[Proposal] Remove aspect datas in the portal

[Carsten Ziegeler <cz...@apache.org>]

The portal currently uses a highly configurable and absolutely
complicated mechanism to add additional features to a coplet (or layout
object): so called aspect datas.

Two example (taken from the xconf configuration):
           <aspect name="size"
                        class="java.lang.Integer"
                        store="session"
                        auto-create="true"
                        value="1"/>
                <aspect name="fullScreen"
                        class="java.lang.Boolean"
                        store="temporary"
                        auto-create="true"
                        value="false"/>
THis adds to values to each coplet indicating the default size of the
coplet (normal) and defining the value for fullScreen.

Now the basic idea of having this as some addition "stuff" was that not
each and every portal makes use of this information and therefore it
should be optional.
Afaik, this stuff has not really been used (apart from the default
configuration) and it is in addition very slow.
As each and every coplet can also have attributes (a map) I think
removing this feature does not really harm but makes the portal easier
to understand. We should add the above information to the coplet as for
a portal they should be standard stuff anyway.
All other aspect datas - if there are any - can be easily transformed to
attributes.

Of course this is an incompatible change, but I think in the long term
the portal can benefit from such simplications, so imho we should change
this for the 2.2 version.

WDYT?

Carsten
-- 
Carsten Ziegeler - Open Source Group, S&N AG
http://www.s-und-n.de
http://www.osoco.org/weblogs/rael/

Re: [Proposal] Remove aspect datas in the portal

[Ralph Goers <Ra...@dslextreme.com>]

Carsten Ziegeler wrote:

>The portal currently uses a highly configurable and absolutely
>complicated mechanism to add additional features to a coplet (or layout
>object): so called aspect datas.
>
>Two example (taken from the xconf configuration):
>           <aspect name="size"
>                        class="java.lang.Integer"
>                        store="session"
>                        auto-create="true"
>                        value="1"/>
>                <aspect name="fullScreen"
>                        class="java.lang.Boolean"
>                        store="temporary"
>                        auto-create="true"
>                        value="false"/>
>THis adds to values to each coplet indicating the default size of the
>coplet (normal) and defining the value for fullScreen.
>
>Now the basic idea of having this as some addition "stuff" was that not
>each and every portal makes use of this information and therefore it
>should be optional.
>Afaik, this stuff has not really been used (apart from the default
>configuration) and it is in addition very slow.
>As each and every coplet can also have attributes (a map) I think
>removing this feature does not really harm but makes the portal easier
>to understand. We should add the above information to the coplet as for
>a portal they should be standard stuff anyway.
>All other aspect datas - if there are any - can be easily transformed to
>attributes.
>
>Of course this is an incompatible change, but I think in the long term
>the portal can benefit from such simplications, so imho we should change
>this for the 2.2 version.
>
>WDYT?
>
>Carsten
>  
>
I know the sites we are currently generating don't look like portlets. 
i.e. they don't have any minimize, maximize, etc. buttons.  So if this 
can be easily achieved I guess I wouldn't have a problem with this - 
although it did make it awfully easy to add support for convertable 
events (see my other email).

Ralph