[bt-devel] Backend Proposal

[Greg Hellings]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Martin Gruner <mg.pub at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi Greg.
>
> If this is really serious, then I think that the backend at least should
> be a separate package which can be built independently.

Do you mean a separate repository with separate code releases? I think
that's definitely a drastic step to take at this point.  If you just
mean giving users the option of only building the backend out of the
BibleTime source, then that is definitely the plan as to my knowledge.

>
> How do you want to separate rendering and UI? What about JavaScript
> interaction and such?

My understanding was that the JavaScript portion was purely a stopgap
measure until the QtWebKit API had been completed, which happened a
few versions of Qt ago. In that case, it can be replaced with Qt-level
calls.  And I'm not sure what you are asking about with separation of
rendering and UI.  As I understand the proposal, the rendering would
essentially serve a function similar to the SWORD filters in that it
would transform the raw XML received from the backend into HTML for
display in an HTML-powered application. Perhaps it could also handle
production of non-HTML output as well through various template files
or other methods?

--Greg

>
> Regards, mg
>
> Am 19.06.11 21:46, schrieb Greg Hellings:
>> Martin,
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Martin Gruner <mg.pub at gmx.net> wrote:
>>> Hi Greg,
>>>
>>> sounds very interesting. Do you intend to make this new backend a
>>> separate library that can be used by BibleTime frontend and other frontends?
>> My proposal to Jaak was that BibleTime be separated into three unique
>> components each of which could be built relatively separately by CMake
>> flags.  Something akin to libbibletimebackend.so, libibletimerender.so
>> and the BibleTime executable.  Obviously the BibleTime executable
>> would require the other two libraries, but the backend would rely only
>> on Qt with SWORD and any other source libraries as options and the
>> render would (probably) rely only on Qt and the templating engine Jaak
>> has picked out whose name escapes me at the moment.  The renderer
>> might also rely on the backend depending on how tightly those two are
>> integrated.
>>
>> The goal is very much twofold - to escape the requirement of
>> SWORD-only on the backside and to escape the requirement of
>> BibleTime's mouse & keyboard centered heavy GUI on the other end.
>> Various people have recently experimented with BibleTime in places
>> including touch interfaces down through mobile phones and we'd like to
>> make it easier for those people to write a native GUI that links to
>> BibleTime's library instead of feeling the need to dig deeply into
>> BibleTime to #ifdef their way to a slightly hacked UI.
>>
>> Whether these other projects will exist as other UIs within the
>> BibleTime project or will be separate projects entirely remains to be
>> seen, but the hope is anyone who wants till be able to just build the
>> components they want and compile and link against the parts that are
>> useful to them.
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> bt-devel mailing list
>> bt-devel at crosswire.org
>> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/bt-devel
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> bt-devel mailing list
> bt-devel at crosswire.org
> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/bt-devel
>