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From: Igor Vaynberg <igor.vaynberg@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 15:47:01 -0700
Message-ID: <23eb48360910021547w3f87540fje6fcb4f6d40549@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: [wicket 1.5] url handling refactor preview
To: dev@wicket.apache.org
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as ive mentioned before, the focus of 1.5 will be the overhaul of how
we handle the urls and process requests. this part of wicket has grown
organically and has turned into a bunch of overcomplicated spaghetti
code.

matej and i (mostly matej) have been working on an clean room
implementation that we think will be simpler, cleaner, and allow users
to mangle their urls as much as they want.

the preview is available here:
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/wicket/sandbox/knopp/experimental/wicket-ng

with a tiny test webapp here

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/wicket/sandbox/knopp/experimental/wicket-ng-webapp

this is just a small prototype to allow us to feel out the api before
we begin the nightmarish task of merging this back into wicket proper.

the main package of interest is org.apache.wicket.request which
contains the two key players: RequestMapper and RequestHandler. these
two entities work together to resolve and process urls, facilitated by
the new and much simplified yet functional
org.apache.wicket.requset.cycle.RequestCycle.

the RequestHandler is analogous to IRequestTarget - its job is to
generate a response to user's request.

the RequestMapper is what maps urls to requesthandlers and back. this
is the backbone of url handling. the interface is quiet simple, yet
allows total flexibility. the mappers can be composed and chained,
producing any kind of url scheme desirable. as well as allowing users
to build the url hierarchy in any way they want rather then just
working with absolute mounts like in 1.4.

for example, the ever desirable /<locale>/<all else> url encoding
scheme is now easily achievable by creating a mapper to take care of
the /locale/ portion and chaining all other mappers behind that.

and for the other ever desirable usecase of mounting things like so:
/${user}/profile/${section}/detail there is now the
org.apache.wicket.request.mapper.MountedMapper

further, because mappers are chainable one can foresee a mapper who
doesnt manipulate the url, but instead enforces a security constraint
on a subset of url space.

of interest are also: org/apache/wicket/request/url-format.txt and
org/apache/wicket/page/page-management.txt

feedback is welcome. above all we would like to hear all your weird
and interesting url mapping scheme ideas so we can proof the api
against them.

-igor