Hi
Thomas,
<note>
As I was not in the F2F, and have not yet posted to
this mailing list, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Gil Tayar, I am
the Chief Architect of WebCollage, and a colleague of Eilon
Reshef.
</note>
I very much liked your life-cycle description,
and I think it can provide a descent framework on which to base WSRP's
life-cycle and interface/protocol discussions. It also complements Mike's more
detailed document very well.
To summarize the states of a portlet, you
have the following:
1. Unbound: The portlet exists, but
there is _no_ connection to the portal.
2. Bound: the
portlet is bound, and registered in the portal.
3. Template:
a portlet template is created by the portal, with a given set of
parameters.
4. Instance: A template inside a given user
page.
As a member of WSIA, where states #1-#3 do not "exist" (yet!), I
would like to dig deeper into the "Instance state". It seems to me that this
state should be subdivided into two:
4a. Serialized/Stored
Instance: the template and the customizations the user selected
and put in the page, as it exists in the "persistence store/database" of the
portal.
4b. Active Instance: the entity used to render the
portlet and "do the actions".
I believe the distinction between the two
is an important one, as important as the distinction between a java object
serialized to a stream, and the java object itself. One (the serialized object
or portlet) is "just" data used to create the other.
To make another
point, the state names I gave are a bit confused. Some are "states" and some are
"entity types". We can deconstruct this further:
Entity Types
-
1. Portlet. The remote service that responds to
WSRP messages.
2. Bound Portlet. The location and
registration information for the Portlet, as stored by the portal.
3.
Portlet Template. The set of parameters to be used when
creating a Stored Instance, as stored by the portal.
4. Stored
Portlet Instance. The set of customization options to be used for a
certain user page, as stored by the portal.
5. Active
Instance. The viewed portlet, when viewed inside the portal.
The
above lists turns the "states" into more of a list of "operations" which create
entities from other entities -
Operations -
1.
Binding: a request of the administrator(?) to the portal to
register the portlet and store location and registration information, to be used
when creating a portlet template.
2. Creating a Template:
Using the location and registration information, get the meta-data, query the
administrator(?) for the parameters, and store them.
3. Inserting
Template into Page: User selects a template, customizes it, and creates
a Stored Portlet Instance from it.
4. Viewing the Portlet:
User opens portal, and the portal creates an Active Instance from the Stored
Instance.
Hope it makes
sense,
Gil
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Schaeck [mailto:]
Sent: Sunday, April
07, 2002 18:19
To: Michael Freedman;
Subject:
Re: [wsrp][interfaces and protocols]: Portal using WSRP
Service
Hi Mike,
here's the life-cycle writeup I
promised:
Binding to a WSRP
Service
-------------------------
Pre: - The Portal and the WSRP
Portlet Service are not bound -
1. The administrator browses the
directory for WSRP services using the
portal admin UI -->
- The Portal
finds the WSRP Portlet Service in the directory
2. The administrator
selects a WSRP service -->
- The Portal makes a call or series of calls to
the WSRP Portlet Service to
establish a relation (bind) (may include
establishing a trust relation, see
my security note)
- The Portal creates
a portlet template referencing the WSRP portlet
service. (Potentially, the
template may need to be parameterized with
template settings to become
usable.)
Post: - The portal is bound to the WSRP service through the
portlet
template, users may now see the template beeing offered in the
portal's
customizer -
Creation of
Instances
---------------------
Pre: - The portal is bound to the WSRP
service through the portlet
template, users may now see the template beeing
offered in the portal's
customizer/toolbox -
3. A portal user selects
the portlet template to be put on a page -->
- The portal server creates a
portlet instance from the portlet template
- The portal server links the
instance to the user's page
Post: - The portal is bound to the WSRP
service through the portlet
template, users may now see the template beeing
offered in the portal's
customizer/toolbox and a unique instance which may
have persistent data now
exists for the user
Destruction of
Instances
------------------------
Pre: - The portal is bound to the
WSRP service through the portlet
template, users may now see the template
beeing offered in the portal's
customizer/toolbox and a unique instance which
may have persistent data now
exists for the user
4. A portal user
discards a portlet instance from a page -->
- The portal discards the link
from the page to the instance
- The portal discards the instance
Pre:
- The portal is bound to the WSRP service through the portlet
template, users
may now see the template beeing offered in the portal's
customizer/toolbox,
the unique instance does no longer exist
Unbinding a WSRP
service
------------------------
Pre: - The portal is bound to a WSRP
service through a portlet template,
users may now see the template beeing
offered in the portal's customizer -
5. The adminstrator browses the list
of portlet tempplates and discards the
portlet template -->
- The
portal makes a call to the WSRP Portlet Service referenced in the
portlet
template to undo the binding
- The portal discards the portlet
template
Post: - The Portal and the WSRP Portlet Service are not bound
-
Best
regards,
Thomas
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