Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] home and portal

[Dave Hall]

Peter Schrammel <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> as I walked through the phpgw code and tried to understand how it's 
> working I stumbled over home.php and I ask myself why you do so much
> special handling with that file?

Home is the default script called after a sucessful login.  It is kind
of an app, and kind of not, similar to login/logout.php  I don't know
the history of it 

> why don't you (me) write 'home' as a normal app?

I think that is good idea.  Some people have kicked it around a few
times, but it has never really gone anywhere,

> 
> Pro:
> -some sites don't need a portal. they don't even need home (they 
> just 
> offer one app)

Some of the functionality of home would need to be retained such as
invalid menuaction error handling

> -less handling of special files

Probably true.

> -you could have very special portal apps (maintained by others)
>  and just have to provide a dummy one (empty page)

This is possible now :)  Unfortunately it hasn't happened.

> -(frames were easier to implement)

I personally hate frames.  IMHO the era of frame has passed, but that is
just me :)

> 
> Cons:
> -??? (Tell me)

Reworking required in most apps

Reworking required in the api

Another app which needs to be installed for basic functionality to be used.

> 
> Some thoughts of a phpgw newbie ;-)

I think the idea is a good one, but I think making this change would
require more work than it appears on the surface.  

This is how I would suggest you approach this work, if you are still
interested in working on it.

Base your work on the HEAD cvs branch.  This is a development branch
which is soon to under go major development, but 16 is now a dead
branch, only fixes will be included.

Move all of the functionality of the current home.php "app" to a
seperate app

Update the apps and api to work with the new app.  

Maybe look at including an admin option, "When invalid menuaction
called: " select/option list "display error with link to home/default
app", "redirect user to home/default app", "log user out", "disable user
account and display message".

Maybe you could could start a thread at http://forums.phpgroupware.org
so we can throw some ideas around in a more persistent medium :)

Cheers

Dave Hall

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