NAME

OpenFrame::WebApp - OpenFrame tools for web applications.

SYNOPSIS

  use OpenFrame::WebApp;

  # read rest of documentation

DESCRIPTION

OpenFrame::WebApp is a Web Application toolkit for OpenFrame. It is based on the idea of OpenFrame::AppKit, but was designed to be more comprehensive.

The overall goals of the project is give you re-usable tools, but not tie you into doing things in only one way. So the tools are generic and extensible, and their inter-dependencies are minimal. Which means you can pick and choose which parts of the toolkit you want to use.

OBJECTS AND SEGMENTS

WebApp classes are broken down into 2 categories - regular objects and pipeline segments. If you're writing an MVC style application, the objects would be part of the Model, and the segments would be part of the controller. In WebApp, each set of objects usually has an associated set of segments.

Sessions

If you want to use sessions, you have to decide 2 things: how you want to store them locally, and how you want present them to the user. WebApp has abstract Session and Session::Loader classes to cover this. Here's an example of how you might use session files & cookies in your app:

  use Pipeline;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::Session::Factory;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::Session::CookieLoader;

  my $pipe  = new Pipeline;
  my $sfact = new OpenFrame::WebApp::Session::Factory()->type( 'file_cache' );
  $pipe->store->set( $sfact );
  $pipe->add_segment( new OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::Session::CookieLoader );

  ... add some segments that use the Session object ...

  $pipe->dispatch();

  # session is automatically saved at cleanup

Templates

If you want to use templates, you have to decide what template processing system to use: Template::Toolkit, HTML::Template, Petal, Embperl, XML::Template, Text::Template, ... There's plenty to choose from. WebApp can be extended to support them all, though out-of-the box it only supports a few. Here's an example of how your application might use TT2 templates:

  use Pipeline;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::Template::Factory;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::Session::CookieLoader;

  my $pipe  = new Pipeline;
  my $tfact = new OpenFrame::WebApp::Template::Factory()->type( 'tt2' );
  $pipe->store->set( $tfact );
  $pipe->add_segment( new OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::TemplateLoader );

  ... add some segments that use $tfact to generate templates ...

  $pipe->dispatch();

Users

Most applications have different requirements for their users, so we've made sure OpenFrame::WebApp::User is as generic as it gets - because we expect you to sub-class it to suit your needs. And you're bound to need to write your own user loader segments too. But here's an example of how you might load Users from the REMOTE_USER environment variable (set by Apache):

  use Pipeline;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::User;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::User::Factory;
  use OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::User::EnvLoader;

  my $pipe  = new Pipeline;
  my $ufact = new OpenFrame::WebApp::User::Factory()->type( 'webapp' );
  $pipe->store->set( $ufact );
  $pipe->add_segment( new OpenFrame::WebApp::Segment::User::EnvLoader );

  ... add some segments that use the User object ...

  $pipe->dispatch();

Errors

WebApp combines the Error module's exception model and the idea of error flags in OpenFrame::WebApp::Error. You can either keep using this model, or replace it with something else if you like.

Localization

No localization hooks in place yet.

Configuration

No configuration hooks in place yet (but see Pipeline::Config).

AUTHOR

Steve Purkis <spurkis@epn.nu>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2003 Steve Purkis. All rights reserved. Released under the same license as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

OpenFrame, OpenFrame::AppKit