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Message-ID: <488544CB.7040102@blueskyminds.com.au>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:24:11 +1000
From: Jeromy Evans <jeromy.evans@blueskyminds.com.au>
Organization: Blue Sky Minds Pty Ltd
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To: Struts Developers List <dev@struts.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Deprecate or remove Dojo plugin
References: <d8bdeb6f0807211035l14691269xb028379850606126@mail.gmail.com>
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Musachy Barroso wrote:
> With all the problems/questions and time that the ajax tags have
> caused, and not having any takers on porting to the latest Dojo
> release. I would propose to deprecate, or even remove the Dojo plugin,
> or at least let users know that we will not be upgrading to a newer
> Dojo version anytime soon. I still like the idea of some *very* basic
> tags to cover the most simple use cases, but I think Dojo was not the
> right tool for the job.
>
>   

This is a BIG call. Although I share the sentiment, the ajax tags are an 
often-stated "great feature" of S2.  At least, that's what users comment 
until they need to do something sophisticated with the underlying library.

I suggest an approach which is consistent with the above, should be in 
line with your thoughts Musachy and may even make Martin C happy:

There are some core tags that must be provided/maintained by S2:
 - remote div
 - async submit of a form, targetting a div
 - async get (anchor tag), targetting a div

We'd still supply those as tags as a minimum in say an "ajax plugin".

Rather than bundle ajax libraries with S2, we would only bundle a few 
templates for integration of those tags with common libraries.  We use 
the existing theme's for this:
eg.
  <s:submit theme="dojo" href="form.action"/>
  <s:submit theme="yui" href="form.action"/>
  <s:submit theme="jquery" href="form.action"/>
The templates implement the markup or inline javascript for a 
default/reference implementation.

The template for the s:head tag would include the default scripts to 
setup the library.
   <s:head theme="dojo"> will setup the bundled Dojo during the 
deprecated period
   <s:head theme="jquery"> will include jquery dependencies from a 
default/overridden location (supplied by user).
The s:head tag would be optional, but the user will be responsible for 
ensuring the library is available.

Library-specific extensions for the tags would be specified via dynamic 
attributes only.

All other dojo widget tags would be deprecated (tabbedPanel, autocompleter).

NOTE:
Ajax validation and client-side validation also deserve some discussion 
later.


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