strict template execution should not require creating specific restlets

[mpo]

Currently one needs to create and declare his own restlet to be able to simply execute templates.

It would be nice if specific references to templates could be made in such a way that this is no longer required.

Possible approaches (haven't given it much thought yet)

• kmt: protocol that would work like kms, except it would also 'execute' the template
• keep with kms but allow providing specific 'filtering/activating' directives in the 'authority' component of the URI that would then be configurably activating the templating process (or something else)
• some convention about location (or filename-pattern) to make template files recognisable and somewhat self-executing when calling them with kms. In this case some _raw=true request parameter could be used to indicate that the raw content should be served.

In these cases the context params should be assembled from a combination of

• added request parameters
• in-memory context passed via request-attributes or some threadlocal

To some extend, this enhancement is similar to what is asked for in ticket:4

[mpo]

Note: restlet has a similar issue open for their 'Directory' support.
See ​http://restlet.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=195

[bruno]

There is a routing extension providing a 'template' element allowing execution of a template without writing code, besides configuring the routing. This doesn't go as far as the things mentioned above, I'm only mentioning it here for reference.

[mpo]

post 0.4