From Clearpress to Catalyst

We have had a minor problem with our tracking system which has made it difficult to give out completely to the outside world. It is due to the deployment onto our webserver setup.

In order to be able to 'give away' responsibility for running servers, and some design aspects, we have tied it to the our works internal modules for locating lib files (WorkPaths) and content/page styling and authentication (WorkWeb).

Unfortunately, because of this, without a lot of work, we are rather stuck with it's limitations, and so there is 'work to be done' if outside people want to use it.

So, now, I am taking a break from working just on the pipeline, and attempting to break it into a standalone application, using Catalyst. Sorry Roger, ClearPress is great, but we need something with a bigger support network.

Now, ClearPress works. I still am a fan of, it it ain't broken, don't fix it. And Catalyst has many methods of the MODEL being used, so for this reason, I have worked on the following strategy to move it.

1) Leave the models alone.

ClearPress already has a good way of talking to the database, the models already have most of the supporting code in them, so why change this. Catalyst can use other models as a back end, so I am going to leave these as they are for now. This does mean that to operate, you need two frameworks installed from CPAN, but ClearPress is pretty lightweight in it's dependencies, so I don't feel that this is an issue for now.

2) Keep the templates.

The preferred templating system for both ClearPress and Catalyst is Template Toolkit (much to my new bosses wish that Mason might be better - i.e. using PERL, but I have wittered on about this in the past, so won't here). This is great, because all I have to do is move the templates to the Catalyst structure, with a small amount of recoding.

Here, I have also gone for the approach of putting the files into directories named like their parent Controller/View, so the directories are easier to navigate.

3) Views/Controllers.

This is a semantic thing. In ClearPress, they are called Views, in Catalyst - Controllers. This is the main part of recoding, because the methods are often autogenerated for you in ClearPress, or at least must follow a strict pattern. Catalyst operates differently here (Chained dispatch, different location to find form params, etc), so this is the slow part.

However, again, here is an opportunity not to be missed. We got a little out of the Fat Model, Thin Controller/View philosophy in the ClearPress app (not a failing of ClearPress, it is very easy to do the same in Catalyst/Rails or probably any other MVC framework, it was pure laziness on our part as developers). So, I have taken it upon myself, to move code to the relevant Model where necessary.

Some URLs have changed, and this is again a clear difference between the two. Particularly trying to make the URLs RESTful, but I am managing it.

4) Styling and JavaScript

Most of of our styling uses css, so I am taking the opportunity to create a css sheet with everything that is needed, and hopefully not any more. Our internal web styling is changing, and also, for external release to other users, they need a css sheet which will work for them.

A similar thign with JavaScript. However, a big change is the fact that the core web here is moving from Prototype/Scriptaculous to jQuery. I have already seen some instances that are a problem, since we have coded against P/S and there are conflict with jQuery. So again, I am trying to 'shield' the app against conflict here.

So far, this move is going well, and pretty rapidly. The CSS/JavaScript is pretty much complete. The templates take minutes to alter. So, I can concentrate on the Controllers, and refactoring some code to the Model, where it belongs. Ultimately, the intention is to move the Models as well. We have already run DBIx:Class over the tracking database, so it shouldn't take much to 'fix' them with the code needed, but small steps, and they ain't broken.

The only thing I have left off here is authentication. The new boss said he'll deal with that. Currently, I am permanently signed in as an admin, so we shall see how that goes, when I have migrated all that I can.

Speaking of which, better get to it!