And, of course, this is why facelets is so appropriate for the task:
facelets was designed not for text rendering, but for object graph
construction. JSP and Velocity just render text.
On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Gavin King <gavin.king(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I just don't buy this. On the contrary, the Seam mail
functionality is
NOT just rendering a bit of text, which is what I tried to explain,
but nobody seems to be "getting". The template actually builds an
object, with to/from addresses, a subject line, headers, etc.
On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 12:55 PM, Jason Porter <lightguard.jp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't think it would be too terrible to get it to a point where
> the actual template engine isn't much of a concern. Really it's how
> do I take these Java Objects I've built up and transform them into
> Java Mail / iText / jxl / etc am I right? This seems like a much
> bigger problem to tackle than which template engine we use.
> Unfortunately the template engine is seeming to drive the backend
> transformation process :(
>
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 10:00, Pete Muir <pmuir(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 24 May 2010, at 16:47, Lincoln Baxter, III wrote:
>>
>>> If what I'm hearing is correct, people aren't so much concerned with
using JSF as a templating language, but they are concerned with having "some
kind" of templating, and the ability to access data from the current request.
>>
>> So far I've heard one person say this. I've heard 10-100s say they really
like using JSF.
>>
>>>
>>> If that's the case, then it would be incredibly easy to plug in Velocity
or another templating system and still provide this functionality. Much easier I believe,
in fact, than sledgehammering JSF into a non-servlet-like invocation environment.
>>>
>>> I personally think we should start with a different templating system (since
Seam is supposed to be view-layer agnostic anyway.) But I also think that having parallel
prototyping going on is a good thing, we can use everyone's combined experiences with
the prototypes to come up with a truly decoupled and user-centric system.
>>
>> Right now, JSF is the key thing to get implemented.
>>
>>>
>>> My big question is... JSF templating is nice, but... what do people truly
need?
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>> --Lincoln
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 10:22 AM, Pete Muir <pmuir(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>>> Nikolay,
>>>
>>> I think it would help people understand your proposal better if you gave an
example of your proposed syntax using another templating engine. Perhaps take one of the
example emails from Seam2 and rewrite it...
>>>
>>> On 24 May 2010, at 05:01, Nikolay Elenkov wrote:
>>>
>>> > On 2010/05/24 12:46, Gavin King wrote:
>>> >> On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Nikolay Elenkov
<nick(a)sarion.co.jp> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >>> I don't know how much better JSF2 is at this, but is it
really a good idea to
>>> >>> use JSF for the mail module? Wouldn't it be better to use a
real templating
>>> >>> engine (like Velocity) and not depend on JSF?
>>> >>
>>> >> Huh?! What on earth does velocity have that makes it a
"real"
>>> >> templating engine that facelets does not have? I have used both, and
I
>>> >> found velocity far, far poorer in both syntax and semantics.
>>> >
>>> > OK, bad wording on my part. The point was not be dependent on JSF. I am
not
>>> > saying that Velocity is better. But it does allow you to have template
that
>>> > are not XML files.
>>> >
>>> >>
>>> >>> Plus it would be easier
>>> >>> to edit templates if they are not xhtml files, but simple text
files.
>>> >>
>>> >> Why? Cos XML files are not text files? Cos #foo #end is easier to
edit
>>> >> than <foo></end>? I don't see how what you just
wrote can possibly be
>>> >> true.
>>> >
>>> > Yes, it is. Especially if you are not a developer. You can just tell
people:
>>> > 'don't touch this things starting with #, otherwise just edit in
notepad'.
>>> >
>>> >>
>>> >>> The usual
>>> >>> use case for mail templating is to provide files your users can
edit if they
>>> >>> want to customize how email looks like. And you can't really
expect them to
>>> >>> understand xhtml.
>>> >>
>>> >> They are XML files. I can't imagine a Java developer who
doesn't know
>>> >> XML. I do know several Java developers who find velocity syntax
>>> >> nausea-inducing. I'm one of them.
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > Again, this is not about pro-Velocity, anit-Faceltes. The people that
would have
>>> > to edit templates are *users*, not *Java developers*. If you have to
call up
>>> > your developers just to change the email template, you have failed at
usability.
>>> >
>>> >> Please try actually reading the Seam mail documentation:
>>> >>
>>> >>
http://docs.jboss.com/seam/1.1.5.GA/reference/en/html/mail.html
>>> >
>>> > I have. I've also been thorough the source, tried to use it and then
gave up.
>>> >
>>> >> I don't see how most of the functionality could be achieved in
>>> >> velocity, eg. <m:from>, <m:to>, <m:subject>,
<m:header>.
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > s/velocity/any templating engine you might like/g. I am repeating myself
here,
>>> > but you cannot reallisticaly expect users to mess around with
<m:header> and not
>>> > break the system.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > seam-dev mailing list
>>> > seam-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
>>> >
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/seam-dev
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> seam-dev mailing list
>>> seam-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
>>>
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/seam-dev
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Lincoln Baxter, III
>>>
http://ocpsoft.com
>>>
http://scrumshark.com
>>> "Keep it Simple"
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> seam-dev mailing list
>> seam-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
>>
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/seam-dev
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jason Porter
>
> Software Engineer
> Open Source Advocate
>
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--
Gavin King
gavin.king(a)gmail.com
http://in.relation.to/Bloggers/Gavin
http://hibernate.org
http://seamframework.org