[BioRuby] Web interface

[pjotr at pckassa.com]

Hi Everyone,

I am in the process of writing several programs where it would be nice
to have a web front-end. Now, for submitting FASTA, the interface is
usually pretty similar where you have a style sheet, header, footer
and some input fields. This calls for some template solution. My idea
is to use mod_ruby where the template looks like:

~~~

require 'webtemplate'

page =
WebTemplate.new(stylefn,headerfn,footerfn,templatefn,'nextpage.cgi')

~~~

Where templatefn looks like:

TextField,query,'Query'
AminoAcids,field1
SubmitFile,field2
SelectField,field3,'Choose',{0,'Type1',0,'Type2',1,'Type3'}
etc.

~~~

The next step is to parse the results entered on the generated form
and submit the query to the query engine - which has to be able to
queue requests not to overload the machine. Results can be displayed
or sent by E-mail.

The queue requests are simple batch invocations (not sure what
infrastructure to use yet, gnuqueue http://www.gnuqueue.org/home.html
is an option). That gives the advantage the programme can be run also
from the command line by users who don't want the webinterface.

A generic solution - and part of BioRuby - looks like a good idea to
me. I can write it, but maybe there are some existing/better
solutions to the same problem.

What do you think?

Pj.