RESTful Portal Content: Delivering Content for uPortal without

writing Portlets or IChannels

Susan Bramhall Yale University

JA-SIG Winter 2006

JA-SIG Winter 2006

How this presentation came to be

Why are other uPortal sites writing so many Portlets?

What is wrong with the approach we take at Yale?

http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/JCON/06winter+Compelling+uses+of+CWebProxy+and+CGenericXSLT

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Our Goal: Channels and Portlets should

be… Easy to provide Managed by application or data

owner not portal team Technology independent Easily ported to new environments Re-usable for many uses

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Essentially More RESTful

Simple HTTPS and XML where possible simplifies component implementation reduces the complexity of connector semantics

Layered improves the effectiveness of performance tuning

Cacheable Improved performance

Improved scalability of portal Less complexity in the portal

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90% of Content via XML or XHTML

CGenericXSLT RSS Sakai Site Summary Upcoming Events Recent E-mail Computing Clusters Library Books Out

Uses parameters to focus the channel

CAbstractXslt Could return, for

example, user layout or channel registry

CWebProxy Directory Search Network Registration

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Example:Dynamic Information From Sakai

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How did that happen?

1. XML retrieved from http request via Proxy CAS returns…

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How did that happen?

2. Simple XSL formats for channel to display

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Who did that?

Jen did. Java programmer on Yale’s Sakai Project Familiar with Sakai internals She reused existing Sakai logic and APIs She did it in less than a day No new Portlet

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“That was easy!”

All the work is on the Sakai side All the understanding is on the Sakai side The channel is part of our Sakai Project

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OK, Authentication can be a challenge More Info on the CAS wiki

For portlets see… http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/PLT/Portlets+using+Proxy+CAS

YaleInfoClasses*V2

Sakai summary channel

CAS

https requestwith PST

XML result

Validate TicketProxy Service Ticket

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RESTful Benefits

Layering Separation of

responsibilities Easier to tune

performance Allows more scalable

portal

YaleInfo

Classes*V2Sakai

summary channel

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Recent E-Mails

Uses Proxy CAS * 2 Links to message in IMP Not a full e-mail client in uPortal

portal

Recent E-mail

Channelservlet

IMAPServer

IMAPProtocol

HTTPSRequest

XMLresponse

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Computing Cluster Status

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ITS Systems Messages

Simple RSS feed from existing system “more…” links to full information

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Upcoming Events

Upcoming Eventschannel

HomegrownCalendar

API

Yale Public Event CalendarSunCalendarServer

YaleInfo Portal

Native

http

Xml

Request -

response

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Speaking of caching

We did modify the CGenericXSLT to cache XML documents

The cache layer refreshes the cache on configurable intervals in the background

User request never waits on xml retrieval after the first time

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YaleInfo looks like this…

Cache ofXML

Documents

Channels are rendered from cached documents

DocumentCacherthread Top Links

1/day

Clusters6/hr

Recent emailNot cached

Events 1/hr

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Caching Package

edu.yale.its.portal.utils.cache Retrieves XML using commons httpclient Saves DOM in memory One (yes, one) thread runs in background

refreshing documents on scheduled intervals

CGenericXSLT modified to get XML from caching package

Channel Publishing Document modified to get cache parameters

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Channel Publishing Document?

Defines the steps for publishing a channel based on a channel type. See…

webpages/

media/

org/

jasig/

portal

channels/

CGenericXSLT/

CGenericXSLT.cpd

Channel Types Drive Channel Manager

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Channel Type includes CPD

CPD is the XML configuration file

See more about creating a new channel type on the JA-SIG wiki under the name “Register Channel Type”

http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/x/lzQ

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More Tips and Tricks

Focus A channel can focus itself using parameter

uP_root=me Or "unfocus“ by using uP_root=root

Modification to pass IP address

Summary of library books out

[baseActionUrl]?uP_root=me

Detail of library books out

[baseActionUrl]?uP_root=root

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Return from focus to normal

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CSqlQuery vs. sql2xml service

CSqlQuery Nifty new IChannel Executes a SQL query Returns results in XML uPortal dependent

sql2xml Servlet runs in a

separate JVM Configured with data

source and SQL query Accepts parameters on

request Executes SQL query

and returns XML Portal and application

agnostic

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Incorporated Applications

CWebProxy – 2 more Yale examples Network Registration Directory Lookup

Web Proxy Portlet

http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/PLT/WebProxy

Network Registration

User perspective = a captive application Technical view = Completely independent

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Network Registration

STRUTS application Written for Portal but also runs stand alone Entirely separate web server environment We modified uPortal to allow IP address to be

passed Person attribute passing is built in

PortalNetwork

RegistrationWeb Proxy

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Yale Directory Lookup

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Yale Directory Look Up

Separate JSP application Uses LDAP interface and

produces xhtml Separately hosted Captive to Portal from user

perspective

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CWebProxy has neat features Passing person attributes Changing source XHTML

and or XSL on the fly

See tutorial on CWebProxy home page http://www.mun.ca/portal/software/cw/

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I am still wondering

Is this the best way to provide content?

What do you think?