[hobbit] Future of Hobbit

[s_aiello at comcast.net]

On Wednesday 30 January 2008, Henrik Stoerner wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:48:49AM -0500, s_aiello at comcast.net wrote:
> > Henrik Stoerner wrote:
> > > Someone in this thread wrote that he was thinking of implementing a new
> > > web front-end. That would be fantastic! I would gladly drop support for
> > > the old static HTML files generated by bbgen in favor of a modernized
> > > web interface. And the web U/I is fairly independent from the rest of
> > > Hobbit, so it is easy to change.
> >
> > I took a look at this a bit. The hardest part about this as I see it,
> > would be pulling information from multiple data sources. For report data
> > I could use bb commands (hobbitdxboard, or others), but then I would need
> > to parse the server's bb-host file for page layouting. Which isn't a huge
> > problem, just adds complication.
>
> This assumes you want to keep on using bb-hosts as the source of your
> layout - I don't think that is a good idea. I would much rather have all
> of the webpage layout stuff moved somewhere separate, so you can generate
> multiple different sets of webpages from the same monitoring data. So
> there would be one XML file describing how the webpages are laid out,
> which hosts goes on what pages etc - and another XML file you get from
> the hobbitdxboard command that fills in the current data on those pages.
>
The only reason I would assume the need to continue to use the bb-host file as 
the source of layout, is because the Hobbit alert & threshold 'PAGE=' 
specifications do. Thats why I mentioned that I thought you had stateted the 
need to move away from the bb-hosts config file. GUI Layout seems to be an 
integral part of Hobbit (i.e. alert & threshold definitions based on layout). 
And again, I am not a huge fan of XML, but it seems that it would be a good 
option to migrate toward (from bb-hosts). That way if people did want to 
write a new GUI for Hobbit it would not be difficult. It would also be 
possible to add new fields, without affecting core Hobbit functionality. i.e. 
writing a version of BBMap for hobbit. 

But again, I remember in a previous post your (and other maillist members) 
reluctance to use XML for any configuration. So it almost seems like a 
catch22.  So as I see it, ideally need a layout config that:
1. Simple to define layout.
2. Open to custom field definiton additions.
3. Open to allow for 3rd party GUI development.
4. Doesn't break core hobbit functionality.

I maybe stating the obvious, just figure I would flush out my thoughts.
 ~Steve