[ http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JS2-69?page=comments#action_59846 ] Randy Watler commented on JS2-69: ---------------------------------
Team, After devoting some time to this issue over the week I think I have come up with the heart of a proposal. I plan on commiting it to an official design document in all of its glory soon, but I would like some feedback first. Here is the general scheme: 1. An inital request comes in for a authenticated user immediately after login on some request url, (usually the portal root). Since this is the first request in a new session for the end user, the PageManager, Profiler, and new PortalNavigations component initializes a new context object that is attached to the session. This object will hold all cached profiled site information for the session to maximize reuse/scaling and hold sufficient state information about the user, pages, and active profiling rules to allow it to compute profiled site portal navigations dynamically later in the execution of the request pipeline. 2. The "site" session context object is initialized/reset with only these elements when the ProfilerValve is invoked in the pipeline: the root folder, the current page, and a creation timestamp. All Folder, Page, and other document instances managed within the site session context object will be proxies that are arranged into a standard hirarchical site definition with the aid of the PageManager and Profiler. Unlike the current implementation, all elements managed by the site session context can be navigated to locate relative profiled site content, (i.e. getParent(), getSiblingFolders(), getFolders(), etc. will reflect the profiled site). These proxies will delegate all access and operations to the underlying objects managed by the PageManager, except those that maintain the proxy hierarchy. As mentioned, the initial site session context object will be sparsely populated. As the end user navigates through the portal and the Page Layout Templates are constructed, the site session context object will cache more of the profiled site definition by constructing the proxy hierarchy dynamically. The cached proxy hierarchy will be cleared when the session is destroyed or the PageManager cache is cleared due to a change in the physical PSML content. 3. Basic utilities will be implemented by the site session context object that mimic the existing PageManager/Profiler features. These will minimally include: getPage(), getFolder(), getSiblingFolders(), getSiblingPages(), and getRootLinks(). The new getRootFolder(), getRootPages(), and getRootFolders() access will also implemented to facilitate ad-hoc access to the root of the profiled site. 4. Document sets will be deprecated and replaced with named menu definitions that will appear in the folder.metadata files. In the broadest terms, these new folder based menu definitions will be a super set of the existing document set features. In addition to the ability to define and profile multiple menu definitions using alternate profiling rules and regular expression path sets, new capabilities based on explicit XML menu tags to define ragged nested menus inline will be implemented. Also, common menu design patterns/idioms can be easily specified using the declarative XML menu tags, (e.g. it would be trivial to define a simple XML definition to specify a menu tree composed of all root level folders and their pages). Individually named menu definitions will be inherited, (in a strictly non-aggregating style), down the profiled PSML hierarchy as one would expect so that they can be overriden in lower levels in the site. When accessed by the Page Layout Templates, the site session context object will construct and cache each named menu definition using another hierarchy of proxied Folder, Page and other document instances. This proxy hierarchy can be easily navigated by the Page Layout Templates to generate many simple or cascading Portal Navigation styles. 5. The implementation of the functionality behind the site session context object and its proxy hierarchies will be encapsulated in a separate component I am referring to as the PortalNavigations component. I am also considering the implementation of another compatible component that simply returns underlying Folders, Pages, and other documents from the PageManager without employing the Profiler or Security; this would also eliminate the need for proxies and delegation. Given the flexibilty of the intended APIs outlined above, I am not sure there is a need to micro componentize the full function PortalNavigations functionality. By only computing exactly what a Page Layout Template requests and employing session based caching, it is not clear that any performance advantage would be realized by further decomposition. However, I am still considering the implementation of individual menu definition idioms as components. 6. At the moment, I am assuming that different Page Layout Templates would be developed for the different HTML/javascript menu presentation styles. However, it would be relatively trivial thing to provide a menu presentation style attribute to the menu definition XML tags if we felt that having one template support multiple presentation styles was ideal. 7. I am also initially requiring that default menu definitions would be placed in root folder.metadata files. This will allow them to be profiled, and thus overriden, as is done with all PSML content. However, it might be desirable to allow menu definitions to be specified in the PortalNavigations Spring configuration or by other valves in the request pipeline. I am not intending to support these or other alternatives in this implementation unless someone can come up with a compelling use case. Whew! Ok gentlemen, pick up you stones and have at the straw man! Randy > Finallizing Portal Navigation using the Profiler > ------------------------------------------------ > > Key: JS2-69 > URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JS2-69 > Project: Jetspeed 2 > Type: New Feature > Components: Profiling/Portal Navigation > Versions: 2.0-dev/cvs, 2.0-a1 > Reporter: Scott T Weaver > Assignee: Randy Watler > Priority: Critical > > We still haven't settled on how we are going to generate navigations in J2. > I have some modifications to the Profiler and to the theme logic which may > give us some direction. I am bringing this up as I have been privellage to > quite a few vendor portal demos lately allowing me to see both the good and > the bad of multiple implementations. > - I would say we replace the getDesktop() with getFolders(). There is really > no need for a "root" item or Folder per se since we will be leaving this job > to the current set of profilling rules that have been assigned to the > Profiler. > - Folders will contain any number of pages and/or folders. > - Folder items would be ordered the following way: first by assigned index > then by alphabetical order. > - Remove defaultPage logic from Folder, the focused Folder item would be set > in this fashion: set the focus to the last selected child in that Folder then > by Folder Item ordering algothrim defined above. > - It should be the Profiler's responsibility to preserve a user's active item > on a per Folder basis. > - A Folder would still posses the defaultTheme capabillity but with the added > abillity to enforce the defaultTheme on its childern and its childrens' > children by overriding the theme settings for those items with its own. > - Rendering the contents of the Profiler.getFolders() would be left entirely > up to the theme (currently called the layout decorator). Example: a theme > could render the first 2 levels as tabs and the rest as a hierarchical menu > to the left of the layout area. > - DO NOT introduce the idea of controls and controllers. It has been stated > before that these easily confuse people and I agree 100%. We need to keep > things simple. > I think the first profiling/navgation implementation would be assigning n > number of roles to a top-level folder. Then allow the Profiler to aggregate > what Folders a user has access to by comparing the roles that user is > assigned to the ones required the Folders required roles (ACL?) I think this > approach is already somewhat in place but it just needs some final > implementation details. -- This message is automatically generated by JIRA. - If you think it was sent incorrectly contact one of the administrators: http://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/Administrators.jspa - If you want more information on JIRA, or have a bug to report see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
