Spin the Web

An opinioneted integrator of internet technologies

Spin the Web deals with the Webbase Description Language (WBDL). Simply put, HTML describes a web page, WBDL, a web site; and, while HTML is interpreted by a client side web browser, WBDL, by a server side web spinner. It is this project opinion that WBDL is a missing component in the World Wide Web space.

It must be stressed that WBDL does not replace any technology, it coordinates technologies; it focuses on contents (rendered data pages), defining what they are, how they are organized, and where, how and when they are rendered. Web spinners output contents on request.

WBDL can describe web sites, intranets, extranets, portals, web apps, web services, here collectively referred to as webos. It is a fundamental language for Content Management Systems (CMS).

The term webbase was first used in 1998, a name given to a relational database whose schema defined a webo: its structure, content, layout, localization, navigation and security aspects. Later, to ease portability, the webbase was formalized into the XML based Webbase Description Language (WBDL), this introduced the term webbaselet, a webbase fragment.

Features

• Content centered
• Role Based Access Control
• Multilingual & Multinational (localized)
• Templated

Elements

Spin the Web addresses three issues to ease web develpments: describe, interpret and build. It is based on pillars of web development, HTML (SVG), CSS, Javascript, to name a few, it is not for the faint of heart, a good dose of know-how is necessary, full stack development know-how.

A webbase is an hierachically organized structure of three base elements, plus one: areas, pages and contents, the additional element is link, it points to any of the three base elements; at the root of the hierarchy there is a special area, the webo. The file system analogy may be of help: the webo is the drive, areas are folders, pages are files, links are shortcuts, contents are something else! Like the file system, a webbase also addresses security, security based on a simple inherited visibility paradigm.

Contents

Contents are central, they come in four flavors: navigational, organizational, presentational and special. The purpose of contents is to allow interaction with data of any kind, they request data, provide data, they can be simple microservices, dashbords that are described macroscopically by (WBDL) Webbase Description Language and microscopically (WBLL) Webbase Layout Language

• navigational — these content render as menubars, menu, breadcrumbs, image maps
• organizational — these contents render as tabs, calendars, group
• presentational — these contents render as forms, lists, tables, trees, graphs
• special — these contents can be client side scripts and API

Paradigm

A web spinner receives a request from a client, these are the logical steps that follow:

• If the request is the first request sent by the client, a session is established thus defining the session context
• The web spinner, subject to the session context, consults the WBDL file and responds with either: a list of REST calls the client should make or a resource
• If the client receives a list of REST calls, it sends requests for each of them asynchronously
• Else it receives a resource
• The session context holds the connected user, its associated roles and locale.