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| <title>Cocoon Features</title> |
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| <h1>General information</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
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| <li> |
| Apache Cocoon is a web development framework built around the concepts |
| of component-based web development and separation of concerns, ensuring |
| that people can interact and collaborate on a project without stepping |
| on each other toes. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon implements these concepts around the notion of <strong>component pipelines</strong>, |
| each component on the pipeline specializing in a particular operation |
| (usual pipeline uses a Generator, Transformers and a Serializer). This |
| makes it possible to use a Lego(tm)-like approach in building web solutions, |
| hooking together components into pipelines without requiring programming. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <strong>Advanced Control Flow</strong>: continuation-based page flow hides |
| the complexity of request/response processing and is cleanly separated from |
| the view and data components. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon is open source software (based on the |
| <a href="license.html">Apache Software License</a>). |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon does not duplicate efforts but tightly integrates many technologies. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon is in use at many live sites and on many company networks. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon has a strong community, with many active developers and more |
| than <a href="who.html">15 active committers</a>! |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| There is free support from the thousands of people on our |
| <a class="external" href="http://cocoon.apache.org/community/mail-lists.html">mailing lists</a> |
| and commercial support is available from various companies and consultants. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| There are many Cocoon sessions at different conferences: |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.orixo.com/events/gt2003/">Cocoon GetTogether</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://apachecon.com/">ApacheCon</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://cocoon.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/">Austrian Cocoon Day</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.wjax.de/">WJAX</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.jax2003.de/">JAX</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| To get started see the <a href="tracks/first-steps-track.html">"first steps" |
| documentation track</a>. |
| Basically you only need to <a class="external" href="http://cocoon.apache.org/mirror.cgi">download</a> |
| Cocoon, unpack it and follow the simple INSTALL.txt instructions. |
| A minimal version of the Jetty servlet container is included with Cocoon. |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Usage scenarios</h1> |
| |
| <p> |
| As you would expect, all of these scenarios can be combined. |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| Dynamic multi-channel web publishing (see below for the possible |
| datasources and output formats) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Create static content (automatically) by separating data from view</li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Offline generation modes with Cocoon's own |
| <a href="userdocs/offline/">offline facilities</a>: |
| command-line interface (CLI), ant task, bean. Also with |
| <a class="external" href="http://forrest.apache.org/">Apache Forrest</a> |
| which utilises Cocoon. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Dynamic document preparation with |
| <a class="external" href="http://forrest.apache.org/">Apache Forrest</a>, |
| the '<span class="codefrag">forrest run</span>' mode. Use many different data input |
| formats, see the transformed result immediately in the browser. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Advanced web applications with J2EE integration |
| (with separation of your data, the view and the |
| <a href="userdocs/flow/index.html">flow logic</a> --> this really means you |
| can change one of the parts without touching another) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Develop your company portal using the Cocoon Portal framework |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Support multiple clients, layouts and languages (i18n) without code duplication |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Integrate Cocoon with your existing web applications or use it to put |
| a better face on them (page scraping) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Add full-text search to any datasource that can be converted to XML (see below) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Use Cocoon as the base for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Use Cocoon as the base for your Content Management System (CMS) |
| (see <a class="external" href="http://cocoon.apache.org/lenya/">Apache Lenya</a> |
| for a Cocoon based CMS) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Use Cocoon for producing mobile content (mobile phones, pdas) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Datawarehouse reporting across multiple formats (see xReporter) |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Connect your datasources</h1> |
| |
| <p> |
| Out of the box, the following data can be converted to XML to be processed |
| by Cocoon pipelines. |
| </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| XML Files |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| XML based (Web) services |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| RDBMS (via <a class="external" href="http://java.sun.com/products/jdbc/">JDBC</a>, including connection pooling) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| XML databases |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| SAP (r) Systems by adding the SAP JavaConnector see |
| <a class="external" href="http://service.sap.com/connectors/">http://service.sap.com/connectors/</a> |
| (accessible for all SAP (r) customers) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.webdav.org/">WebDAV</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| CVS (supported by the external project <a class="external" href="http://cocoondev.org/projects/cvssource.html">CVSSource</a>) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Text-based file formats, either using the integrated <a class="external" href="http://chaperon.sourceforge.net/">Chaperon </a> |
| parser for a yacc-like approach to parsing, or the "slop" |
| component (Simple Line Oriented Parser). |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/">Velocity templates</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a target="_blank" href="userdocs/flow/jxtemplate.html">JXPath/Jexl templates</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a target="_blank" href="userdocs/xsp/index.html">eXtensible Server Pages (XSP)</a> with wide range of |
| logicsheets (database, mailing, ...) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.jython.org/">Python (Jython</a>) and generic <a class="external" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/bsf/">BSF support</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/">JSP</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Filesystem (traversing directory hierarchies) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Any information provided by environment (request, session) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.macromedia.com/">Flash</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.palserv.com/XMidi/">XMidi</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1777.txt?number=1777">LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Easily aggregate different datasources |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Transform your XML based on standards</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt">XSLT</a> (The default XSLT-Engine is Apache Xalan, XSLTC is included in the |
| Cocoon distribution, other XSLT-Engines like Saxon can be easily |
| integrated) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://stx.sourceforge.net/documents/spec-stx-20030505.html">STX (Streaming Transformations for XML)</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/">XInclude</a> with |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr/">XPointer</a> framework support |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Serialize your XML to various output formats</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/">HTML</a> |
| |
| </li> |
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| <li> |
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| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/XHTML/">XHTML</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
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| <a class="external" href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.html">PDF</a> |
| |
| </li> |
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| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice.org/StarOffice</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| MS Excel |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp">RTF</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Postscript |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Charts (see external project |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.cocoondev.org/projects/fins.html">Fins</a>) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.macromedia.com/">Flash</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Plain text |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/">Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| MIDI |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| ZIP archives |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>What else we can do for you</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| Coexist and interoperate side-by-side with your existing J2EE solutions |
| (<a class="external" href="http://java.sun.com/products/ejb/">EJB</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://java.sun.com/products/jms/">JMS</a>, |
| ...) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Build your <a href="developing/portal/index.html">Portals</a> based on Cocoon (expect support for JSR168 soon) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Scheduler - Run background tasks for maintenance, etc. |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Caching on many levels |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Integrated search engine (using |
| <a class="external" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/lucene/">Lucene</a>) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a href="developing/deli.html">DELI</a> (detect client configuration) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Catalog Entity Resolver to map to local copies of DTDs and other resources |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Publish your own WebServices |
| (<a class="external" href="http://xml.apache.org/axis/">Apache Axis</a> is integrated) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| |
| <a class="external" href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">Java Mail</a> support |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Easy integration of object-relational frameworks |
| (<a class="external" href="http://db.apache.org/ojb/">OJB</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.hibernate.org/">Hibernate</a>, ...) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| I18n support (translation support) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Easily extensible by clear interfaces (write your own components |
| following <a class="external" href="http://avalon.apache.org/">Avalon</a> patterns) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Many, many examples and samples |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Configurable build mechanism based on |
| <a class="external" href="http://ant.apache.org/">Ant</a> |
| (you decide which parts of Cocoon you need) |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Integration of Java data binding frameworks |
| (<a class="external" href="http://www.castor.org/">Castor</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/betwixt/">Betwixt</a>) |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Form handling frameworks</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| Enhanced form handling with strong validation through |
| <a href="userdocs/forms/index.html">Cocoon Forms</a> |
| |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Easy integration of (future) <a class="external" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms/">XForms</a> clients |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| <h1>Cocoon deployment and integration</h1> |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li> |
| Cocoon can be run in every servlet container or J2EE application server that |
| supports Java Servlets 2.3 and above, e.g. |
| <a class="external" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/">Tomcat</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://jetty.mortbay.org/jetty/">Jetty</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.jboss.org/">JBoss</a> |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.macromedia.com/software/jrun/">JRun</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.caucho.com/">Resin</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/">Websphere</a>, |
| <a class="external" href="http://www.bea.com/">Weblogic</a>, ... |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Command line execution, without requiring a servlet container |
| </li> |
| |
| <li> |
| Embeddable in any Java application |
| </li> |
| |
| </ul> |
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