LiveSite and a proper MVC framework (spring MVC, Play)

Quick question to the comunity, have any one tried to use LiveSite with a modern MVC framewroks. We are currently looking for this and so far I haven't found a nice way to work with iw-preview and LiveSite.

So far we have used scalatra to provide api endpoints in an easier way than going through the components and controllers. But scalatra is really not suited for building a normal web applications so we look for something else.

The Spring MVC is a bit unsexy as it depends on Spring Core which is used by Livesite and is in ancient verison 3.1, so we would end up using old MVC framewrok.

The Play Framework is something that I have an eye on, as since LiveSite 7.5 we can finally use Tomcat 8 which works ok with Play 2, but that is still preliminary research.

I wonder if anyone already tried to get this working, if so please share, I will share our findings as well?

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Rick Poulin

You probably can't, and it doesn't really make sense anyway.

LiveSite is effectively controlling both the "V" and the "C" in that acronym, which are effectively the XSL and the Java Externals respectively. You could even argue that it controls the "M", which is always an XML Document in the end.

The best you can do is structure your backend code properly -- meaning have model, DAO and service layers that support your external/controller classes. That way your "C" layer can properly just be a dispatcher that calls various services and retrieves POJO model objects, and then convert those to XML documents.

The alternative, if you insist on using a true spring MVC / PLAY type of framework, is to not use LiveSite at all. Capture your content in forms, publish them to either a DB or LSCS, and then build yourself a custom runtime.

Piotr_Czapla

@rpoulin

I think I'm familiar with livesite Smiley Happy , you propbaly know that it does not work as framework for larger web applications and going for FormsPublisher is really not a way to go this days.

The only thing that is missing is binding between MVC Controller with LiveSite Controller and routing, and a bit of representation of a current page so you can get from an MVC Controller to associated DCRs.

I've seen it working with all CMS out there: CQ5, MagnoliaCMS, EPI Server, Sitecore, you name it.

I get they all use some kind of content store, that is not really avaliable on LiveSite but I'm pretty sure we can get something at least half decent so that we don't have to reinvent a wheel in livesite when we need to implement:

- forms with csrf

- web flows

- file uploads

- custom reports

- etc.

Cheers,

Piotr

Rick Poulin

Piotr_Czapla wrote:
@rpoulin

I think I'm familiar with livesite , you propbaly know that it does not work as framework for larger web applications and going for FormsPublisher is really not a way to go this days.

I absolutely disagree with you on these points. LiveSite is perfectly usable on larger web sites if you implement it properly (although it's absolutely the wrong platform if you're actually doing an application). And there's nothing wrong with formspub -- it's a perfectly legitimate way of capturing structured content.

Piotr_Czapla wrote:
@rpoulin

I've seen it working with all CMS out there: CQ5, MagnoliaCMS, EPI Server, Sitecore, you name it.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. It just sounds to me like LiveSite is the wrong choice of product for your particular use cases, and you're trying to jam a square peg in a round hole.