[pmwiki-users] ZAP future roadmap...

[The Editor]

On 3/17/07, Hsing-Foo Wang <hsingfoo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan,
>
> Thanks very much for the excellent code and blazing speed in which you
> develop ZAP. The speed (and your visions) also raises some concern..
>
> The code changed hugely in the last 3/4 year and I wonder if you have
> a roadpath for a 'downwards compatible' code base. Every time I am
> about to decide 'now is the time to use ZAP' it get's changed with a
> huge amount of differences.
>
> No complaints, simply trying to tap into you brain here.
>
> Again, many thanks for ZAP


Actually, I'm really happy with this release, and think ZAP is about
done.  ZAPbeta 2007-03 only involved a few very minor changes to forms
syntax, and probably 90% of the snippets out there continue just as
before.  In fact ZAP can still read data all the way back from FAST
Data pages, where this thing first began.  If you check out the
changeblog you'll see there are only minimal things to check to debug
forms.  And as for the future, I have nothing left on my to do list,
and don't foresee any other changes to syntax in the immediate future.

2007-01 did involve some fairly big changes in syntax--but this
release involved mostly:

1) Under the hood code changes to make ZAP work easier and more
flexibly. Thanks to an idea from Hans, I probably cut out over 100
lines of code from the main ZAP module (25%)--while making it more
powerful, and much simpler.

2) Added several new ways for using ZAP in this module, such as
clickable links and auto submit forms.  (Plus several new commands).
The 2-3 things I "broke" all really needed to go, to make ZAP more
intuitive to use, more secure, and more robust.

Again, I'm really pleased with where ZAP is right now and have no
immediate plans for any more development (first time I've ever felt
this way about it).  As for a tentative future road map:

1)  I will be releasing a fix for a couple bugs today or tomorrow with
a slight reworking of the markups module to give a little more power,
in a few less lines, with simpler markup. Actually a lot of power to
the ZAP markups!  :)

2)  Will be looking closely at Hans' new literal white space recipe
and see if it can't be used instead of ZAP's magic box system.  If it
works, I'll delete a few more lines from ZAP.  Actually I'm pretty
sure Hans' solution is MUCH better, and I really look forward to
testing it out.

3)  I've been toying with the idea of adding an "insert" command to
replicate what Fox does.  It would be easy enough to do (probably can
just about be done in ZAP right now), but not sure it's worth the
effort.  I personally much prefer using data values and pagelists. I
actually had this same capability in FAST Data--but took it out as too
limiting. Some like his approach, however so I might as well throw
another command into the extensions module. The advantage is you could
then combine everything ZAP already does with simple page insertions.
ZAP is really all about flexibility.

Conclusion--I think now would be a good time to dive in and get using
ZAP.  Throwing out the magic boxes will slightly modify the data
storage format, but I am pretty sure that downgrade will be seemless.
Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Dan