[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