Static Pages Requirements
By Brandoch Calef
Introduction
This is the requirements document for the Static Pages package.
The Static Pages package searches the file system for static pages and
loads them into the database. Because all pages are stored in the
database, their contents are available to site-wide-search and other
packages. The system also accepts and displays user-contributed comments
on static pages. Site administrators may easily manage these functions
(to disallow comments on certain pages, for example) via the admin pages.
System/Application Overview
The Static Pages package stores every static page on the site in the
content repository so that they will be available to site-wide-search
and other packages.
When a commentable static page is requested, the general-comments
package is used to attach to it a list of existing comments
and an "add a comment" link.
In this way, the problems of storing and searching content and
managing comments are passed on to other packages.
Use-cases and User-scenarios
an administrator wants to know which static pages
contain the word "pomegranate" (without using
grep)
an administrator wants to allow users to make comments
on some pages but not on others
a user visiting the
ca-pomegranates.html page wants to register his
opinion about coastal vs. foothill pomegranates.
Related Links
Requirements
Admin UI: DB sync
The administrator's UI will include a command to synchronize the
database contents with the static files in the filesystem.
Admin UI: commentability designation
For any given static page, the administator will be able to
specify the following:
Whether comments may be made on the page
Whether comments are shown on the page
Whether the page is included in a site-wide search
[deferred]
Admin UI: index exclusion by pattern
An administrator will be able to exclude from the site-wide index
any static pages whose URL or title match a pattern.
Admin UI: commentability designation by pattern [deferred]
An administrator will be able to the commentability status of
any static pages whose URL or title match a pattern.
Admin UI: static pages report
An administrator will be able to view a report summarizing
the number, age, etc. of comments made on each static page.
[This requires support from general-comments. A feature request has
been put in.]
Public UI: commentable pages
When a user visits a static page on which comments are permitted,
the existing comments will be displayed (if the administrator has
designated that they should be) along with a link to add a new comment.
Support for site-wide search
The contents of static pages will be made available to the
site-wide-search package.
Non-requirements: ACS 3.x Static features
The ACS 3.x version of Static Pages would log each hit to a static
page so that it could produce a report showing who hit each page and
which pages a particular user visited. These functions belong in a
"clickstream" package that tracks statistics for all pages, not just
static ones.
ACS 3.x Static Pages also included a spider to visit each static
page and check for bad links. Again, this feature is not specific
to static pages, and is better addressed with a more general tool.
Implementation Notes
: implement by using
rp_register_extension_handler to register a proc for *.html files.
The registered proc will check if the page is commentable, and if so
make the necessary calls to general-comments. The "is this page
commentable?" query will be cached with util_memoize.
: site-wide-search can search
anything in the content repository, so that's where the pages
should be stored.
: implement
using CR folders to allow admins to exclude entire directories.
Designate commentability using the
general_comments_create privilege
defined by the general-comments
package.
Revision History
Document Revision #
Action Taken, Notes
When?
By Whom?
0.4
Cleaned up for release.
2001/03/05
Brandoch Calef
0.3
Some features really belong in general-comments,
and have been marked as such.
2001/02/27
Brandoch Calef
0.2
Incorporation of suggestions from mbryzek.
2001/01/23
Brandoch Calef
0.1
Creation
2001/01/19
Brandoch Calef
$Id: requirements.xml,v 1.1.1.1 2002/07/09 17:35:13 rmello Exp $