[Seaside] static image files

[David Shaffer]

Brad Fuller wrote:

>I don't quite understand why one would have to restart the server to
>serve a static image file in a directory.
>Isn't there a default directory from which to place files that can be
>served? And if so, what is it? I only see Resource Base Url as a setting
>in config, but I don't know what that is.
>  
>
Yes, you certainly don't have to restart your server just to get it to
serve files but I don't understand the rest of your question.  Seaside
doesn't serve files, Kom (or Swazoo) does.  The Resource Base URL
configuration stuff is Seaside-related and has nothing to do with Kom. 
If you have a Kom server up and running you can simply add the
appropriate modules to it to configure it to serve files.  I think you
will find this complicated at first but doable.  My Squelenium project
has an installation script which scans a Kom stack and inserts new
modules into it as needed (it is on SqueakMap).  It might make a good
example for you.  The script I provide in my tutorial (which grew out of
one I copied from a Wiki) tries to start from a blank slate to avoid
problems associated with dealing with other people's configurations.

>I suppose it is better to create a dictionary of graphics if they are
>small so that locating the image is not a problem every time.
>How do others do it? What is the best way to serve graphics (be it small
>or large!)
>  
>

Through an apache front end, ultimately.  Serving large files from
Squeak is a bad idea on production systems...Squeak's file I/O blocks
the entire VM (not just the Squeak process doing the I/O).  It works
fine for small apps and images though.  Serving files from Kom is also
the probably best config for development since it reduces the potential
sources of problems.

David