Developing a real application with a framework being developed really helps focus on real-world features for the framework. This is what’s happening with Origami/Aroo. The last commit isn’t really more than a small patch in terms of code but it’s really a breakthrough in terms of what can be done with Origami.

I was developing the aliasManager, which is the component that deals with aliases for core URLs¹. This component queries the database, retrieves the core URL associated with that alias and outputs it. There were two ways of doing this:

1. loading the core URL while still displaying the alias in browser’s toolbar: sounds like phishing, which is bad;
2. silently fetching the output of the core URL and redirecting it to the browser: results in two calls to the server, which is bad.

With the small patch of revision 47, Managers are now allowed to call the Router without having to return something to display. Actually, it was already possible to call the Router, like any other CoreComponent, but the Router expected something in return from the Manager, something to fill a template with and to show to the user, and if the Manager didn’t return anything (as in the case of the aliasManager) some ugly output was appended to the actual page. Now, Managers can return false: the Router recognizes this value and silently terminates.

I’m actually thinking of making a release, but there’s so much needed before we can call it “stable” — not to mention “production safe”. I’ll make a list of things that are still badly needed, so if someone feels like giving some love… :)

1. For example, /about/company can be an alias for the core URL /node/en/3. [↩]

The development of Origami Framework is quite slow because most of the absolutely critical things are done. I’d say it’s time for a 0.0.1-alpha1 release but I won’t do it for now.

There’s a feature I needed so bad, and finally today it landed on the SVN repository. It is the ability to remotely deliver the same data as both JSON and XML. This is a feature reserved to the origamiremoteManager which is the component that manages remote procedure calls. Starting from now, the origamiremoteManager will simply return an object made of a combination of stdClass and Array, and the Router will deliver the data as either JSON or XML, depending on the request URL.

I also just finished writing the installation instructions and a quick guide to set up a working Origami Framework based application.

At the moment, most of the work is done on Aroo, as it is perfectly unuseful to have such a nice framework and no application to demonstrate its power. So don’t really hold your breath for news on Origami, unless you want to help with it.

Yesterday I committed release 36 to the SVN. Since release 32 there have been some really minor improvements to the framework but there’s a lot of work to do in many areas. Still, the whole thing is now working “quite well”¹ so I’m thinking of making a clean list of things to be done. I’ll publish it in the next few days so if anybody feels like giving love to someone, Origami would be a nice candidate :)

Both as a side project and a proof of concept, I’m working on a CMS (called Aroo) which is not yet public but it will be in some months. I’ll be more explicit in the future. But for now, long live Origami.

1. As in “if you know the oddities, you know how to avoid them”. [↩]

There’s something in the air. And in Revision 32 too!

At this very moment I’m a bit tired and in these weeks I’m busy for work and study. But still I’m working on taking good ideas, bringing pieces together and try to understand why I felt so wrong working with other (even more complete and powerful) frameworks¹.

Revision 32 is a really good point to begin with looking at Origami and I’ll try to write some guides in the following days. For now just go and see the code. It may seem a bit messy but I tried my best to write useful comments.

1. Other than «not written by me», of course :) [↩]

After some months off the project, here I am back at coding. Origami’s architecture has been modified quite a bit and now I’m working on the refactoring.

This will include the deletion of the current SVN trunk branch in the next days and soon the new Origami Framework will see the light.

EDIT: The development took some exciting directions in the past few days. I’ll try to complete the sketch in the following days and then something will be released before the end of September.

Welcome to the Origami Framework development blog¹ and web site. Here you can follow the development process and look for help both as a user and as a developer.

So let the dice rolling and get back to work.

1. nope, it is not (yet) built with Origami [↩]