The Maypole Manual

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.

Manual::About - Overview of the Project

This document is a general introduction to Maypole: What it is (a framework for Web development), what it does (at the basic level, it converts a URL (e.g. http://www.mysite.com/product/display/12) into a method call (i.e. "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)), and how it works (by 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.

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.

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.

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) 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.

Manual::Workflow - Description of the Maypole 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.

Manual::Beer - The Beer Database Revisited *

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

Manual::Request - The Request 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.

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.

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.

AUTHOR

Sebastian Riedel, sri@oook.de

This overview written by Jesse Sheidlower, jester@panix.com, based on Simon Cozens' original Overview document.

AUTHOR EMERITUS

Simon Cozens, simon@cpan.org