[Mailman-Developers] Browser ID integration with Mailman

[Richard Wackerbarth]

On Feb 23, 2012, at 4:46 PM, Florian Fuchs wrote:
>>> Of course, if we implement such a custom backend we should do it in a generic and reusable way. I just think making a full-blown django app for what is usually just a .py file might be a bit overkill... But as I said: debatable... ;-)
>> 
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "full-blown django app". Even though an app must have models, views, templates, etc., those can usually be empty placeholder files.
> 
> By that I meant: Something people installing it have to take care of by tweaking their settings. INSTALLED_APPS tuple. If it's part of the package, that doesn't need to be done. Although having an extra app for that could make sense if the different auth methods should be strictly pluggable. 
> 
> Cheers
> Florian

If I am not mistaken, the INSTALLED_APPS as defined in the django instance settings, is just a convenient way to switch on/off django apps whose code is present. I think that an enabled app can effectively override the tupe and cause other apps to behave as if they had been listed in the settings.

However, I am not sure that to do so would be a good idea. The person who installs a plugin is going to have to do a number of things. In particular, he will, presumedly, have to do more than just add the code to the python path. He will modify some configuration parameter on the core side in order to have the plugin have any effect on the mail traffic.

Since we have separated the mail handling from the administrative interface (UI), he will also need to both make code available and alter some configuration setting on the UI side.

Just as in the django distribution, where the "admin" interface is optional, adding references to our plugins SHOULD involve adding lines to the settings files, etc.  Note that we could provide a script that would automate those changes. However, as a system administrator, I prefer to be told in the installation instructions what lines I need to change, and why. I am leery of scripts that "magically" change configurations on my system.

Richard