webgen users - Jun 2007 - Plugin installation similar to rails

Hey all,

I''m considering including a plugin installation mechanism similar to  
the one available with the rails script/plugin command in the next  
major webgen version.

There would be a repository index located on the webgen homepage,  
something like http://webgen.rubyforge.org/plugin-repository.yaml.  
This file contains a list of repositories (http and ftp) which  
provide webgen plugin bundles. Each such repository then needs a file  
describing the available plugin bundles. And a plugin bundle is  
shipped as .tar.gz or .zip file (using minitar or rubyzip - what''s  
better?).

An example:

The file http://webgen.rubyforge.org/webgen-plugin-repositories.yaml  
contains:

<snip>
http://webgen.rubyforge.org: Main webgen plugin repository
http://other.website.org: An other webgen plugin repository
</snip>

Then their exists a file http://webgen.rubyforge.org/webgen- 
plugins.yaml which contains:

<snip>
NameOfPluginBundle:
   plugins:
     Support/MyTestPlugin:
       summary: Just a sample plugin
       author: Thomas Leitner <t_leitner at gmx.at>
     OtherPlugin:
       summary: other summary
       author: My Name <my_name at gmail.com>
   resources:
     sample/resource/name:
       desc: description of resource
</snip>

Then webgen provides a plugin command which can be used to
* show the available plugin bundles with several levels of detail  
(only plugin bundle names, plugin bundles with plugin/resource names,  
all information)
* install a plugin to a webgen website or the users webgen plugin  
directory
* anything else?

Does this sound good? Any comments? Is something like this useful for  
webgen?

   Thomas

On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 08:38:27PM +0200, Thomas Leitner
wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I''m considering including a plugin installation mechanism similar
to
> the one available with the rails script/plugin command in the next  
> major webgen version.
Very cool.
> There would be a repository index located on the webgen homepage,  
> something like http://webgen.rubyforge.org/plugin-repository.yaml.  
> This file contains a list of repositories (http and ftp) which  
> provide webgen plugin bundles. Each such repository then needs a file  
> describing the available plugin bundles. And a plugin bundle is  
> shipped as .tar.gz or .zip file (using minitar or rubyzip - what''s
> better?).
How about piggy-backing on rubygems and ''gem_plugin''? 
I''m doing some
work with gem_plugin right now and its dead simple to use and elegant to
boot.

[... snip example ...]
> Then webgen provides a plugin command which can be used to
> * show the available plugin bundles with several levels of detail  
> (only plugin bundle names, plugin bundles with plugin/resource names,  
> all information)
> * install a plugin to a webgen website or the users webgen plugin  
> directory
> * anything else?
> 
> Does this sound good? Any comments? Is something like this useful for  
> webgen?
It does sound useful, and I think what I''m working on right now might
provide some useful items to this effort.  Keep an eye out for
''rabal''
on ruby-talk in the near future.

enjoy,

-jeremy

-- 
======================================================================= Jeremy
Hinegardner                              jeremy at hinegardner.org