NAME

Maypole::Manual - The Maypole Manual

DESCRIPTION

The Maypole documentation is arranged over several files; this is the right one to start with, as it provides an overview of the entire set of Maypole manuals, with a brief description of each. Some of these manuals are not yet finished, but they should still be useful.

Maypole::Manual::About - Overview of the Project

This document is a general introduction to Maypole: what it is, what it does and how it works.

Maypole is a framework for Web development. At the basic level, it converts a URL like http://www.mysite.com/product/display/12 into a method call such as "perform the display method on item 12 in the product table" and then shows the result: here, presumably, a description of item 12 in your product database,

It is based on Model-View-Controller (MVC), a design paradigm in which each major aspect of an application's operation is handled by a different and totally separate system).

Basic installation instructions are given. A sample Web application--the Beer database--is introduced, set up, and discussed. Finally, the path a Maypole request takes as it moves through the system is described.

Maypole::Manual::Model - Model Classes *

This document introduces the model class, which controls the interaction between Maypole and your database. The use of "actions"--method calls that operate on your database--is discussed. Maypole's default model class is Class::DBI, which basically creates a class for each table in your database and provides a variety of convenient methods for manipulating each table and its relations. It integrates very smoothly with Maypole's default view class, the Template Toolkit.

Maypole::Manual::View - View Classes *

This document is an extensive discussion of Maypole's view class, which takes the data produced by the model (see above) and sends it through a templating system in order to produce output. It focusses chiefly on the Template Toolkit, which is Maypole's default templating system, but discusses other possibilities.

Maypole::Manual::StandardTemplates - Standard actions and templates *

This document discusses the standard actions and templates that Maypole uses. The standard actions (method calls that operate on your database) include list, which generates a paged list of a table suitable for browsing, and search, which handles a search query and generates search results.

The standard templates, which generate output for display on the Web, also include list, which displays the entries in a table, and search, which displays the result of a search.

You'll note that most actions are associated with templates.

This document also introduces the theory behind Maypole's actions and templates, showing you how to write your own so that you can have a highly customized application.

Maypole::Manual::Plugins - writing Maypole plugins

Useful information for plugin authors.

Maypole::Manual::Terminology - pinning down usage

As well as defining common terms used in Maypole discussions, this document briefly discusses the MVC-ness of Maypole.

Maypole::Manual::Workflow - Description of the Request Workflow

This is a technical document that describes the progress of a request through the entire Maypole system. It should be of interest chiefly to those people hacking on Maypole itself, and not to most of those who are using it.

Maypole::Manual::Beer - The Beer Database Revisited *

This document gives a close look at the Beer database that was introduced in Maypole::Manual::About.

Maypole::Manual::Cookbook - The Maypole Cookbook

This extensive document is Maypole's main "How do I do X?" FAQ. It provides a wide variety of cookbook-like techniques that are useful both for themselves, and as examples of what sort of things can be done with Maypole processes.

Maypole::Manual::Flox - Case Study: Flox social network *

This is an example of how to construct a large Web application in Maypole: a "social network", similar to Friendster and Orkut. It shows, specifically, the database structure and the variety of customized techniques that make such a system work.

Maypole::Manual::IBuySpy - Case Study: iBuySpy *

This is an example of the ASP.NET sample portal application ported to Maypole. http://www.ibuyspy.com is a fictional e-commerce site that is relatively sophisticated. It is much better as a Maypole application.

* indicates incomplete chapters.

SEE ALSO

http://maypole.perl.org

AUTHOR

The Maypole Manual was written by Simon Cozens. A generous grant from the Perl Foundation in the first quarter of 2004 funded some of the chapters of this manual.

This overview was rewritten by Jesse Sheidlower, jester#panix.com, based on Simon Cozens' original Overview document.

In December 2004, Dave Howorth, dave.howorth#acm.org kindly donated some of his spare time to improve the structure of the manual and bring it up to date.

AUTHOR EMERITUS

Simon Cozens, simon#cpan.org