I'd like to announce the release of 3 new packages in hackage developed for a RESTful web framework called RESTng. <br><br>They are experimental, the framework is incomplete and we are currently not actively developing it.<br>
There are several interesting features so we have decided to release them to share the ideas.<br><br><br><b>RESTng:</b> A framework for writing RESTful applications. Features that may be of interest are:<br><br> *
Resource presentation with annotations (implemented with Grids):
Resources are annotated with related data and all ends in boxes using
grids. i.e., an annotation for a book resource could be its author (the
author resource), and also their comments, so the book, the author and
their comments are shown in boxes. Annotations can have arbitrary data,
but there are some generic ones already available.<br>
<br> * Hierarchical URLs are automatically handled. i.e.: Can easily
define that a book resource "has many" chapters, then these actions are
defined:<br> GET <a href="http://site/book/3/chapter/1" target="_blank">http://site/book/3/chapter/1</a> <div id=":xm" class="ii gt"> (get the chapter 1 of book with id 3)<br>
GET <a href="http://site/book/3/chapter/new" target="_blank">http://site/book/3/chapter/new</a> (get a form for filling data for the new chapter for book with id 3)<br> POST <a href="http://site/book/3/chapter/new" target="_blank">http://site/book/3/chapter/new</a> (create a new chapter for the book with id 3)<br>
and so on for updates, list and delete actions<br><br> * ORM generates tables from haskell records (currently only PostgreSQL is supported in the ORM).<br><br> *
Associations "has many" defined for models. Making available functions
to query for the parent and children so you don't have to make the SQL
query.<br>
<br> * Associations can be polymorphic so a comment can be associated
to different resources types. A record for a comment on a book, another
for a comment on a post.<br> <br> * Tags, Ratings, Comments, Users and login and CMS-like form fields validations supported.<br>
<br><br><br><b>YuiGrids:</b><br> * Containers and boxes with layout hints are specified. i.e:<br> - Box A: in left side bar, near the bottom, with this content ....<br>
- Container B: in the main part of the page, near the top, with 3
columns and these let's say 14 boxes inside ... (including Box C)<br>
- Box C: in the left column of three, with this other content ...<br><br>
* Tries to satisfy the layout hints. Not allways possible, i.e: if
every box has layout hint to go near the bottom, some of them will go
at the top.<br>
<br> * Boxes can have CSS specifications.<br><br> * All is rendered into Yahoo grids (<a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids" target="_blank">http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids</a>).<br><br><br>
Currently, the YuiGrids uses own contextual html combinators are also
implemented in this package (called CxML here) instead of Text.XHtml
for keeping track of html parts like inline CSSs to be rendered at the
head. This can be improved to use the standard Text.XHtml library.<br>
<br><br><br><b>RedHandlers:</b> It is another HTTP request handlers library to build standalone web apps.<br> * They deal with request data as usual.<br> * There are also combinators for mapping part of the URL to public folders in the file system.<br>
* And one for sending files efficiently in the response (a fork of the HTTP library was necessary for this, included here).</div>