Implementations
Two implementations exist:
- jQuery based. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SLING-993 contains a screenshot.
- GWT based. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SLING-990 contains a screenshot.
While I was able to build the jQuery based bundle using Maven but I got errors for the GWT based one.
There also exists JCR-Explorer but that software seems to be somewhat dead. To use it with Sling see: Using the JCR-Explorer with Sling and How to run the JCR Explorer with Sling?.
Requirements
Here's a quick and dirty spec for a JCR Explorer, feel free to expand/refine!
Requirements
More or less in priority order:
...
Later, use OSGi-based plugins to edit Property values.
The JCR explorer has to be usable for pure JCR repositories (non-Sling), even though the explorer itself would run under Sling (use cases : display the list of available repositories, add/delete/update a new JCR repo, ...).
Technical Issues
Select a good UI framework : Jquery, YUI or GWT ?
I would vote for Dojo. It has a dojo.data API (similar purpose to JDO/JPA+beansbinding), that can be used to connect to Sling using HTTP, and to the widgets using data binding. Hopefully Sling can also expose a "standard protocol" that can be used with Dojo's JsonRestStore.
Example of a Dojo app, using dojo.data API, backend by a REST store, using SOFEA approach: http://www.persvr.org/explorer.html
~ Hendy Irawan