Forum OpenACS Q&A: Question about OpenACS architecture

Posted by Irma Gamez on 03/19/12 02:52 AM

Hello.
How a package interoperates with other components? Is there some kind of protocol? I developed a new package and I wonder if I could use other packages. Calendar, by example.

Thank you.

2: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 03/19/12 02:15 PM

There aren't any set points of integration between packages. You can create dependencies on other packages and use the features of that package by calling the procedures defined in that package and using the page/templates in that package.

Some packages have templates that are reusable in another package under the packagekey/lib/ directory.

3: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 2)

Posted by Irma Gamez on 03/19/12 06:24 PM

Ahh, Ok. So, communication between components (e.g. OpenACS core packages and Applications) uses dependencies too? Like OO?

Thank you.

4: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 2)

Posted by Jeff Rogers on 03/20/12 12:27 AM

There's also service contracts, which are sort of like overloaded methods. For example if your package wanted to post events to the calendar it could use a theoretical "create event" service contract to do it. The benefit of doing it this way would be that your package could then work with any calendar which implemented that contract.

See http://openacs.org/doc/acs-service-contract/ for the overview, or browse into the app pages on your installation to look around more. You can see for example that many packages implement the contract for "FtsContentProvider", so that any full-text search engine can get the right text to index.

5: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 1)

Posted by marwa mimo on 07/26/12 01:43 AM

Hi. I'm looking for someone how can explain to me the conception of openacs's database. I'm developping an application and I can't understand exactly how to exploit my database and witch relations related the different tables. Please, is there someone that can help me?
Thank you.

6: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 5)

Posted by Torben Brosten on 07/26/12 06:03 AM

Marwa Mimo,

Take a look at the package and platform developer's guide of the core documentation at: http://www.openacs.org/doc/

cheers,

Torben

7: Re: Question about OpenACS architecture (response to 6)

Posted by marwa mimo on 07/29/12 03:12 AM

Torben Brosten,
thanks a lot.