launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I fixed some critical bugs in the mailing list archives earlier this
year. I also saw an opportunity to fix several UI bugs since I was
working in the MHonArc templates. As I was testing the changes it
occurred to me that In the a matter of hours, I could change the
templates to generate JSON instead of HTML. I dismissed the idea as
outlandish, but after 6 months, I think it may not be crazy.

We have several problems that I think can be solved by replacing the
MHonArc-generated HTML pages with data that the Launchpad webapp could
understand.

  * The UI does not match the Website.
  * The messages are missing Lp linkification to bugs and users.
  * The reverse index pages causes hour-long delays adding new messages.
  * ISD desupported our Apache mod to authenticate team members; we
    cannot view private lists.

We might be able to change lp-mhonarc-common.mrc to generate JSON and
treat the lists.launchpad.net as JSON file server.

  * Only the Launchpad webapp could request files from the server http
    server.
  * The index and message files would be tuned to easy interpretation by Lp.
  * Team pages would get views to show messages and message listings.
  * Lp would update the JSON data with links to users and bugs.
  * Pages could be rendered using TALES or moustache temples with the
    full Lp UI
  * While JSON + moustache can be done on the client, the JSON must
    still pass though Lp to be authorised, sanitised, and linkified.
  * Lp would read the index JSON and do the reversing itself, and use a
    cached version when possible
  * Messages could be shown as a thread.
  * The pages would be indexable by google to appear in search.

Doing this might be easier than fixing private lists.

We can replace MHonArc in the future with another system that serves JSON.

-- 
Curtis Hovey
http://launchpad.net/~sinzui

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