On Dec 27, 2013, at 8:27 PM, Matthew Walker <mwalker(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Owen,
That's really nifty actually -- can you talk a little about how y'all
manage the i18n issues? Do you prerender all the messages outside of the
template? Or do you use Mustache lambda's to do some formatting inside the
template itself?
Hi, sorry for the delay. Holiday vacation. :)
We have a simple Controller framework to go along with the templates. When we originally
proposed it we were going to put 100% of the logic and data inside the controller side of
things and pass it to the template. However, that just creates more boilerplate/temp
variables and makes the resulting code and templates a lot harder to read 6 months later.
For example doing messages in the controller and passing the data to the template:
$message = wfMessage(‘message’);
$template->setVal($message);
And then the template would have something like:
<?php echo $message ?>
vs: _nothing_ necessary in the controller and calling the message functions directly in
the template:
<?php echo wfMessage(‘message’) ?>
In the first case you actually have no idea whether the source for $message is actually a
mediawiki i18n message or something else, but in the second case it’s a lot more clear.
And from a readability perspective the best code is no code at all. :)
So that’s why we put message calls in the template. Since we allow function calls,
theoretically you can call any function, but we prevent the developers from doing that by
shooting them with nerf darts when they try. Unlike the built in Quick template stuff,
our templates are not objects, but they still have access to global variables and
functions.
Additionally, where and how do you draw the line
between using a template,
and having additional logic outside of the template?
The only logic we put in templates is simple conditional stuff and loops. isset(),
empty(), foreach() etc. No point in having a separate template language when you’re
already doing PHP on the back end.
I'm also curious how you manage the coupling
between layers -- do you pass
in all variables to all templates; or is there some sort of management /
documentation layer that specifies what data (and what format the data
needs to be in) should be provided to a template.
The documentation is a bit of a mess, we just use PHP docstrings. We did originally
propose a more strict validation/documentation framework to go along with it, and some of
that code was written but we aren’t using it yet. The self-documenting nature of the
Mediawiki API classes is a particularly nice feature, and we would have preferred to do
something like that but we haven’t gotten around to it…
When writing very complex multi-function Special Pages (almost all of our internal tools
are built as special pages) it gets kind of unwieldy with the special page class that just
has a single execute() function and the redundant boilerplate to define ajax functions
etc. Since most of our front end is javascript now and we sometimes want templates/html
or json data from the same controllers, we have a 1:1 mapping between methods and
templates and every controller method is automatically an ajax function that can return
json or html. The front end can call ANY back end method and ask for json data or the
html with the data applied to it. When the Controller gets “too unwieldy” (the threshold
for this depends on the developer) we generally refactor them into a single Controller and
a set of Helper classes so that we retain the same external end points, just moving the
code around.
Here’s an example of that:
On every content page, there’s a right rail module that shows the latest photos uploaded
to the wiki:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_and_You_(Fallout_3)
on the back end, that’s entirely self contained in this LatestPhotosController which is
dropped into the skin with a render() function. However, the data that it generates can
be used in other places:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wikia.php?controller=LatestPhotos (call controller, combine
data with html and return it)
http://fallout.wikia.com/wikia.php?controller=LatestPhotos&format=json (call
controller, just return the data that would have been in the template)
The default method is executeIndex() and the default template is <controller>_Index.
Here’s the controller code:
https://github.com/Wikia/app/blob/dev/skins/oasis/modules/LatestPhotosContr…
And the template:
https://github.com/Wikia/app/blob/dev/skins/oasis/modules/templates/LatestP…
Hope that helps provide a bit more context for how this is actually used in the
application.
-Owen
~Matt Walker
Wikimedia Foundation
Fundraising Technology Team
On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 6:44 PM, Owen Davis <owen(a)wikia-inc.com> wrote:
Ha. Well, we’ve been using mustache at Wikia for
a while, but not
heavily. The backstory is that we’ve written approximately 270 extensions
over the years and we have written a few simple frameworks to keep that
code manageable. One of those things is a pseudo-mvc framework. The
template itself is not an object, and it can be either a PHP or mustache
template. A mustache template has more limitations, but in many cases it
is sufficient and in general I feel like it’s a better idea to just pass
data to a simple template rather than having a lot of logic in the
template. Additionally, being able to share the same template between
front end and back end has advantages.
In my opinion, backwards compatibility with the existing quick template
stuff is impossible to avoid, so retaining a PHP option is essential but
the mustache option gives a lot of power to the front end developers which
is where a lot of the work is being done now…
For example, the modal dialog that pops up at the end of the new wiki
creation process is a mustache template:
https://github.com/Wikia/app/blob/dev/extensions/wikia/CreateNewWiki/templa…
On Dec 27, 2013, at 8:41 AM, Niklas Laxström <niklas.laxstrom(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
2013/12/27 Tyler Romeo
<tylerromeo(a)gmail.com>
If we want a comprehensive templating system in
PHP core,
I want a templating system that can be used both in PHP and JavaScript
and
fits in our way of doing i18n. And a bunny.
-Niklas
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