[dev] Wild thoughts on relationships, Was: Adding contact to nag task

[Michael Häusler]

Zitat von Hans Lellelid <hans at appliedsec.com>:
> I think everyone is arguing for a pretty loose model that would hook 
> into the registry & would accommodate the directionality (& possible 
> bi-directionality) you mention.  This model would not, however, in 
> itself handle UI stuff...

Of course, the model would not handle UI itself, but it could give hints 
to the application, that actually builds the UI. What I really wanted to 
say, is that the interface should be open for extensions:

array getRelations (string $app) // returns a array of Relationship objects

So an application should be able to get a list of all relationships it is 
involved in - even if this app is only "target" of some sort of 
unidirectional relation. A look at the relationships properties would now 
reveal, _wether_ it should show some UI. How to render such UI is a 
different question.

> Seems like there are a few options:
> (1) don't worry about UI at all, but simply provide a link to a page
> (e.g. to 'new event' page in this example) where content of related type
> can be entered,  (2) leave UI to the app that needs UI & simply have the 
> "sponsoring" application return imporatant info needed to build UI (e.g.
> available locations, categories, etc. for an event) and (3) have the 
> sponsoring application actually build the UI, using Horde_Form or some 
> sort of system that uses widgets that can inherit any customizations 
> implemented for the relationship-requesting application.
> 
> I think in the long run that option 3 would make most sense, but in the
> short-term I would be very happy with option 1.

I concur.


> >2. relationships, that connect more than two modules:

> What do you mean by this?  Do you mean that some piece of content may 
> need to be related to more than one different type of content? 

Yes, a relationship object could have a method:

array getPartners() // returns the list of involved partners


> Or do you simply mean that you'd like the API to be able to fetch 
> indirectly related items ... something like:
>     $Rel->getRelated('document_author')->getRelated('author_homepage') 
> // obviously not PHP :-)

Though especially helpful in the homepage/URL example, I think this could 
be overkill in many other situations. But the user would always be able to 
reach indirectly linked items with few mouse clicks.


Anyway, I am writing this, because I always felt, that it is helpful to 
discuss interfaces. So these are just comments ...


Regards,
Michael