[fusion-dev] RFC 1: Use OpenLayers.Class and other prototypecapabilities

Fri Mar 21 12:10:18 EDT 2008

Julien, comments below.

On 21-Mar-08, at 11:55 AM, Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think the OpenLayer team has always been really open to suggestion  
> to become a standard library of webmapping component. It's a safe  
> bet to rely on it. Planning of reusing OpenLayers.Control is also a  
> great plus since it prevent us of duplicating the effort.
>
> Are you thinking of using the Controls directly and adding them  
> fusion-specific functions? or using OpenLayer.Handlers inside your  
> own code like the Select widget was done?

I haven't thought this through yet, but it should be possible to  
change Widgets to *be* OpenLayers.Control instances.  I need to figure  
out how much change needs to be made to make this work.  There are  
definitely some differences between Control and Widget that are  
insignificant, others I have to think about a bit more.

Relying on Handlers was the first low-level attempt and preventing  
duplication, and it certainly does work well, but if we can take it up  
one more level and move some/most Widgets into the OpenLayers code  
base, that would be awesome for both projects.

>
>
> About the initial problem, "Fusion is based on Jx and Jx is too big  
> because of Prototype and Scriptaculous, if we remove Prototype, that  
> will reduce the size". Will it be enough? What part of the 185kb is  
> used by Prototype and Scriptacoulus?

That is the size of Prototype and Scriptaculous, compressed.  Jx is on  
top of that.  Jx + Prototype + Scriptaculous compressed is 232 kb.  So  
Jx is 47kb on top of whatever library we use - it also needs to be  
slimmed down a bit if possible, but the big culprit is Prototype/ 
Scriptaculous.

Cheers

Paul

>
>
> Julien
>
> Paul Spencer wrote:
>> Jason,
>> that is correct.  In addition, it would make it much easier to   
>> consider moving to a different GUI framework such as ExtJS  
>> although  that is not something that we are thinking of doing.
>> Based on my work with OpenLayers, much of the functionality that  
>> we  would be relying on was originally copied from Prototype (or at  
>> least  inspired by Prototype) when OpenLayers removed its own  
>> dependency on  Prototype.  While I haven't done a lot outside of  
>> OpenLayers with that  framework, it is working very well for  
>> OpenLayers and the API has not  changed in a while.  There is some  
>> current work being done on the Ajax  support in OpenLayers that  
>> will make it somewhat different from the  existing Prototype API  
>> but I believe it will still work for our needs  and may in fact  
>> improve it for us too :)
>> There is an alternative, which is to bring the essential parts of   
>> Prototype (or equivalent) into the Fusion namespace so that we are  
>> not  dependent on anything (for that at least).  However, this  
>> would  duplicate code and functionality and I am not keen on  
>> maintaining any  more code in Fusion than necessary.  As time goes  
>> by, I am going to be  proposing even tighter integration with  
>> OpenLayers (think  Fusion.Widget = OpenLayers.Control for instance).
>> An argument against tighter integration may be that we may want to   
>> replace OpenLayers with another map management library at some  
>> point.   However, I don't see anything on the block that is going  
>> to compete  with OpenLayers at the moment and I don't feel that  
>> this is a bad move  on our part.
>> Cheers
>> Paul
>> On 20-Mar-08, at 4:17 PM, Jason Birch wrote:
>>> So...
>>>
>>> This RFC is basically removing Fusion's explicit dependencies on
>>> Prototype, so that Jx is free to move to a different framework  
>>> without
>>> disrupting Fusion?
>>>
>>> If so, sounds reasonable to me.
>>>
>>> Are these components in OpenLayers stable/enshrined enough that
>>> switching to that implementation will not incur the same risk of
>>> disruption?
>>>
>>> Jason
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: fusion-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
>>> [mailto:fusion-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul  
>>> Spencer
>>> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:49
>>> To: fusion-dev at lists.osgeo.org
>>> Subject: [fusion-dev] RFC 1: Use OpenLayers.Class and other
>>> prototypecapabilities
>>>
>>> I realize that we don't have a PSC yet, however I would like to  
>>> start
>>> working as if we did have one and use the current membership of the
>>> dev mailing list to discuss major changes to Fusion.  We will be
>>> working to formalize a PSC as we grow the community around  
>>> Fusion.  In
>>> the mean time, I have a major change that I would like to get
>>> community consensus on.
>>>
>>> If you are interested, please see the following RFC and comment on
>>> this list.
>>>
>>> http://trac.osgeo.org/fusion/wiki/FusionRfc1
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Paul
>>> __________________________________________
>>>
>>>   Paul Spencer
>>>   Chief Technology Officer
>>>   DM Solutions Group Inc
>>>   http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> fusion-dev mailing list
>>> fusion-dev at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev
>> __________________________________________
>>   Paul Spencer
>>   Chief Technology Officer
>>   DM Solutions Group Inc
>>   http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>> _______________________________________________
>> fusion-dev mailing list
>> fusion-dev at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev
>
> -- 
> Julien-Samuel Lacroix
> Mapgears
> http://www.mapgears.com/

__________________________________________

    Paul Spencer
    Chief Technology Officer
    DM Solutions Group Inc
    http://www.dmsolutions.ca/