1. Introduction

The primary purpose of rm -d ms is to run Internet sites.

The rm -d ms project will provide a comprehensive environment for interactive sites. It can handle sites with mainly static content as well as extensive web applications like internet shops or auction houses.

Due to the XSLT centered approach, rm -d ms is extremely flexible. You can adjust the tools to the requirements of your editors and your artists. You can plug your existing code into rm -d ms. And of course you can change the design of a whole site by editing a central stylesheet.

The fundamental cornerstones of rm -d ms are:

• An application operates on one comprehensive persistent XML document.
  • It may use XPath query to combine XML from different sources.
  • The management system hides the storage model.
• Server side application logic is implemented by XSLT stylesheets.
  • XSLT is an appropriate programming language for frameworks.
  • The stylesheets may use hard coded 'legacy' components.
• Write access is logged, old versions are archived.
  • The user may undo any operation.
• The system uses the transaction and recovery facilities of a relational database.
• The prototype is implemented in Java.

rm -d ms is the third redesign of our XML/XSLT tool. The first system generates the pages of http://www.nuremberg-tradefair.com The second is used by the Internet shop http://www.fbf-frankenbett.de It generates the catalog and runs the basket.

The current implementation is a proof-of-concept prototype. You can't use your favorite xml editor. The performance is poor and the administration is a nightmare. The interface specification is a moving target and even the fundamental position may change.

1.1 Overview

rm -d ms consists of a HTTP server, an XSLT stylesheet processor, a document engine and a relational database. The framework implements the fundamental services. It doesn't try to implement the logic or the user interface of an rm -d ms application.

• HTTP server
  The development environment uses Apache or the jsdk servletrunner.
• HTML/XML interface
  It consists of a stylesheet processor and some extention elements. At the moment you can use the Saxon processor or the Xalan processor of the XML-Apache suite.
• Document cache
  Not yet designed.
• Raw XML interface
  It takes a HTTP request and returns an XML text.
• Printable document export
  Not yet designed.
• XML Import, Export
  These simple programs convert between plain text files and database tables.
• Persistent document engine
  This is a uniform interface to different storage engines.
• Document table mapping
  This storage engine uses its own table schema. It is an easy-to-use database for pure rmdms projects.
• Legacy Database mapping
  At the moment rm -d ms includes two interfaces. An ad-hoc interface, designed for rapid prototyping and a full featured interface, which uses an XML-RMDMS mapping. At the moment, the second one is a thin wrapper for the xmldbms package written by Ronald Bourret. I am not happy with this package and plan to replace it with the castor XML-SQL bridge as soon as it will be released.

This is a very early release. Most features are not implemented yet - and there is no documentation.

1.2 Changes

0.3.2 Fri Jun 23 22:12:28 MEST 2000

Works as a Cocoon Processor

WAP Demo added

Workbench traces all exceptens (even if trace is off)

Raw interface changed (a future version will use soap)

Xslt forms library started

Data format of psi-demo and shop-demo changed

0.3.1 Sun Jun 4 20:09:32 MEST 2000

Released under the terms of the GNU LGPL

XMLDatabase improved

0.3 Sun May 7 21:09:34 MEST 2000

Implementation of content editor started

0.2.3 Mon Apr 24 20:16:08 MEST 2000

Ad hoc database interface added.

File upload and sending mail implemented.

0.2.2 Tue Apr 11 20:50:56 MEST 2000

This release includes a debugger.

0.2.1 Sun Mar 19 19:27:16 MET 2000

This release includes xml-apache bindings.

0.2 Sun Mar 12 18:34:09 MET 2000

Rudimentary interface for legacy databases added.

Shop demo implemented.

Bug fixes and improvements.

Internal format of the chunk databases changed.

0.1 Wed Feb 16 15:23:17 MET 2000

First public release.