[Chameleon] Chameleon vs CWC2

[Paul Spencer]

Liz

There is not a quick or easy answer to your question, but I will try :)

Here's my take:

Chameleon is a derivative of CWC2.  We took the core technology for 
template processing, widget handling, etc. out of CWC2 and made it a 
stand-alone component.  Chameleon does not provide the Service Instance 
that CWC2 does (although the CWC2 Service Instance can now be re-written 
as a Chameleon application).

Many of the widgets in Chameleon may appear older than the CWC2 version 
for a couple of reasons:

1. bug fixes in the CWC2 branch.  When we find problems, or problems are 
reported, they are fixed in CWC2 but may not always be fixed in 
Chameleon.  This could be an oversight.  Or it could be a fix that is 
only pertinent to CWC2 (because the fix relates only to the service 
instance component of CWC2, which isn't yet part of Chameleon).  Or it 
could be a widget that does not work with Chameleon because it is a 
CWC2-specific widget.

2. To help optimization in Chameleon, some of the widgets names changed 
(this also addresses your other problem).  Widgets by the older name may 
still appear in Chameleon but are deprecated (and would not work).

Regarding documentation, the existing documentation relates to CWC2, not 
Chameleon.  Because chameleon is not a directly funded product for us 
(as CWC2 was), the development of documentation is taking more time. 
Documentation will be ready for the first release of Chameleon 1.1.

The core of Chameleon is actually pretty stable.  However, the problem 
is with the widgets.  Many widgets made assumptions about being in a 
CWC2 environment.  Others used naming conventions that make them 
incompatible with the new version (optimizations).  We are slowly 
transitioning widgets from CWC2 to Chameleon 1.1 as required by our 
clients for ongoing projects.  Also effort is going into building new 
widgets.

We have deployed several applications using 1.1 and are doing active 
development on it.  Development on CWC2 is now limited to bug fixes only.

If you can provide me with details on the problems you are running into, 
I will try to assist you in solving them.

Cheers,

Paul

Liz Godwin wrote:

> Paul,
> 
> I've CC'ed the Chameleon List on this one as I think it's something
> others may be interested in, or also may know answers to.
> 
> I'm trying to work with Chameleon (v 1.1 alpha) instead of CWC2 in
> order to take advantage of the ability to read map files directly.  I'm
> running into some problems, and while I've been able to solve some of
> them, I am becoming more confused.  Hopefully you can help.
> 
> Is Chameleon really just a later version of CWC2?  If it is, than why
> are many of the widgets included with the alpha release of Chameleon
> much older than those included with CWC2 v1.0.3?  The release dates are
> different obviously, but which is being worked on more currently?  Can I
> replace Chameleon widgets with CWC2 widgets?  The reason I ask this is
> because the documentation seems to follow the CWC2 usage better than it
> does for Chameleon.  My Widget names are different, and in some cases
> they just don't work.  BUT they do with CWC2.  I still can't seem to get
> a legend to draw.
> 
> I guess I'm wondering how they fit together if they do?  I know
> Chameleon is alpha...but it seems behind CWC2 not ahead.
> 
> Should I just hold off on trying Chameleon until another release is
> posted?
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> Liz Godwin
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Chameleon mailing list
> Chameleon@lists.maptools.org
> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/chameleon
> 

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|Paul Spencer                           spencer@dmsolutions.ca    |
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|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
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