[Helma-dev] antville and helma libraries

[Tobi Schäfer]

hi there

as you might remember, robert and i solved the name conflict between  
antville's new first-letter uppercase File and Image prototypes and  
helma's built-in File and Image constructors by moving the latter into  
a different namespace called Helma (ie. the constructors are now called  
Helma.File and Helma.Image). [1]

moreover, in antville library there are already helma's well-known Ftp  
and Mail constructors rewritten in javascript. [2][3]

i consider to fuse all of these into a new cvs module called HelmaLib  
where further constructors (e.g. for a secure ftp or a better http  
client) also can be easily added, later.

therefor i suggest the following roadmap  (see below for details):

1. create a cvs module called HelmaLib
2. move the first four prototypes in there
3. remove redundant stuff from antvilleLib
4. enable helma to process jar files in zip files
5. add jar files to HelmaLib.zip
6. eventually remove built-in helma constructors as well as
     corresponding jar files in lib directory

if we keep the Helma prefix to create a distinct namespace, we then  
will get a nice library containing stuff which actually is optional,  
ie. not related to the helma core. this also could take some overweight  
from helma but i leave it up to hannes to remove the built-in stuff at  
any time.

the four prototypes rewritten and working in javascript i know about  
are:

    Helma.File
    Helma.Image
    Helma.Mail
    Helma.Ftp

for easy installation and a meaningful concept it should be possible to  
add java archives (jar files) to zip files with helma recognizing and  
processing these as such. we then could put the necessary java classes  
into the HelmaLib.zip file and avoid making HelmaLib users from having  
to add jar files to their application or lib directories manually.

please let me know what you think about this approach.

ciao,
tobi


--
[1  
]http://adele.helma.org/source/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/antville/Global/ 
Helma.js?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain
[2]  
http://adele.helma.org/source/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/antvilleLib/ 
global/FtpLibrary.js?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain
[3]  
http://adele.helma.org/source/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/antvilleLib/ 
global/MailLibrary.js?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain