I thought I'd install BCMS and use it for learning the Content Repository service. I put the bcms directory from /contrib into the packages directory and installed it using the package manager.

In index.tcl, I changed:
  set cr_folder_root [bcms::get_cr_folder_root]
to:
  set cr_folder_root [bcms::folder::get_cr_root_folder]


Then I tried to view 'index'  but [parameter::get -parameter bcms_root] returns nothing (maybe because the parameter is not configured)

On the other hand. the bcds package installed three parameters (bcms_root_folder_id, root_folder_id, context). How does it do this? on which file?

How does a package install parameters? File bcms.info does not specify any parameters.

Hi Nagita,

I am the author of bcms.  Currently the bcms in the CVS is a bit out of synch.  I will be deleting the bcms/www dir.  Which was not meant to be used anymore.  You will need bcms-ui-*.  Like bcms-ui-wizard to actually manage the content.  Although as of now I have not yet update bcms-ui-wizard to reflect the changes I have made on bcms.  I will be commiting a new UI bcms package about next week.  Which should be in synch with the bcms.  The new UI looks more of like explorer or nautilus in concept, no wizardy wiz.  The wizard UI was asked by a client, although I plan to still update it too.

The older bcms-ui-wizard you needed to manually set the parameter through the site-map UI set parameter.  The newer UI has an admin UI for you to create a folder and select a folder on CR, if those parameters are not yet set.

Currently bcms is not the best way to learn CR, maybe in few weeks when things are in more stable shape.  The new UI will also come with includable forms, list builder template.

Hi David,

Current code I have has pretty ok functionality.  I can commit to contrib.  But not yet a out of the box package yet, still has lot of rough edges.  Major added stuff is draft search widget.  And bcms-ui-base can now relate items just like bcms-ui-wizard.

I am not sure if it can be used from production site.  Atleast older code was used for one.  But the newer code, still have to test.  One thing to note of is that bcms is a data model less package.  It current does have some plsql, but all of them are more less patches.  CR's data model is pretty solid already.

If you can help development then I will commit more to contrib more frequently.  I also kinda forgot to meet with Nagita.

bcms-ui-base currently needs list builder that is on head and I have a ad_page_contract that is patched to better work with includes.

Hi David,

No I haven't done any widget for that.


Jun

Hi Mark,

Not you too... its Jun.  Not Yun.


The bcms package should be near latest.  Both me and Lars are doing modification on it.  Lars has upped the requirement that it requires 5.0 CR.  You can force install in on 4.6.3 and run bcms-compat.sql.  Please take note that I have patched some CR plsql, I haven't fully tested them for compatibility.  Don't install bcms on a CR production site yet unless you know what you are doing.

Once its installed you install bcms-ui-base.  I need to commit a the latest code though.  You will also need to copy/move the files from /bcms-ui-base/templates to acsroot/templates.  Anyway when you visit bcms-ui-base as admin you should be redirected to /admin url.  Set the content folder and template folder.  I recommend that you create a sub folder as those are CR root's folder.  There will be missing files in bcms-ui-base which are the custom content types on my current project.  Aside from that it should be workable.  I haven't tested yet though.

I plan to roll out a tar ball or apm for the 2 packages maybe bcms-ui-wizard too.  Anyway just tell me how it went so I can fix it up for general consumption.

The admin interface of bcms-ui-base can create the folders in CR.  Just create the folders, otherwise you will be using CR's root folder, which is ok too.

On a side note folders created on template root folder will be published by the CR on a periodic time on acsroot/templates.  Please avoid using "public" and "bcms-ui-base" folder name on the template folder.

Don't try to intsall BCMS. Its not really supported, and probably doesn't work in recent versions of OpenACS. In genearl Xowiki is a much better content management solution and fills the space BCMS used to fill.

It looks like its using the template database api which has been superseded by the db_* apis.

You can probably write the missing template:: procedures to handle the queries.

For get_db_handle, the db_apis take of of database handles automatically.

You can probably also find the ACS 4.2 tcl procedures and use them in a newer OpenACS without changes.