NAME

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::FileCache;
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::TT2;
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.

AUTHOR
Steve Purkis <[email protected]>

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

SEE ALSO
OpenFrame, OpenFrame::AppKit