Optaros Surf Code Camp Dispatcher

Alfresco Surf Code Camp
Dispatcher and Site Construction

Objectives

By the end of this module you should know
• How pages are dispatched
• How pages are assembled by invoking component renderers
• How Page Types & Themes work together

12/12/08 Optaros and Client confidential. All rights reserved. 2

Site Dispatcher

You've used web script-based components as Share
Dashlets

Now let's learn about how Surf sites and Surf pages
are built

12/12/08 3

Site Dispatcher

The site dispatcher is responsible for figuring out
which page should be assembled for a given request,
and then assembling the page by invoking renderers
Page

Renderer

Renderer Renderer

Renderer

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Model Objects

Model Objects contain information about site
construction

A web site looks to these objects during render

They define pages and page layout

They define where components appear on pages

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Model Objects

Model Objects are XML files

Here is an example of a component XML file

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<component>
<scope>global</scope>
<region-id>footer</region-id>
<source-id>global</source-id>
<url>/age/footer</url>
<properties>
<custom1>My custom property value</custom1>
</properties>
</component>

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List of Model Objects

Types Associations
Component Type Page
•
Association
Template Type
Content
•
Page Type Association

Instances Site
Component Configuration
• •
Template Theme
• •
Instance
Chrome
•
Page
•

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Key Surf Page Construction Concepts

SomeTemplate.ftl

Pages Home Header

Blog About
Gutter Body

Template
Instances & Regions
Renderers

Footer

Component
(Web Script)

Model Objects Graph

Page Page
Page
Type Association

Template Template Content
Type Instance Association

Component
Component Chrome
Type

Configuration Theme

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Dispatching

Regardless of the path, it always comes down to a
Page
• An Object is requested -> What page should display it?
• A Page Type is requested -> Which page is appropriate for this
Theme?
• A specific Page is requested

URI Resolves to a page
Servlet
Page Type
Requests

To Rendering
Dispatcher
Page
Servlet

Object
Resolves to a page

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Page Dispatching Logic

1. Example: Hitting the home page
http://labs3c:8580/alfwf/page?p=home


2. Look up Page (in /site-data/pages)‫‏‬
Page has a template instance.


3. Look up Template Instance (in /site-data/template-
instances)‫‏‬
4. Look up Renderer for Template
In this case the Renderer is a FreeMarker Template


Process regions on page by id


5. Find Component Bindings for those region ids
6. Look up Components (in /site-data/components)‫‏‬

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Look up the page object by page id: home
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/pages

<page>
<title>Home Page</title>
<template-instance>home</template-instance>
<authentication>none</authentication>
</page>

Look up the template by template id: home
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/template-instances
<template-instance>
<template-type>freemarker</template-type>
<url>/sample/home</url>
</template-instance>

OR
Potentially
confusing
<template-instance>
shortcut here!
<template-type>/sample/home</template-type>
</template-instance>
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Execute the Template Renderer for path:
/sample/home
• FreeMarker renderer
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/templates/sample/home.ftl
<html>
<body>
<@region id=“SomeImage” scope=“page” />
</body>
</html>

Execute the region tag and find matching components
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/components
• Search for components in page scope, bound to home page for
the region ‘SomeImage’
Components have a naming
• page.test.home.xml
convention which is duplicative of
the XML it contains. Currently, the
XML page, scope, and region XML
are ignored, but in the future, the
naming convention will be
dropped.
12/12/08 13


Analyze the Component and prepare to render it
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/components

<component>
<scope>page</scope>
<region-id>SomeImage</region-id>
<source-id>home</source-id>
<url>/blocks/image</url>
<properties>
<src>${url.context}/images/masay.jpg</src>
</properties>
</component>

The url maps to a web script
• URL = /blocks/image

The properties of the component are fed into the Web
Script

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blocks/image is an Image Display component
The Presentation Web Script fetches data from
component instance
var src = instance.properties[“src”];
if(src != null)‫‏‬
{
// proceed
}

The FreeMarker based view then renders the output
<img src=“${src}” />

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The template would execute

home.ftl
SomeImage

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Generated output

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Page Type Dispatching Logic

Page Types are used to define a general “class” or
type of pages
Examples:
• Login
• Profile
• Others?

Example: Hitting the login page
• http://labs3c:8580/alfwf/page?pt=login

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First, see if there is a configured theme
Themes can specify overrides for page types
●

Default themes are specified by site configuration objects
●

<theme>
<title>Extranet - Enterprise Theme</title>
<page-types>
<page-type>
<id>login</id>
<page-instance-id>sample-login</page-instance-id>
</page-type>
</page-types>
</theme>

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If nothing specifed in a theme, see if the framework
has a default
• The web-framework-config*.xml files can specify defaults
<alfresco-config>
<config evaluator=quot;string-comparequot; condition=quot;WebFrameworkquot;>
<web-framework>
<application-defaults>
<theme>newtheme</theme>
<page-type>
<id>login</id>
<page-instance-id>sample-login</page-instance-id>
</page-type>
</application-defaults>
</web-framework>
</config>
</alfresco-config>

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Last resort, try to use a generic page
• Looks for a page with id = generic

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At this point, we have a page object
Dispatch to page as before

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Object Dispatching Logic

Example: Displaying a content object
http://labs3c:8580/alfwf/page?
o=workspace://SpacesStore/56923743-7436-482e-b1cf-
eda326d11dc2
• Assumes the default endpoint
• “Load content object with this id from the default endpoint”
http://labs3c:8580/alfwf/page?
o=workspace://SpacesStore/56923743-7436-482e-b1cf-
eda326d11dc2&endpointId=alfresco
• Uses a specific endpoint
• “Load content object with this id from the alfresco endpoint”

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Look up the ContentLoader implementation
• A content loader that knows how to load content from this
endpoint
<alfresco-config>
<config evaluator=quot;string-comparequot; condition=quot;WebFrameworkquot;>
<web-framework>
<content-loader>
<id>alfresco</id>
<name>Alfresco Content Loader</name>
<class>org.alfresco.web.site.AlfrescoContentLoader</class>
<endpoint>alfresco</endpoint>
</content-loader>
</web-framework>
</config>
</alfresco-config>

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If a ContentLoader is found, then load the object
Then, look for Content Association instances which
describe a match for this content object
• /WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/content-associations

<?xml version=quot;1.0quot; encoding=quot;UTF-8quot;?>

<content-association>
<source-id>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}content</source-id>
<dest-id>content-details</dest-id>
<assoc-type>page</assoc-type>
</content-association>

Describes a page that can be used to display content
of type: {http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}content

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At this point, we have a page object
Dispatch to page as before

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Site Data

/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco

/site-data

/chrome
/components
/component-types
/configurations
/content-associations
/page-associations
/pages
/page-types
/template-instances
/template-types
/themes
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Components


/site-webscripts
/example

/component.get.desc.xml
/component.get.js
/component.get.html.ftl
/component.get.head.ftl
/component.get.properties
/component.get.config

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Templates


/templates
/example

/template.js
/template.ftl
/template.head.ftl

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Wrap-up

In this module, you learned...
• How Surf model objects inter-relate
• Three ways pages are dispatched
– Specific page
– Page type
– Object
• Pages are assembled by invoking component renderers


Optaros Surf Code Camp Dispatcher

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