Hi all,

I saw a lot of talking about developing for the web on the forum lately, but no new code. But as I read the last messages ok, there are some people working on this.

Extpascal is nice, but Ext JS is dual-licensed, which is a problem for some people. And it's fcgi-only. (I saw something about a cgi-connection or something?)

And it's not that hard, in fact it's easy. The difficult part is to write an javascript-framework, but when it's already there.. building an interface is easily done. Especially if the fcl-web is used as the basic building blocks. Then apache-modules, cgi and fastcgi are supported out-of-the-box.

So I've made a simple proof-of-concept. I didn't think the design through, a lot can be changed. It's not only nound to jQuery, it should be possible to use other javascript-frameworks. First version used Qooxdoo, but I didn't really liked it...

I created a new jQueryLaz package, it only contains a grid-component, using the jGrid plugin for jQuery.

Attached is the source with an example. Install the package and compile the example. (Change the parameters so it fits to your database) Place the resulting executable on a web-server and configure it so it's recognized as an cgi-application. You also have to download jQuery and jGrid and place those files in the same directory as the cgi-appliation.

It's pretty simple but easy to extend. I hope there will grow something out of it.

for those who want to know how it looks like:
http://menora.cnoc.nl/extern/jquery/fpcjquery.psp

Joost.

And the attachment...

Joost
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(I saw something about a cgi-connection or something?)

ExtPascal has CGI gateway which accept request and forward it to an FCGI application. You may look at how it works here: http://code.google.com/p/extpascal/wiki/Overview

Extpascal is nice, but Ext JS is dual-licensed, which is a problem for some people. And it's fcgi-only. (I saw something about a cgi-connection or something?)

I could understand if ExtJS license becomes problem for some people. But I don't understand why FCGI is the problem, unless you want to host your application in common web hosting that doesn't provide FCGI. I myself moved from Powtils to ExtPascal because it supports FCGI (long before fpWeb supports FCGI). I got significant performance boost and enhance my development productivity because I can debug it as if it's a normal (desktop) application.

I agree.

So I've made a simple proof-of-concept. I didn't think the design through, a lot can be changed. It's not only nound to jQuery, it should be possible to use other javascript-frameworks. First version used Qooxdoo, but I didn't really liked it...

Why don't you like qooxdoo? I thought it's the best alternative for ExtJS despite it's not yet released as v.1 (like Lazarus). It's code is neat, it's OOP is good (in fact IMO it's closer to object pascal), it's widget collection is quite complete, it's theming is easy and can be done through code, and it's development is pretty active. I'm about to working on it after ExtPascal is done with ExtJS v.3.0.

jQuery doesn't have widgets as much as ExtJS or qooxdoo, CMIIW. jQuery development, because its popularity, scattered through out plugins. Sometimes we got inconsistency look and behavior of their widgets because it's developed by different and uncoordinated people.

for those who want to know how it looks like: http://menora.cnoc.nl/extern/jquery/fpcjquery.psp

Nice! BTW, it's funny people keep using .psp extension for pascal web applications (pascal server page?). I also use .psp extension! :D

Op maandag 08-06-2009 om 07:59 uur [tijdzone +0700], schreef Bee:

That's all fine, but imho the fcl-web design is far more flexible. Adding fcgi-support was only two hours work. Other systems can be added as wel. Next on my list is a native web-server using lnet, so that debugging is even easier. (I'm absolutely sure that posting all messages about fcl-web not supportinf fcgi was more work then actually adding the support)

First of all it needs additional steps to work. You need to run a python-script to make everything work.
Further it's really client-based. It's primary goal is to build client-side-fat-applications. In such a way that you don't need any server-side code.

You can use inlined components, but you have to add several hacks to make it possible for a server-application to change the look of the client.

Bu that was all resolved, but then I tried to bind some real data to a grid, and there the documentation failed me. All examples were using this.generate_random_data or something. Well, that's kinda useless.

I've found a framework to bind to real data, but that was all experimental and only available in upcoming versions.

That was enough for me to look if I could find something more suitable.

Nice! BTW, it's funny people keep using .psp extension for pascal web applications (pascal server page?). I also use .psp extension! :D

I think it's a good habit, so people might recognize Pascal-web applications.

Joost.

Joost van der Sluis wrote

That's all fine, but imho the fcl-web design is far more flexible.

Joost, do you use fcl-web without Lazarus? I have written a few cgi application for our company using Powtils. I was thinking of converting them to fcl-web instead of Powtils (I want to minimize our 3rd party component dependencies and if things are included with FPC, then the better).

as wel. Next on my list is a native web-server using lnet, so that

What do you mean by "native web-server"? A stand-alone web server like Apache, but just very much smaller? I don't know lnet, but have briefly looked at nYume (extremely small web-server written in Object Pascal, and supports CGI). We need to deploy our CGI applications as part of a distance learning product to the general public. We obviously don't want them to install Apache just to run our application, so thinking of using something like nYume which gets started just before the distance learning product is launched in the client's pc.

Op maandag 08-06-2009 om 12:13 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Graeme Geldenhuys:

Yes, but you need one hack to make that work. I have found a way to solve this properly, but the best way is to do that in TApplication, I have to discuss this with Michael and Mattias first.

I thought that Powtils also adds some other usefull functions. Fcl-web is pretty basic, I'm not sure if it's (atm) enough for what you want.

Yes, that is the idea. But in my mind it was not supposed to work in production, but only stand-alone (one user) with your application compiled-in. Just for debugging.

But with some more effort, it could me made in such a way that it can be deployed with support for multiple users.

Joost.

Joost van der Sluis wrote

I thought that Powtils also adds some other usefull functions. Fcl-web is pretty basic, I'm not sure if it's (atm) enough for what you want.

We actually use very little of Powtils. Mainly url parsing (parameters). We dont' use Powtils session support or templates etc... So it should be very easy to get rid of Powtils. Our CGI applications are more like simple procedural console apps which supports basic CGI.

Yes, that is the idea. But in my mind it was not supposed to work in production, but only stand-alone (one user) with your application compiled-in. Just for debugging.

Our distance learning product is exactly that. A single user application. Our main product uses Apache and is a full blown multi-user application.

Our idea for the distance learning products is to create an executable that runs the web-server (nYume is one of the ideas we looked at) and as soon as the user launched that, it then also launches the users web browser pointing to the correct starting URL. We will also see about using a non-standard port (eg: not port 80) so we don't conflict with any existing web servers that could be installed.

We still need to evaluate the idea and see how permissions will work under Linux and Windows. Obviously we don't want them to have admin rights, just to run our product.

It seems very promising. If I understand it correctly, this is a way to include javascript client-side components in a a webpage.

The TjQueryGrid just produces enough HTML/javascript so the browser knows where to point to, has some methods to create the data, and the rest is done by the javascript code from the javascript jQuery component?

I suspect that for production code, you would still need to add some session info to the whole ?

Impressive, and another step on the road to something Intraweb-like. What would be your proposed next steps ?

Michael.

Op maandag 08-06-2009 om 14:05 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Michael Van Canneyt:

Yes, that's the idea.

The TjQueryGrid just produces enough HTML/javascript so the browser knows where to point to, has some methods to create the data, and the rest is done by the javascript code from the javascript jQuery component?

Yes. There are also some callback-functions. For example, the jQuery-client side framework connects to
http://menora.cnoc.nl/extern/jquery/fpcjquery.psp?action=data&compname=jquerygrid1 to retrieve the data. (try it, you'll see the xml-data. json could also be added) This request is also handled. In case some grid is edited, the same happens. You can assign a method to TjQueryGrid.OnCellEdit and this method is called when some data changes.

I suspect that for production code, you would still need to add some session info to the whole ?

Well, yes. But you could use the FCL-web sessions. But in that case the programmer has to realize that, for example the OnCellEdit event will be executed in a complete new run of the program. (not on fcgi/apache module, but yuo get the idea)

I'm still thinking about adding an option to the apache-modules and fcgi to let the TWebModule stay in memory, as some kind of session with a timeout. That would add a lot of other possibilities.... (more servlet-like)

Impressive, and another step on the road to something Intraweb-like. What would be your proposed next steps ?

Ehm.... Show it to one of our customers and hope they bite. ;)

First I would add some more widgets. Therefor I need to add some interfaces. Then I think I want to take a look at the persistent web-modules...

What helps when you have a project you want to work on. So you discover what features you miss. Do you have an idea for something usefull?

Joost.

Yes, this is what I meant.

I'm still thinking about adding an option to the apache-modules and fcgi to let the TWebModule stay in memory, as some kind of session with a timeout. That would add a lot of other possibilities.... (more servlet-like)

I've thought about it, and a design as Remobjects uses would be good: You'd need a global TWebmoduleFactory which is in charge of creating the instances or picking them from an in-memory pool. Depending on the application you can create descendents:
- TOnShotWebmoduleFactory (create& destroy a module per request)
- TPooledWebModuleFactory (have a pool of twebmodule instances and route the request to one of them)
- TSessionWebmoduleFactory (same module throughout the session)

It would require a minor change to the TWebApplication object: it no longer creates the webmodule directly, but asks the factory to create one. Depending on which factory is used in the application, one of the above systems is then used to return an instance.

See above :)

What helps when you have a project you want to work on. So you discover what features you miss. Do you have an idea for something usefull?

Rework the contributed units section of the FPC website ? :-)

Michael.

I thought the fcgi support is still a work in progress. The other day I was trying to create a "hello world" fcgi program just to see how it works but it did not compile.
Getting a "fastcgi.pp(1,1) Fatal: Can't find unit BaseUnix used by custfcgi" error.
(Latest Lazarus and FPC SVN, win32 /XP/)

If it works, I would make the examples submitted in http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=13706
to work as FCGI also.

BTW, there should be some explanation in Lazarus -> File -> New for people about the differences between

Application - Program - Custom Program ;
Simple CGI Application - CGI Application - Custom CGI Application ;
FastCGI Application - Custom FastCGI Application ;

I am positive, it is very confusing for a newcomer to chose between these. In fact, I'm sure it is random chance at the moment that decides which they are clicking on within one group.
At least for apache modules there is only one choice (in my lazarus at least).

First of all it needs additional steps to work. You need to run a python-script to make everything work.

It's part of installation process.

Further it's really client-based. It's primary goal is to build client-side-fat-applications. In such a way that you don't need any server-side code.

There's no use of browser side framework -no matter how good it is- if it's unable to communicate with remote applications.

Bu that was all resolved, but then I tried to bind some real data to a grid, and there the documentation failed me. All examples were using this.generate_random_data or something. Well, that's kinda useless.

http://qooxdoo.org/documentation/0.8/remote_io
http://qooxdoo.org/documentation/0.8/remote_table_model

Further it's really client-based. It's primary goal is to build client-side-fat-applications. In such a way that you don't need any server-side code.

Look at real-life example at
http://qooxdoo.org/community/real_life_examples which most of them are very dynamic and server-side driven. This one http://www.hericus.com/ is pretty complex.

Op dinsdag 09-06-2009 om 13:54 uur [tijdzone +0700], schreef Bee:

> First of all it needs additional steps to work. You need to run a > python-script to make everything work. It's part of installation process.

Of your own application, you mean? You need to do this all the time...

Offcourse, but they are trying to do it.

Thanks for the links. But that these stuff can be found in the 'other' section, on the very end of the documentation says it all. (It's one item above the experimental stuff)

As I saw it, it's not designed as an easy plug-in system, but more as a whole system you have to use completely, or not.

Joost

Op maandag 08-06-2009 om 15:28 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Michael Van Canneyt:

Yes, something like that

> What helps when you have a project you want to work on. So you discover > what features you miss. Do you have an idea for something usefull? Rework the contributed units section of the FPC website ? :-)

I knew you would say that.

Joost

I have some more ideas, but they are not useful for you :(

Another idea is the testsuite website. It could use some polishing, and maybe even some new sections.

Michael.

Interesting. I started something like this with ProtoType framework which seemed to be very nice. Unfortunately, other matters intervened and I haven't gotten far.

Although I wouldn't classify ProtoType as a framework like ExtJS, it's a great and useful abstraction of the DOM I think. My idea was the same and ProtoType seemed to have a particularly nice abstraction of event mechanism in JavaScript DOM (called eventObserver? I think...) which looked like it would lend itself very nicely to creating an event framework between the javascript client side and FPC/Delphi based server applications why I could create a EventListener Server Side and hooked it into a web page widget for the click event of a button or the OnChange of a text box using AJAX and ProtoType's abstraction for it.

Op dinsdag 09-06-2009 om 14:34 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Michael Van Canneyt:

Ok, I've finished a first prototype. It can't be included into fcl-web, though, because it depends on lnet.

Well, for now I made a quick demo. You can download it from http://menora.cnoc.nl/extern/jquery/fpcjquery.tgz

It only works with recent (ie: 5 minutes ago) svn. First you have to install the fpcjquerylaz.lpk package into Lazarus. Then you can open the project and run it. Then connect to http://localhost:8118

Everything is included, you don't have to set-up anything. The data is stored in xml-files.

Joost.

Op vrijdag 12-06-2009 om 17:42 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Joost van der Sluis:

I didn't make sense here. What this demo was about is adding a stand-alone web server to fcl-web. (Well, not really to fcl-web, more for fcl-web, because it uses lnet)

Joost.

That was clear :)

Stuff like this is why I wanted a set of TCP/IP components included by default in FPC. Now we're dependent on external packages :(

Hm. Maybe using ssockets is an option, if it's just for test/debugging purposes.

Michael.