Hi people.... I am soon to release a new article for FarCry (still need to talk to the Daemon guys to decide how best to do this - seeing as I dont have that community site up yet as I was talking about).....
An issue we have been addressing here since moving to FarCry is "How best to integrate Legacy and External systems into the FarCry framework". Most of you will know that we have basically handled it by using lots of includedObj files (and I still have some code to release to Daemon to "upgrade" some of that functionality). However, in a few instances I have been playing with rules (on the ABN AMRO Morgans site, the Aspect Huntley news is generated through a hacked about XML Feed rule). While this has been very kewl, it is only a basic "hook" into the FarCry framework. The "execute" method of the rule simply calls the appropriate webservice and formats up some HTML that it returns for the container to deploy. Ideally, what I have really wanted, was a way to be more "integral" with the FarCry Framework and return a "collection" (array) of the items that need to be displayed and then create a display method to execute against each item in the collection. This is how it works with dmType derived objects like dmNews, dmFacts, dmEvents, etc. So - I hear you say - "Why not just create a new dmType-derived object?". There are a lot of reasons for NOT doing this for legacy/external data. 1. The data has no storage requirement in the FarCry system and I would not want to polute the schema (we have LOTS of this stuff) 2. Because of number 1, you don't want/need to "deploy" the type in the FarCry Administrator 3. I don't want non-deployed dmType objects hanging around - it's messy 4. My data doesn't necessarily use an "objectid" as a key (it could be a string, or a number, or some complex key) So - I now hear you saying - "Is there an answer?". YES - there is. I wont go into a lot of the "how to" detail yet, but basically have created a base custom type class - called ctExternalType (the ct standards for Custom Type) - and have placed this into the packages/custom folder of my FarCry application. This class "implements" enough of the dmType interface so that it can appear to a container as being a dmType-derived object (oh for a <CFINTERFACE> tag and a implements="" attribute for <CFCOMPONENT>). There is one tiny change to the method prototype in that objectID has been changed from being type="UUID" to type="ANY" (for reasons explained below). To provide access to your own data (wherever it may be) you simply derive from ctExternalType and override the "getData" method (which is passed the "objectID" and "dsn" - just as it would be in dmType) and then race off into the wild blue yonder, find some data, fill in a structure, and return it. The base class will then appropriately set up the stObj structure (with the data you returned) and call the nominated display method. After that, you simply create your rule as you would in FarCry and ensure that when you create the invocations array in your execute method that you tell it to create one of your derived types (as well as an appropriate display method) and the container.cfc will do the rest. With the change of the objectID type from UUID to ANY this allows me to supply any arbitrary key mechanism back when I create the invocations entries (the "key" could even be an XML packet that IS the data itself - your derived class just has to know how this information is structured). The display methods for one of these derived classes lives in the webskin under the name of the new class - just as any dmType dervived object would. This allows you to use the internal navajo/farcry routines to extract suitable display methods in your update method that helps populate the metadata for the container. So, if I have aroused your interest with this, I hope to pull the article together and get it up on the FarCry site soon. And much of this work is going to go towards the community site that I have been conceptualising. It will go a long way into building the "plug in" functionality that will provide a "portal" style interface that can be tailored by a visitor (as it will allow access to some external services - similar to the XML Feed rule - but more integrated into the FarCry framework). NOTE: the code for this extension is written, tested and working - and the article has a bunch of notes - I just need to pull it all together. Gary Menzel Web Development Manager IT Operations Brisbane -+- ABN AMRO Morgans Limited Level 29, 123 Eagle Street BRISBANE QLD 4000 PH: 07 333 44 828 FX: 07 3834 0828 If this communication is not intended for you and you are not an authorised recipient of this email you are prohibited by law from dealing with or relying on the email or any file attachments. 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