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Subject: RE: [wsrp][interfaces]: Portal Usage Scenario


Title: Message
The definitions below capture the semantics very clearly - how about the term instance data as an alternative to personalization data? I guess the data is not necessarily personalized in the strict sense (i.e., a team page with a portlet still has instance-specific data, but it's not user-specific), and on the other hand this is the data on which an instance operates. Would it make it clearer? (E.g., "by default, each instance has its own instance data, but it is possible that multiple instances share the same instance data, possibly because they are cloned")
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Freedman [mailto:Michael.Freedman@oracle.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 5:24 PM
To: Gil Tayar
Cc: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsrp][interfaces]: Portal Usage Scenario

I believe that is how we have defined things:
    portlet instance: a portlet on a page; or more generically a portlet in the portal layout structure.  From a portal's perspective, the portlet instance is the  realization of the portlet in the runtime layout structure.  A portlet instance is derived from a portlet template.  e.g. when adding a portlet to a page, the  user chooses a portlet template (from the toolbox).  The template is used to "type" the instance being created.

   personalization data: a set of customized data settings for a portlet instance. There is an 1 to N relationship between personalization data and portlet instances.  1 set of personalizations may be shared between multiple instances.

What is/was a little confusing was Yossi statement that "the same portlet instance appears in different places in the portal structure".  That is not what I had indicated in my reply to him -- rather I said was "personalization [data] can be shared between multiple portlet instances of the same type."  I.e. portlet instances ARE your runtime manifestations on a page.  There is a special case where two of these happen to share the same personalization data.  This tends to come into existence via some kind of clone operation.  WSRP/portlets care about this in the situation the service maintains its personalization data.

I hope this helps.
     -Mike-

Gil Tayar wrote:

 I second #1, as I outlined in my previous email. I submit that what is confusing is the term "portlet instance". I would prefer "portlet instance data" or "portlet customization data" and leave "portlet instance" to the runtime manifestation on the page, e.g. only when the user views it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Tamari, Yossi [mailto:yossi.tamari@sapportals.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 11:28
To: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsrp][interfaces]: Portal Usage Scenario
 
Thanks for the answers, but I'm still not satisfied on 1 and 2...1. What bothers me here is that the fact the same portlet instance appears in different places in the portal structure is completely handled by the portal. The producer does not know/care where this instance is in the portal pages. Hence while the feature is logical in the portal framework, I don't see its relevance to WSRP.2. I see your point, I'm just worried about performance. We should give this some more thought. Maybe the metadata could either give a URL\title or say that it is dynamic.    Yossi.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Freedman [mailto:Michael.Freedman@oracle.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:06 AM
To: Tamari, Yossi
Cc: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsrp][interfaces]: Portal Usage Scenario
 
Good questions.

1. What I meant when I said that personalization data can be shared between multiple instances is that the personalization can be shared between multiple portlet instances of the same type.  For example I can have two instances of a Stock portlet that share the same personalization data.  In this case both instances display the same result.  When either is customized, the changes are reflected in both as the personalization data is shared.  This generalization allows a consumer to expose the same portlet (result) from different levels in its structure.  Remember, a portlet instance is defined as a particular reference in the structure (portlet on a page).  If you want the same content in two locations in the structure you need the function defined here.  One use of this is in a portal that supports access from multiple devices.  One can envision the need to allow portal designers/users to maintain different portal structures between the device (types).  However, in such a world the end user still wants access to the same content.  Cloning is an operation that can be used create a second portlet instance with the characteristics that its personalization data is shared.  So a cloned instance is one that has the characteristics described above.

2.   Yes, requesting a portlet instance to render a link reference to itself does mean you ask the portlet to render an URL that returns its content as markup.  I agree that this operation can often be defined by meta-data.  However it may not always be static.  In both this case and the case we need to render a title bar for the portlet we must allow a way for the portal (consumer) to acquire the portlet's (producers) title.  This is because the title is commonly personalizable -- hence dynamic.  Further discussions will resolve whether this occurs during a render operation (get "Link") or is merely a getTitle API that returns a string.  Done in the former the portlet gets an opportunity to define/override the standard getContent URL -- hence I included it in the list.

3.  Whether changes to a portlet template's settings should affect existing instances is a good question.  We should discuss this in the next phase.  I will add it to the questions list in this area.  I will also remove the statement from the document (so it can be added once answered).  I agree there are basic configuration settings that should be propagated.  An example would be a news feed portlet that requires the URL of the source be entered to wire the portlet to a particular news feed.  If this URL changes there needs to be a way for the update to alter existing instances.  On the flip side, one can also envision some template settings being the initial personalization for an end user.  Its not as clear if these values should be propogated particularly if there is support for > 1 level of personalization in the instance.

Hope this helps.
    -Mike-

"Tamari, Yossi" wrote:

Hi Mike,I need some clarifications:1. personalization data - What does it mean that it can be shared between multiple instances? do you mean instances of the same portlet? if so, why is that a different instances, i.e. why should the consumer request the exact same data twice? And how is that different from a cloned instance?2. "You can request a portlet instance render a link reference to itself" - Does that mean you ask the portlet for a URL that returns its content as markup? I think this should be part of the meta-data, as it does not need to be truly dynamic.3. Why should changes to the portlet template's settings not affect existing instances? If the name of my company was change, I want the new name rendered in ALL the instances.    Yossi.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Freedman [mailto:Michael.Freedman@oracle.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 9:53 PM
To: WSRP
Subject: [wsrp][interfaces]: Portal Usage Scenario
I have attached a short document describing a portal's possible usage pattern for portlets using the terms we discussed last week.  Please comment/annotate with new operations or suggested operations to remove.  Please don't annotate with questions intended to clarify the behavior of the operation, send these separately. The goal for this Thursday's meeting is to see if we can agree on a preliminary usage pattern and collection of operations. Hopefully we can then move into enumerating the questions we need to answer.  In our discussion on Thursday, I expect we will need to classify at least the operational aspects of the usage scenario along two axes:

Axis 1:  Is this a valid Portal operation?

  • Yes, we all agree this a valid operation
  • No, we all agree this is not a valid operation
  • Maybe, there is debate whether this is a valid operation.
  • Don't know, we need more information and discussion to understand the operation before classifying it.


Axis 2: Should this operation be covered/enabled by our spec?

  • Yes, we all agree.
  • Yes, but it should be addressed in a later revision.
  • No, we all agree.
  • Maybe, there is debate whether we should address this.
  • Don't know, we need more information to decide.
It might be useful if each of you did your own classification (assuming of course the usage scenario isn't grossly controversial).

    -Mike-
 
 

 


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