uPortal Layout Ideas

fragments.xml

The fragments.xml file is used to publish fragments into the system.

• There is no concept of priority, fragments are processed in the order in which they appear in this file. To change priority, reorder the file.

• When fragments.xml is published, fragments that do not appear in the file are removed from the system, this is to prevent orphan fragments.

• This <fragments> element can contain two types of children:

  • <fragment> - a fragment that is defined later

  • <include file="chemistry.xml"/> - includes the contents of the specified file

A user interface could be built to allow the manipulation of fragments. If this interface was created, it should support the ability to export the fragment configuration so that fragments.xml can be resynced with any changes made.

Sample fragments.xml

Fragment Types

I've identified five types of fragment behaviors I would like to see.

Pushed

Pushed fragments have their content put into a users layout if the rules of the fragment are satisfied. Users cannot change the content. Changes made to the fragment are reflect to the user.

Pulled

Pulled fragments are fragments that a user must subscribe to through some interface. Once subscribed, the contents of the fragment are displayed to the user. The user cannot change the content. Changes made to the fragment are reflected to the user.

Dynamic

If the rules of a dynamic fragment are satisfied, a Java class specified is called to generate the contents of the fragment. The scenario in mind for this was creating a list of subtabs based on worksites in Sakai that you belong to.

New User

This type of fragment is used for new users to the system. When a new users logs on, if a newuser fragment's rules are satisfied, the contents of the fragment are copied into the user's layout.

Template

Template fragments provide starting points for tabs similar to My Yahoo!. When a user chooses to add a tab based on "template" fragment, the contents of the fragment are copied into the user's layout to modify at will. Changes made to a template fragment have no affect if someone has already created a tab based on the fragment. Only when the rules are satisfied does this template become available to a user.

Fragment Owners

Each fragment should define a list of users and groups that can modify the fragment through an interface within the portal.

Fragment Rules

After seeing documentation on DLM's rules, I figured there had to be an easier way to specify when fragments are loaded into a user's layout. This mechanism is modeled after e-mail client rules, which people already use and understand. Below is a very simple rules example.

• Rules are processed in order

• There are two types of rules: include and exclude

  • If the conditions for an include rule are met, the fragment is included in the user's layout

  • If the conditions for an exclude rule are met, the fragment is excluded from the user's layout

  • If the conditions of a rule are not met, the system moves to the next rule

  • If none of the rules are satisfied, the fragment is excluded from the user's layout

• There are two values for the conditions attribute: any and all

  • "any" means that if any of the conditions are true, the entire rule is true

  • "all" means that for the rule to be true, all of the conditions must be true

• Conditions have different attributes based on the type. Here are the condition types:

  • attribute - the contents of the element are compared to attribute name of the current user using the method:

    • contains

    • does-not-contain

    • begins-with

    • ends-with

    • exists

    • does-not-exist

    • is-equal-to

    • greater-than

    • less-than

    • greater-than-equal-to

    • less-than-equal-to

  • is-member-of-group - the user must be a member of the group specified

  • is-not-member-of-group - the user must not be a member of the group specified

  • before-date - the current date/time is before the date/time specified

  • after-date - the current date/time is after the date/time specified

Example Rules

Fragment Layouts

Within each fragment there is a <layout> element which holds the actual content for the layout. A sample layout looks like this: