After reading about the TCL API for content repository I got inspired and wrote one for acs_object_types. The syntax is basically the same but it generates all the code to build the database table plus the infrastructure for an acs_object_type. I also implemented the beginnings of an object_type editor and the routines for a no code ad_form interface as well as template::list.

The idea is you can create acs_object_types with a GUI interface then write out the definition in either TCL or plsql. The TCL interface is very handy because it's database independent and it creates all the acs_object_type metadata for free. The form and list code build the data structures for ad_form and template:list from the metadata. For example to create a form for an object:

ad_form -name object_type -mode $form_mode \
        -form [object_type::ad_form -form -object_type $object_type] \
        -select_query [object_type::ad_form -select_query -object_type $object_type] \
        -edit_data [object_type::ad_form -edit_data -object_type $object_type]

or

<include src="/packages/object-types/lib/form" object_type="@object_type@>

or for a list

template::list::create \
        -name attributes \
        -multirow attributes \
        -elements [object_type::list -elements -object_type acs_attribute] \
        -filters {
                object_type {}
        }

The code special cases acs_object_type and acs_attribute to make them appear as acs_object_types even though they are not. This allows the GUI to be built with the form generating code.

I built something similar for my previous project but I was not suitable for general release. The goal of this package is to build on top of the existing datamodel and templating system so it can be useful to a broad audience.

TODO:

• Implement enough of the ad_form interface to create and save any object_type
• Allow objects to contain other objects. For example a contact could be a person and an address object.
• Port to Postgres
• Allow selecting of attributes to display
• Make acs_attributes real objects and build permissions into the form builder

See here for a sample. The TCL Object Def link will generate PL/SQL from a TCL list. The other links show the beginning of an object_type editor and the form builder. Saves have been disabled so clicking around should be harmless. I'll be hacking on the code throughout the day so you might see a request error or two.

comments?

Also I think we can really just get by with a single object create type Tcl API ...

I'm going to write some TIPs now ... do you want to collaborate on some of this stuff, Barry?

The previous version I wrote used object_types and attributes to build the metadata model first. At some point you could then generate the database code and run it. You could also modify the metadata later and generate the alter table statements. It seems like the CR and object_types should work the same way. I just started using the CR so I'm not all that familiar with it.

The previous version I wrote supported objects in objects to any depth although more than 4 is not really that practical. It also supported 1 or more via max_n_values. I did not use the templating system because it was too slow (we had hundreds of objects per form). I think ad_form will work fine for any reasonable form. There needs to be an storage mechanism similar to generic but supporting multiple values per object. I also implemented a not so generic storage that could store datatypes like numbers and dates in something other than a varchar(4000).

The CMS also already includes code for building types dynamically from a web UI ...

This isn't new news, the only thing new is that some of us have time to start breaking this stuff out in usable form rather than just sit around and talk about it as we've done the last year and a half or so (except Jun, who's put a lot of work into CR Tcl API stuff).

Anyway before tossing this stuff out and starting over, I'd like to investigate reusing it ... I know Karl Goldstein and friends put a lot of thought and work into it.

I was just digging in the CMS code to see what Don was referring to. cms/tcl/form-proc.tcl.content::get_revision_form builds up template::element create statements based on metadata and evaluates them as it goes. I was thinking that instead this could be tweaked to write out a tcl file much like bcms can "publish" a template/datasource pair.

content::process_revision_form looks pretty cool, too. Probably a plenty to debug and bring up to date here, but there is definitely a fair amount of work already done.

Sorry I missed this post.

I have a version for Oracle that works well enough to use, but everytime I look at it I think it's the wrong approach. If acs_attributes/acs_object_types where acs_objects and acs_attribute.new created the database columes then the TCL api becomes: package_instantiate_object. Either way acs_attribute.new needs to create the columns, the only real issue would be that the acs_object_types table would need an acs_object_type_id column.

I'll gather the code up and post it somewhere. The one issue with acs_attribute creating tables is in Oracle you have to grant create table role to the user id.