On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:17:22 -0400, Jim Menard jimm@io.com wrote:

I'm looking at WATableReport, but I'm a bit confused about how to hand it my list of entries. Do I need to create WAReportColumn objects for each instance variable of each entry?

In case you missed it, there is a WATableReport tutorial at http://www.beta4.com/seaside2/docs.html.

Quoting Jim Menard jimm@io.com:

I have a list of things (an address book), and I'm writing a simple Seaside app to display the list and CRUD entries. I have a bunch of basic, related design questions. Any help will be greatly appreciated. There are a lot of questions here; answers like "go read XXX" would be just as helpful as direct

answers. I have read the few Seaside tutorials and docs I've been able to find.

Who should "own" the list of entries? Should I create the list as a class instance variable of the entry class, or as a global entry in Smalltalk?

A pattern I have used in the past is to create a class the represents my data, like the Entries class you mention. I'll put a class side variable that will hold the data, and make accessor methods to get at the data:

Entries list do: [blah...]

then in my Seaside session, I would create an accessor that hides that:

MySession>>entries ^ Entries list

so in the rest of the app you are doing things like:

self session entries add: anEntry

Later, you can switch to using a GOODS database or some other db to store your entries, and as long as you protocal for adding and deleting entries doesn't change, your web app won't have to change a whole lot.

For example, if you have:

Entries>>addEntry: anEntry

Entries>>deleteEntry: anEntry

you can hide whether it's implemented as a simple Collection or as something else.

Brian