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A proposal for a unified interface to access Tikiwiki data

TikiObject

General goals:

  • Improve the Tikiwiki infrastructure for the future
  • Allow smooth transition from the current structure
  • Improve performance

Userland


Goals:

  • Readable, because we spend more time reading code than writing it
  • Unified, to make it easy to jump from one section to the other from the code
  • Expandable, to let features be added easily without compromising the code base
  • Easy, to reduce the learning curve


Samples:

  • The following samples are only proposal

Create a new object
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<?php $page = TikiObject::create( 'wiki page' ); $page['name'] = "HelloWorld"; $page['lang'] = 'en'; $page['description'] = 'Sample page to draw out TikiObject'; $page->content = "!Hello Sample content !World ..."; $page->save(); ?>


Syntax details:

  • Factory method to build a new object with object type as parameter
  • Brackets used to store indexable data
  • Property used to store large data like wiki text blocks
  • Unified save method
  • Fully abstracted from the storage

Edit and use existing object
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<?php $page = TikiObject::fetch( 'wiki page', 123 ); $page['award'] = "Editor's Choice"; $page->save(); $smarty->assign( 'current', $page ); // echo TikiLib::parse_data( $page['content'] ); echo TikiLib::parse_data( $page->content ); ?>


Syntax details:

  • Factory method to obtain existing objects
  • Unified save applies to updates as well as creation
  • Object can be passed around freely
  • Reading values can be done from either properties or brackets to make it easier to access from templates

Collection handling
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<?php $list = TikiCollection::query( array( 'core', 'meta' ) ) ->include( 'wiki page' ) ->like( 'name', 'Hello%' ) ->between( 'creationDate', time() - 3600*24*30, time() - 3600*24*15 ) ->exists( 'award' ) ->fetch(); $pageNames = $list->getArray( 'name' ); foreach( $list as $object ) unset( $object['award'] ); $list->update(); foreach( $list as $object ) echo $object; ?>


Syntax details:

  • Fluent interface to build the query
  • Selection of selected fields
  • Batch collection operations to manipulate objects

Backend


Goals:

  • Storage independence, to adapt to specific needs, allow refactoring
  • Be usable with the current database structure
  • Allow flexibility to add meta-data and custom fields
  • Support batch operations to scale


Big picture:

  • Allow both standard normalized table storage and column-based storage
  • Object type definitions using a pluggable architecture
  • Each field defines it's own storage method
  • Object types define the hooks to be called on various operations to suit specific needs

Proposed interfaces
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<?php /** * $objectType refers to the name of the object type, like 'wiki page', 'fgal', ... * Properties and array indices are alphanumeric and follow the camelCase convension. * Reserved names: id, objectType */ class TikiObject implements ArrayAccess { /** * Initialization function */ static function registerHandler( TikiObject_TypeHandler $handler ) { /* ... */ } static function create( $objectType ) { /* ... */ } static function fetch( $objectType ) { /* ... */ } function save() { /* ... */ } function __get( $name ) { /* ... */ } function __set( $name, $value ) { /* ... */ } } interface TikiObject_TypeHandler { function getFields(); function acceptsMetaData(); /** * Pre- hooks return a boolean. Operation will not be performed * unless the function returns true. */ function preCreate( TikiObject $object ); function postCreate( TikiObject $object ); function preUpdate( TikiObject $object ); function postUpdate( TikiObject $object ); function preDelete( TikiObject $object ); function postDelete( TikiObject $object ); } /** * Proposed to use Zend_Filter and Zend_Validate. */ class TikiObject_Field { function getFilters() { /* ... */ } function getValidators() { /* ... */ } function getName() { /* ... */ } function getLabel() { /* ... */ } function getStorage() { /* ... */ } } interface TikiObject_Storage { function save( $objects ); } ?>


Proposed classes:

  • TikiObject_WikiHandler, TikiObject_TrackerHandler, TikiObject_TrackerFieldHandler, ...
  • TikiObject_TableStorage, TikiObject_ColumnStorage, TikiObject_AmazonS3?, ...


Object collaboration:
Image

Remaining issues:

  • Error handling
  • Storage layer details / batch support
  • Caching

Keywords

The following is a list of keywords that should serve as hubs for navigation within the Tiki development and should correspond to documentation keywords.

Each feature in Tiki has a wiki page which regroups all the bugs, requests for enhancements, etc. It is somewhat a form of wiki-based project management. You can also express your interest in a feature by adding it to your profile. You can also try out the Dynamic filter.

Accessibility (WAI & 508)
Accounting
Administration
Ajax
Articles & Submissions
Backlinks
Banner
Batch
BigBlueButton audio/video/chat/screensharing
Blog
Bookmark
Browser Compatibility
Calendar
Category
Chat
Comment
Communication Center
Consistency
Contacts Address book
Contact us
Content template
Contribution
Cookie
Copyright
Credits
Custom Home (and Group Home Page)
Database MySQL - MyISAM
Database MySQL - InnoDB
Date and Time
Debugger Console
Diagram
Directory (of hyperlinks)
Documentation link from Tiki to doc.tiki.org (Help System)
Docs
DogFood
Draw -superseded by Diagram
Dynamic Content
Preferences
Dynamic Variable
External Authentication
FAQ
Featured links
Feeds (RSS)
File Gallery
Forum
Friendship Network (Community)
Gantt
Group
Groupmail
Help
History
Hotword
HTML Page
i18n (Multilingual, l10n, Babelfish)
Image Gallery
Import-Export
Install
Integrator
Interoperability
Inter-User Messages
InterTiki
jQuery
Kaltura video management
Kanban
Karma
Live Support
Logs (system & action)
Lost edit protection
Mail-in
Map
Menu
Meta Tag
Missing features
Visual Mapping
Mobile
Mods
Modules
MultiTiki
MyTiki
Newsletter
Notepad
OS independence (Non-Linux, Windows/IIS, Mac, BSD)
Organic Groups (Self-managed Teams)
Packages
Payment
PDF
Performance Speed / Load / Compression / Cache
Permission
Poll
Profiles
Quiz
Rating
Realname
Report
Revision Approval
Scheduler
Score
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search
Security
Semantic links
Share
Shopping Cart
Shoutbox
Site Identity
Slideshow
Smarty Template
Social Networking
Spam protection (Anti-bot CATPCHA)
Spellcheck
Spreadsheet
Staging and Approval
Stats
Survey
Syntax Highlighter (Codemirror)
Tablesorter
Tags
Task
Tell a Friend
Terms and Conditions
Theme
TikiTests
Federated Timesheets
Token Access
Toolbar (Quicktags)
Tours
Trackers
TRIM
User Administration
User Files
User Menu
Watch
Webmail and Groupmail
WebServices
Wiki History, page rename, etc
Wiki plugins extends basic syntax
Wiki syntax text area, parser, etc
Wiki structure (book and table of content)
Workspace and perspectives
WYSIWTSN
WYSIWYCA
WYSIWYG
XMLRPC
XMPP




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