dtl/slinp

Slinp RAD PHPCR Web Framework

Slinp

, _(*1)

WARNING: This is under heavy development!, _(*2)

Slinp is a RAD (Rapid Application Development) Web Framework for PHPCR, using Symfony. It shares similar ideas with the Apache Sling project., _(*3)

One of the goals of Slinp is to have zero configuration by default. It will achieve this by expecting classes to be defined in specific locations and falling back as necessary if they do not exist., _(*4)

Routing

Slinp maps incoming requests to a path in the PHPCR content repository. The node type of the resource (i.e. node) at the path is then used to determine which controller to use., _(*5)

The routing works like this:, _(*6)

• Incoming HTTP request: /foobar
• Map request to PHPCR path: /slinp/root/foobar
• Get node type of node at /slinp/root/foobar => slinp:article
• Determine bundle and controller name: SlinpBundle:Article
• Read the routes from annotations in the controller
• Route the request!

An example controller looks like this:, _(*7)

<?php

namespace Slinp\SlinpBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Slinp\SlinpBundle\Annotation\Route;

// controller for node type "slinp:article"
class ArticleController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route(pattern="/")
     */
    public function showAction($node)
    {
        return $this->render('SlinpBundle:Article:show', $node);
    }

    /**
     * @Route(pattern="/edit")
     */
    public function editAction($node)
    {
        // process some editing
        return $this->render('SlinpBundle:Article:edit', $node);
    }
}

Node Mapping

Slinp wraps the PHPCR session to enable user defined classes to represent PHPCR nodes, as with the routing, the path of the user object is inferred from the node type name, so a PHPCR node with type "mycms:article" will resolve to:, _(*8)

Namespace\Of\MyCmsBundle\SlinpNode\SlinpNode\Article

If the Article class does not exist at that location, it will fallback to finding a class based on the parent node type and if all else fails a standard object will be used., _(*9)

The article is a simple class which must implement the SlinpNodeInterface, which forces the class to accept a PHPCR NodeInterface as an argument and provide a getter for it., _(*10)

class Article implements SlinpNodeInterface
{
    protected $phpcrNode;

    public function __construct(NodeInterface $phpcrNode)
    {
        $this->phpcrNode = $phpcrNode;
    }

    public function getPhpcrNode() 
    {
        return $this->phpcrNode;
    }
}

Components

Slinp components work with plain PHPCR - so you can use the NodeMapper, Routing or ContentLoader components outside of the context of Slinp., _(*11)

What is a Slinp?

I had been thinking about node-type based routing for some time I think, and after 2 aborted projects I heard about the Apahce Sling project. Sling corresponded very closely to what I wanted to achieve, so after reading about Sling and implementing some of its ideas Slinp was born., _(*12)

Originally I wanted to call it Pling, but that name is already used by various projects. So I put the "P" at the end instead. Clever no?, _(*13)

Why use Slinp?

• Low development time -- Define some node types, create a controller, some templates, and your done -- or just use the built-in node types and controllers and create some content!
• Node type based routing -- Slinp is content-centric. You can put your content where you want and it will always be rendered by the same controller. The ability to add routes to resources via. annotations makes Slinp web application friendly..
• Schematic CMS design -- You can define your content the way you want using PHPCRs node types -- be as strict or as loose as you like! Also you can create automatically created nodes and properties.

Why should I use Slinp in the future?

Slinp isn't finished yet.., _(*14)

• Admin Generation -- Node types provide perfect meta data for generating admin forms. And because of the inheritance of node types admin forms will always fallback to the admin form defined for slinp:resource. Basically - instant admin, no fuss.