NetKernel News Volume 4 Issue 8

This module provides a single convenient deployment of common HTML5 web frameworks.

• AngularJS
• Bootstrap
• D3.js
• Font-Awesome
• html5 shiv
• JQuery

HTTP Response

The framework server is dynamically imported into the Frontend Fulcrum.

The RESTOverlay is used to wrap the libraries. It provides the following features for all libraries:

1. SHA1 ETags for the served resource for long term 304 negotiation
2. Automatic negotiated resource compression. This is in addition to existing minification of a given library and provides for highly efficient network optimisation. For example, bootstrap.min.css goes from 103kB to 16kB.
3. Each served resource has an HTTP EXPIRES header one day in the future and Cache-Control max-age of 86400.

Here is an example of the HTTP response header for a resource from the module...

Cache-Control	public, max-age=86400
Content-Encoding	gzip
Content-Length	42226
Content-Type	application/x-javascript
Date	Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:48:23 GMT
Etag	"1a59be663dd3695b34e37c3a19663e8170a564ba"
Expires	Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:48:23 GMT
Last-Modified	Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:48:23 GMT
Server	NetKernel [NetKernel Enterprise Edition 5.1.1] - Powered by Jetty

Latest Convention

By convention a REST interface containing the word latest will give a stable alias for the latest available implementation of a given technology.

Also specified are versioned interfaces for long-term stability.

We've made a lot of progress on the Gradle plugin. It's now in a state that you can start to use and contribute.

There are two GitHub repos:

https://github.com/netkernelroc/netkernel-gradle-plugin

and

https://github.com/netkernelroc/netkernel-module-templates

The first is the Gradle plugin for NetKernel. While still very young, it can now create NetKernel modules for you from templates. The second repo is the set of shared module templates.

Much more will be made automatic, but for now:

1. Always have an instance of NetKernel installed and running
2. Have the modules.d feature turned on.

After you do the normal fork/clone of the GitHub repos, build the gradle plugin (follow the directions in the README).

Create a directory and include a build.gradle:

apply plugin: 'netkernel'

buildscript {
  repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    }
  dependencies {
    classpath group: 'org.netkernelroc.gradle', name: 'netkernel-gradle-plugin', version: '0.0.6-SNAPSHOT'
    }
}

Now you can:

gradle tasks

to see the available tasks

gradle statusNetKernel

to report on NetKernel status

The one area you can start to work on if helping us build a set of module templates. Check out the createNetKernelModules task. Basically, you can set parameters to point to your local repo of the templates and then do this:

gradle createNetKernelModules -PmoduleURI=urn:org:netkernelroc:mymodule -PmoduleTemplate=simple -PmoduleLibrary=default -PtemplateDirectory=/path/to/your/template/repo

and this will create a module from the specified template. (You can put some of these parameters in ~/.gradle/gradle.properties to save typing)

Then you can

gradle installNetKernelModules

and it will find NetKernel and create the necessary modules.d/project.xml file to point to your modules - automatically loading them into NetKernel.

when done

gradle removeNetKernelModules

and you have reverted the 'modules.d/ changes.

So -- what can you do now? You can start to create your own module templates...

Check out the ones already in the repo for ideas. All files you put into repo areas will be copied and variable substitutions will occur for things like MODULE_URI, MODULE_CLASSPATH, and MODULE_URI_WITHOUT_URN (removes the urn: prefix). Study the existing files for example uses.

The pace of development on this plugin is picking up, so follow the repos to see the progress.

Cheers -- Randy

I added the notion of a moduleSet to the installNetKernelModules and removeNetKernelModules tasks.

This allows you to have a file:

moduleSets.gradle

in your project with, e.g.:

sales = [ 'urn:net:databliss:module', 'urn:net:databliss:module:test' ]
ui = ['urn:net:databliss:module']

and then say:

gradle installNetKernelModules -PmoduleSet=ui

and only the modules specified in that set are added to modules.d

Jay asked for this so that he could have the ability to quickly switch between "working sets" of modules.

Let me know how this works for you...

The plugin is now at version 0.1.2.

In this release I added a feature Jay requested which provides support for "moduleSets". This is a way of describing a sub-set of the module you are working on and give it a name (such as "ui", "testing", etc.). You can then install the modules for the named moduleSet.

Also included are numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements.