Forum OpenACS Q&A: openacs 5.0 questions

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Posted by Chris Davies on
After a bunch of work, I was able to install the OpenACS 5.0 tarball.  I then installed the CVS version and ran into the same issues, so I wanted to confirm that I am indeed seeing the behavior that should be expected.

The 5.0 tarball appears to be only a set of core modules, which is fine for doing some development.  But I wanted to look at a few other modules, Lars Blogger, News and a few other modules in 5.0 to compare them to 4.6.3.

In the admin, I go to Install Software, Install New Application from the OACS Repository, and click Install next to Lars Blogger.  The message at this point says tells me that I am missing TrackBack 0.1d.  Ok, seems reasonable that something is missing.

So, I try to install News -- to replicate a site that I use under 4.6.3, It tells me that I need to install some packages, so I go ahead and click Install.

At this point a little night-rider indicator sits on the screen motioning back and forth like it is doing something, but, the Title of the document changes to Request Error.  Even though the indicator still looks like it is doing something, the request has definitely stopped and returns with:

HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error Expires: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:34:45 GMT Pragma: no-cache Cache-Control: no-cache Server: AOLserver/4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:34:47 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 2948 Connection: close
Request Error

could not read "": no such file or directory
    while executing
"file mtime $path"
    (procedure "apm_read_package_info_file" line 6)
    invoked from within
"apm_read_package_info_file $spec_file_path"
    (procedure "apm_package_install" line 4)
    invoked from within
"apm_package_install  -enable  -package_path $package_path  -load_data_model  -data_model_files $data_model_files  $spec_file"
    ("foreach" body line 44)
    invoked from within
"foreach package_key $install {
    ns_log Notice "Installing $package_key"

    array unset version
    array set version $repository($package_key..."
    ("uplevel" body line 49)
    invoked from within
"uplevel {
          ad_page_contract {
    Install packages -- actual installation

    @param install Tcl list of packages to install in the order in wh..."
    (procedure "code::tcl::/var/www/aolserver4/daviesinc.com/packages/acs-ad..." line 2)
    invoked from within
"code::tcl::$__adp_stub"
    invoked from within
"if { [file exists $__adp_stub.tcl] } {

      # ensure that data source preparation procedure exists and is up-to-date
      adp_init tcl $__adp_stub
..."
    ("uplevel" body line 3)
    invoked from within
"uplevel {

    if { [file exists $__adp_stub.tcl] } {

      # ensure that data source preparation procedure exists and is up-to-date
      adp_init t..."
    (procedure "adp_prepare" line 2)
    invoked from within
"adp_prepare "
    (procedure "template::adp_parse" line 30)
    invoked from within
"template::adp_parse [file root [ad_conn file]] {}"
    (procedure "adp_parse_ad_conn_file" line 7)
    invoked from within
"$handler"
    ("uplevel" body line 2)
    invoked from within
"uplevel $code"
    invoked from within
"ad_try {
                $handler
            } ad_script_abort val {
                # do nothing
            }"
    invoked from within
"rp_serve_concrete_file [ad_conn file]"
    (procedure "rp_serve_abstract_file" line 60)
    invoked from within
"rp_serve_abstract_file "$root/$path""
    ("uplevel" body line 2)
    invoked from within
"uplevel $code"
    invoked from within
"ad_try {
    rp_serve_abstract_file "$root/$path"
    set tcl_url2file([ad_conn url]) [ad_conn file]
    set tcl_url2path_info([ad_conn url]) [ad_conn path_inf..."

So I thought, well, maybe the News module works from CVS.  So I installed the CVS copy, proceeded through the same things, ended up with the screen with the night-rider indicator which just goes back and forth, and lo and behold, the same error as above is listed.

Almost any module other than core does the same thing.  I realize 5.0 is still under development, so is it just a matter of waiting a little until more modules are converted over?  Or am I missing something basic?

I must say that my initial impressions of 5.0 are that there has been an incredible amount of effort put forth and it looks great.  From a UI standpoint, only the indicator that mindlessly carries on even though the page has faulted brings a little confusion.  I can remember writing cb86 programs that used the blink attribute -- people would sit there for hours waiting for that:  Please Wait  to continue on -- only to find that the program had silently terminated.  I'm wondering if an onload handler might be able to change the status of the bar to red if it gets executed -- at least indicating that something needs to be checked.

I do look forward to 5.0's release with great anticipation.  It looks like it is the right toolkit for a number of projects.