Snitz Forums 2000 - Make the forum output XML

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Make the forum output XML

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Ghostnetworks
New Member

95 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 00:27:38

This'll take care of the templating woes a lot of people are having, since the output is generic to all layouts.

This way the forum doesn't rely on HTML or English for that matter to get the data out. A little like phpBB with templates, but no HTML.

The default page can be like this...


<main>
	<title>Snitz Forums 2000</title>
	<meta>
		<currUser>Ghostnetworks</currUser>
		<stats>
			<users>25766</users>
			<posts>22012</posts>
			<forums>44</forums>
			<last>29 March 2005 23:51:36</last>
			<lastPost>andretti</lastPost>
		</stats>
	</meta>
	<categories>
		<category>
			<title>Announcements</title>
			<forums>
				<forum>
					<title>Snitz Forums 2000 Mailing Lists</title>
					<topics>2</topics>
					<posts>2</posts>
					<lastDate>20 Semptember 2004</lastDate>
					<lastPostBy>HuwR</lastPostBy>
				</forum>
			</forums>
		</category>
	</categories>
</main>

Abbreviated, but you get the idea. The categories can repeat, so can the forums and their properties.

See how little the code needs to print out? The rest can be taken care of in a XSL file.

I'm going to try and do this, so assuming I don't have a seizure in the process

, I may end up with an even more flexible Snitz Forum.

Podge
Support Moderator

Ireland
3775 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 05:54:17

I thought about doing this before. It would make templates fairly easy to implement, you just need a different xsl file for each template.

My only concern at the time was browser compatability.

Podge.

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-gary
Development Team Member

406 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 12:40:00

They've done this with the ASP-DEv forum that Snitz was derived from.

KawiForums.com

Podge
Support Moderator

Ireland
3775 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 13:43:57

http://www.asp-dev.com/forum/

It displays for me in Firefox and Opera 7 but not IE6.

Weird ?

Ghostnetworks
New Member

95 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 19:06:02

quote:
Originally posted by Podge

http://www.asp-dev.com/forum/

It displays for me in Firefox and Opera 7 but not IE6.

It worked for me in IE6.. Try again?

quote:
Originally posted by Podge

My only concern at the time was browser compatability.

What I was thinking is that have the XML put into a string.
Instead of...

Response.Write(Some_Value)

You can just have...

strXML = strXML & "<block>" & Some_Value & "</block>"

Then you can just have the script grab an XSL file from the profile ( preferred skin ) settings and parse it and then Response.Write() after all is done. This way, you don't rely on the user browsers.


Dim XSLdoc = SomeMethod() 'Cookies or something
Response.Write(TransformDocument(strXML, XSLdoc))

I got the idea after a client wanted a robust forum and I really, really wanted to use Snitz. The problem is that the client wants it ultra minimalist. Since I can't charge for the forum, I thought it would be easier for me to setup Snitz as a general distributable package I can install for each client with a few clicks and focus on the HTML and the graphics.

I should also mention... For the developer team, updating Snitz afterwards should be significantly easier, since most of the core functions and page generation would be separated from the interface.
Your code would be a lot cleaner, so easier to find and remove bugs or add new features.

Let's say you decide to add another function "<browsingThisForum>".
You don't have to mess with the core code to print this. Just add it to the <meta> of the XML.


strXML = strXML & "<browsingThisForum>" & SomeMethod() & "<browsingThisForum>"

Now the XSL file can have this...

<span class="someStyle">There are <xsl:value-of select="meta/browsingThisForum" /> members browsing this forum</span>

See? No mess in the core code, and complete customizability without "breaking"

After going about this for the last two days, I get the feeling I may not be able to do this alone

. Anyone else interested in helping?

Podge
Support Moderator

Ireland
3775 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 19:43:56

I'd love to help but I'm bogged down with college stuff at the moment.

This is the closest example of what I was thinking of (look at the source) -
Xml doc - http://www.google.com/googleblog/atom.xml
Stylesheet - http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css

There are pros and cons for using XSLT. If you use it to transform the xml doc into html it places an extra load on the server having the benefit of being able to be viewed by most browsers but if you use an xsl stylesheet there is no extra load on the server but browser compatability issues can arise.

The Snitz forums development team have always ensured that Snitz will run on as many windows servers (NT, 2000, 2003) and some Unix ones while also being compatable with most browsers. I'm sure that even before it could be considered here you would have to find a way to satisfy both of those requirements.

Ghostnetworks
New Member

95 Posts

Posted - 30 March 2005 : 20:27:45

Hmm.. I see your point about compatibility. Thanks for being interested though.
The only thing I can think of would be a browser and OS detection system for the client depending on what's available instead of always parsing the XML. There are still some limitations, but that way, the cons would be alleviated somewhat.

On UNIX, Apache would output pure XML with a matching stylesheet and allow the browser to parse or use an external XSL component if available. e.g XSL-FO.
On Windows, IIS would output XML already parsed.
Of course only if the browser is known not to support XML would the output be parsed on the server.

I still think this way, the pros far outweigh the cons.

Since the dev team would be concerned about not keeping their compatibility promise, I think the rest of us should take this on. How about a separate Snitz developer variant then?

The original Snitz can be for all end users, and the developer variant would specifically target designers and programmers.

I just re-read the "Improved Posting Page" of the Snitz feature list.
Think about a second chance page to enter your subject line, in case JavaScript is disabled or not available in the browser? Screen readers for the visually impared, don't have JavaScript capability. And the web is for everyone.

"missing_elements.asp" Can have a form specifically for gathering missing information in a submission without using JavaScript. It can be generic for all forms on Snitz and not just for posting. Logins, Editing etc..

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