[okfn-help] Fwd: Pylons plugins proposal

Tue May 25 22:00:20 BST 2010

For people's info I wrote the email below to the pylons-discuss list
about plugins proposals [1]. There's been some response [2] and I plan
to follow-up up further.

[1]: as per <http://knowledgeforge.net/okfn/tasks/ticket/262>
[2]: <http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss/browse_frm/thread/f8969e28b0a007c7>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
Date: 22 May 2010 20:12
Subject: Pylons plugins proposal
To: pylons-discuss at googlegroups.com

Hi,

At the Open Knowledge Foundation (http://www.okfn.org) we have used
Pylons for several of our projects (http://www.okfn.org/projects/). We
think it is a great framework.

However, there are some standard components which it would be nice to
be able to "plugin" in a standard way -- e.g. users + auth, admin,
settings, comments (more examples plus details below). In many other
frameworks/platforms (including e.g. Django) you do indeed see some
sort of plugin frameworks in which this sort of functionality does
indeed become a plugin of some kind.

Now, I'm well aware of Pylons different and more flexible (and IMO
better) approach compared to e.g. django. And that this architecture
may mitigate against providing any standard "plugin" (e.g. how do we
know which template framework -- mako, genshi, jinja, etc -- a given
pylons user is using ...).

However, I think it is still possible to do something useful along
these lines -- even if a formal plugin framework isn't
possible/required just "packaging" up best-practice(s) *pattern* for
how to do standard stuff it would be very valuable (especially if a
pattern kept up to date!).

Below I've given a list of some examples of the sorts of things that
could be "plugins". What else should be on that list? Is there
interest in having plugins?

Regards,

Rufus Pollock
Open Knowledge Foundation - http://www.okfn.org/

## Pylons plugin proposals

### 1. Users and Authentication - basic plugin to do users and
authentication out of the box

 * Openid + Form (email confirmation etc)
 * Build on existing plugins (repoze.who, authkit, whatever)
 * Tie in to existing model (sqlalchemy) object (or provide demo code
to create it)
 * Even if just a demo that *works* it would be useful
 * We've now done this ~ 6 times. There are commonalities and even if
this were just a demo it would be useful

### 2. Admin - lightweight admin system

 1. Model CRUD - provided an existing solution nicely wrapped up or
just document how to do it and ensure it really works -- we've used
FormAlchemy plenty (and other options) but ensuring something "just
worked" would be useful

 2. Settings module - think wordpress settings/options system
   * DB Table + web user interface
   * Config in db rather than ini file

### 3. Mini-CMS

 * Simple content management - post/page table plus editor
 * Slave CMS - pull content from an RSS feed from e.g. wordpress or other CMS
   * We implemented this ourselves in http://openshakespeare.org

### 4. Commenting

 * Commenting is a common functionality across many applications
 * A basic plugin that providing commenting functionality either
directly or pased on an existing pluggable service (e.g. disqus) would
be extremely useful

-- 
Open Knowledge Foundation
Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/