RE: Managing Java web apps using CMS

WARs are used for packaging a Web application, in its entirety, based on
logical boundaries (i.e. a Web site) for distribution and deployment.

For those of you who are not familiar with Java, think of the WAR file as
being a ZIP file containing HTML documents, images, css, etc with all of the
relevant paths that will eventually be "deployed" (extracted) onto a Web
server.

You could manage the content before it gets created into WAR files using a
CMS (or MS Office), then write some custom scripts (using
deploytool/packager) that would create the WAR file and deploy after *each
content change* (in essence, this is same as modifying code and re-compiling
it in fat client application land) to a staging environment,
test/view/approve it, then deploy it to your production environment (live
JRun).

But I think that you should forego the "embedded" content altogether -- It
would make more sense calling a "content object" (which would inherit from
your "global" content/templates) that would have pre-defined rules and
methods for retrieving your content from a much more "CMS-friendly" format
such as XML or a DB.  Then, your "CMS" could be as simple as a WYSIWYG
editor front-end to your content repository (XML or DB) or a full-blown CMS
with version control, workflow, authorization, etc.

Stick with N-Tier principles (http://www.15seconds.com/issue/011023.htm) and
most CMSs will be able to integrate with it.



From: cms-list-admin-/[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Ethan Michaels
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 12:04 PM
To: cms-list-/[email protected]
Subject: [cms-list] Managing Java web apps using CMS


At our shop we are using J2EE to build Web apps. For example, we have
signup forms for some of our various programs implemented as servlet/JSP
applications. We will soon purchase a CMS. I am wondering how those two
things are going to go together. A lot of you probably know this already,
but with a J2EE application, what you do is package the whole application
into a ".war" file (.war : "Web archive") and place that into the annointed
directory of your application server (we're using JRun). Every part of the
app is inside this .war file — the program's servlets and other supporting
code in binary form (or the rough Java equivalent), and the JSP files which
are HTML pages with embedded Java code and tags. Page headers and footers,
nav bars, main content is all tied up inside the .war file.

This mode of operation does not seem like it would work in a CMS
environment. From what I understand, a CMS stores all these page elements
in a database and assembles them either at run time or in advance. But you
can't break a .war file apart and store the pieces in a database and still
have a working application.

I asked this question of a representative from Percussion about a year ago
and he said that we would keep our Web apps over here and our static pages
over there in the CMS and manage them separately. (They may have a better
answer now. That was a while back.) However, the Web apps are supposed to
share the appearance of the other pages on the site. So if we use the CMS
to change the page headers we'll have to go in to all our Web apps
individually and update the page headers. And if we change the navigation
structure that's going to be an even bigger hassle.

There are many Web apps and they are scattered throughout the site. So what
we really need is to manage their page elements at the same time that we
manage the elements of our HTML pages.

Any insight or information about this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ethan

--
http://cms-list.org/
more signal, less noise.

--
http://cms-list.org/
more signal, less noise.