Deprecating the .Class file

2016-10-29

The .Class file is being deprecated. It will remain functional for an unspecified time but will be removed in future releases.

It’s purpose was to allow applications to document themselves. Imagine an application was accessible via the domain gallery.com. To allow users to quickly look up the apps documentation, the .Class file was introduced to hold actual application files. This way the file at gallery.com was up to the developer to contain any relevant documentation.

We still need both the documentation and the application files, but we are reversing the solution. Application files will live directly within gallery.com and documentation files will be moved to a subpage instead, namely the file .Docs. Visitors going to our imaginary gallery.com will be redirected to gallery.com/.Docs.

Motivation

The .Class file is used way more frequently than the app documentation and so adds an unnecessary mental overhead. It now seems obvious that the file layout should be optimized for the application files over the documentation to simplify learning Boomla.

Additionally, Boomla is soon landing support for extending and configuring applications via the file type chain. The mental overhead of using and learning the .Class would significantly increase. Let’s keep things simple.

Migration guide

• Update all your apps.

• Move any documentation from the app file, like gallery.com to the .Docs file.

• Move all files from the .Class file directly into the app file. For example, the file gallery.com/.Class/.Inline has to be moved to gallery.com/.Inline.

• Set the app file’s type to app-1.

• Remove the .Class file.
  
  

Dynamic ..Class file

The dynamic ..Class file will keep pointing to the .Class file if it exists. If it doesn’t exist, it will point to the app file instead.