[wsia][customization] call details for 8/14

["Timothy N. Jones" <tim@crossweave.com>]

Toll free: 1-877-299-7551, passcode 2696#
(These numbers should be constant going forward.)

Proposed agenda for tomorrow is to work through the application of the
Transparent State interface (properties) to a portlet configuration scenario
(attached) and a value-added portlet wrapper scenario (Shankar?).

The latest version of the customization working draft is attached,
reflecting some additional work on the introduction.

Regards,
Tim

Title: Property-Based Portlet Configuration

Property-Based Portlet Configuration

Description

In this scenario, a portlet Consumer wishes to configure a Producer entity.  Let us assume that the portlet in question displays the most recent press releases published to a newswire service for a specific company.  The portlet is being integrated into a corporate intranet portal by an administrator, who wishes to configure the company parameter of the portlet such that portal users see their company’s press releases.

Interaction Sequence

1. registerConsumer(portal) – the portal establishes a connection with the Producer
2. cloneEntity(press release portlet) – the portal clones the press release portlet for configuration
3. getProperties(press release portlet clone) – the portal queries the press release portlet clone for configurable properties
4. getPropertyDescription(press release portlet clone) – the portal queries the press release portlet clone for the description of configurable properties
5. setProperties(press release portlet clone, company name/value) – the portal sets the value of company property
6. releaseHandles(portal) – the portal disconnects from the Producer, releasing resources associated with the entities

Property Description

We assume that the portal provides a generic configuration tool which may be used by an administrator to set the value of any portlet property.  The getProperties() method is called by the portal to enumerate the properties published by the portlet and presented to the administrator for editing (for example, by dynamically constructing a form containing the properties as table rows).  The getPropertyDescription() method is called by the portal to obtain the human-readable description of the properties.

 

The property data structure contains five fields:

• name – property name
• datatype – property value type
• value – property value
• scope – scope of value (Producer, Consumer, Entity, Session)
• required – whether the property must by set by the Consumer

 

In the press release example, the portlet exposes a single property:

• name – ticker
• datatype – string
• value – <empty>
• scope – Entity
• required – true

 

The portal sets the “value” field of the property structure and sends it back to the portlet with setProperties().

Issues

• It seems inconsistent to have a separate getPropertyDescription() method in the interface.  Either the description should be another field in the property data structure, or the structure should be split and separate getPropertyName(), getPropertyType(), getPropertyValue(), etc. methods defined.
• An entity is created with cloneEntity(), but how is it destroyed?  If it is destroyed with releaseHandles(), then there seems to be a problem supporting persistent state – when called with a client handle (at the end of a session), releaseHandles() also releases all associated entities.

Attachment: wd-wsia-cust-00.doc
Description: MS-Word document