in the template file or in the generated content
you can create {curly bracket} codes for automatically linking to things in
phpgw or sitemgr and properly handling paths, sessions, etc.

> 3.  We would like to have a read-only forum for the user anonymous (ie.:
> sitemgr).  This is not your problem, but anyway...

    ...
 
> I guess it is the sitemgr/doc/hooks-requirements.txt.   As I understand
> the way you see it, sitemgr will pass through all applications, and the
> ones which would have hook_sitemgr will then have one or more links in
> the "link bar" or something like this.  I don't understand the
> "properties" thing though...
   
    Let me see if I can explain better.  First, there's already a hooks
system in phpgw.  Phpgw allows an administrator to check for hooks in
different applications and stores a list of what apps are hooking where.
Any app that registers a sitemgr hook will become a module to be used on the
sitemgr site.

    When a site contributor creates or modifies a page, they will have the
option of just modifying the page's html content, or of adding a module (the
phpgw app -- though one app may have multiple modules) to the page.  When
the contributor adds a module to a page, the contributor gets to set the
module's properties.  For example, the forum module would probably have a
list of categories and the contributor might choose to display one category
or several.  The contributor may also be able to specify how many messages
are displayed and other things.

    To make the system even more flexible -- and this may be what confused
you with the properties -- an administrator can constrain the properties
that a contributor can change.  For example, if the forum module has a
property that determines whether or not a poster's e-mail is displayed, the
administrator might override the property so that the contributor can not
choose to show the e-mails in sitemgr.

    Now to be clear: modules are not listed individually on the site.  At
least not by default.  A page must be made and that page may contain one or
more modules, each with their own properties.

    Do you have a better picture for how this is going to work now?
  
> As I told you, we do need a public forum in the sitemgr as soon as
> possible, and I have some time for coding.  It will be nice to do it the
> nice way instead of patching all around, so i would be very glad to help
> you!

    Well, I certainly can't turn down an offer like that!  Are you willing
to help make the interface for managing modules?  I could sketch out what
the pages should look like and give you BO classes with functions that will
populate the information.

    Again, though, I'll be out of town all next week and then traveling
again in late October.  I'm not sure what your time frame is for this.  I
anticipate hooks support well before Thanksgiving.  Sooner with help from
you.  But once hooks support is up and running you'll still need to make
your forum hook...

    Let me know what you'd like to do.

..Patrick (mr_e)