Anton Vasiliyev - Devexperts team lead has presented his report «Effective website development» on "Magnolia Conference 2012"

1. Effective websites development
using Magnolia CMS
By Anton Vasiliev
avasiliev@devexperts.com

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Increasing the effectiveness of websites
development
1. Preview template changes instantly
2. Optimize ModuleVersionHandlers
3. Use OCM libraries for writing business logic
code

3. About Devexperts
We create
professional financial software
for Brokerage and Exchanges
since 2002

4. About Devexperts
Headquarters Devexperts Japan www.devexperts.com
197110, 10/1 Barochnaya st. 169-0075東京都新宿区
Saint Petersburg, Russia 高田馬場1-33-15-402
+7 812 438 16 26 +81 3 6233 7460
mail@devexperts.com inquire@devexperts.co.jp

5. Project architecture
Desktop
application
3rd party
services
Magnolia CMS
3 websites Application
HTML pages for other apps servers
Cloud
services Jackrabbit

6. Project environment
• Weekly releases
• 2-3 intermediate builds per week
• Aggressive schedule
• Up to 5 developers working on the same
Magnolia project module
Project is in closed beta-testing stage

7. Project environment
Integration
platform
Subversion
QA Production
platform platform

8. 1. Preview template changes
instantly

9. Problems
• Editing of website templates is slow
• Changes made in Magnolia CMS need to
be synchronized with module source files
• Magnolia CMS restart is required to pick
up changes made in module source files

10. Solution: dx-sync-module
• Synchronizes external files with Magnolia
CMS resources instantly
– JavaScript
– CSS
– DMS files
– JSP and Freemarker templates
– Groovy scripts and classes

11. dx-sync-module approach
Project files under
version control
Version
control
Magnolia CMS
Up and running
Changes in source files are instantly
propagated to Magnolia CMS

12. dx-sync-module demo

13. dx-sync-module: benefits
• Instant preview of changes in source files
• Reduced number of actions when working
with AdminCentral
• Decreased number of Magnolia CMS
restarts
– Using Groovy may decrease number of
restarts further
• Developed for large project, helps with
small projects

14. 2. Optimize
ModuleVersionHandlers

15. Problems
• 2 execution flows: one for install and one
for update
• Easy to forget to update module version
handler when a file or XML resource is
changed
• Version handlers become very large for
intensively developing module

16. A new approach to
ModuleVersionHandlers
Idea: forget about deltas
Describe module configuration as it should be
Configuration is ‘synchronized’, not ‘updated’

17. DxModuleVersionHandler
• Describe updating strategy for each resource
• Strategies supported:
– Keep up to date
– Install once
– Remove
• A part of dx-sync-module

18. DxModuleVersionHandler
module files
• Describe how files are updated in
ModuleVersionHandler class

19. DxModuleVersionHandler
XML resources
• Put XML resources to
the correct place

20. DxModuleVersionHandler
Takes care of:
• Exported XML files
• Resources (CSS, JavaScript)
• Templates (Freemarker, JSP)
• Groovy (classes and scripts)
• Module servlets
• Module files
Just put a file to the right place and it will be
updated next time Magnolia CMS starts

21. DxModuleVersionHandler: benefits
• The same configuration mechanism is used
for both install and update
• Less code
• Significantly reduced number of bugs
Increases developers efficiency

22. dx-sync-module - links
• Documentation
http://code.devexperts.com/display/DXMGNL/dx-sync-module
• JIRA http://jira.magnolia-cms.com/browse/DXSYNC
• Maven http://nexus.magnolia-
cms.com/content/repositories/magnolia.forge.releases/
• Questions, suggestions and feedback
avasiliev@devexperts.com

23. 3. Use OCM libraries for writing
business logic code

24. Use OCM for business logic code
Before OCM

25. Use OCM for business logic code
After OCM

26. Object Content Mapping libraries
• Magnolia CMS Content2Bean mechanism
– Read only
• Jackrabbit OCM
– http://jackrabbit.apache.org/object-content-mapping.html
• Magnolia Jackrabbit OCM Integration
– http://www.fastforward.ch/web/ff/dokumentation/entwickler/
magnolia-module-ocm.html
• Devexperts Jackrabbit OCM integration for
Magnolia
– http://code.devexperts.com/display/DXMGNL/dx-magnolia-ocm

27. dx-magnolia-ocm
• Doesn’t depend on Magnolia
– May be used to read Magnolia Jackrabbit
database from other applications
• Type safe
• Library, not a module
• Configuration via annotations
– Keep all information at the same place

28. dx-magnolia-ocm - links
• Documentation
http://code.devexperts.com/display/DXMGNL/dx-magnolia-ocm
• JIRA and Maven
coming very soon
• Questions, suggestions and feedback
avasiliev@devexperts.com

29. Questions?

30. Thank you.
By Anton Vasiliev
avasiliev@devexperts.com