Disabling Dashboards in Portal 2.6A

[thorntond]

I would like to completely disable dashboards in Portal 2.6 GA and would like to know if there is a way to do it logged into the portal as admin. I can hack the jboss-portal.sar\portal-core.war\WEB-INF\jsp\header\header.jsp file and destroy the dashboard edit portlet instance but I would like to know if there is a non-hack way to disable dashboards.

Danny

[antoine_h]

Interested in that too...

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To disable it for the user, the header.jsp is the place where it appears.

You can also change this jsp page (not hack).
Look a the documentation, on how to configure the PageCustomizerInterceptor service to show your jsp.
First level :
- put your own jsp in this war
- modify the service description to use this jsp.

What I do to have all this clean is :
- build a war that manage all the layout stuff (my jsp, layout and theme descriptor)
- put the jsp of the PageCustomizerInterceptor service in it
- build a sar that provides a new PageCustomizerInterceptor service descriptor (just the jboss-service.xml)
- Configure this service to use the jsp in the layout war with :

<attribute name="TargetContextPath">/_MyPortal_Layout</attribute>

- shutdown the PageCustomizerInterceptor service provided with jboss portal (comment in the portal jboss-service.xml)
- deploy those two war and sar

this is usefull for other customization that may come later (logo, css, portlet renderer...).

the layout war grow quickly with custom layout things.

the sar : I call it Portal_Background_Services.sar
And put all the general JMX services in it.
A few other general services may be provided : management of the locale, some config service, menu service, URL factory for nice portal url, etc...
Note : those services are general JMX services (look in jboss AS documentation... or internet search... it is not specific to portal)

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To disable the dashboard in the server
And avoid to have thing running for nothing.
I don't know... and would like to do it...

[thorntond]

I would like to disable the dashboard with as few steps as possible. Ideally, it would be an option that could be disabled by a portal admin user. The next easiest thing I found to do is udpate the file

...\jboss-portal-2-6\server\default\deploy\jboss-portal.sar\portal-core.war\WEB-INF\jsp\header\header.jsp

and set

PortalURL dashboardURL = null;
PortalURL editDashboardURL = null;
PortalURL copyToDashboardURL = null;

To do some additional cleanup on the dashboard remove the DashboardConfigPortletInstance from the files

jboss-portal-2.6b\server\default\deploy\jboss-portal.sar\portal-admin.sar\META-INF\jboss-service.xml

jboss-portal-2.6b\server\default\deploy\jboss-portal.sar\portal-admin.sar\portal-admin.war\WEB-INF\portlet-instances.xml

If DashboardConfigPortletInstance exists in the admin Management Portlet/Portlet Instances then destroy it.

The above steps sufficiently mangle the dashboard so that it is not useful in the event the user tries to access it using a url.

Danny

[antoine_h]

Thanks for the info.
yes it is important a user does not try to get it when playing with urls.

may be you could write a Wiki about that ?

and if you want things done for later versions, write a Jira to have something done about this ?
(dashboard objects might be packaged like the samples, in a special war... )

[explorer]

Hi Antonie,
Can you please tell me how we can build an sar in a bit more detail.
I would be trying to create a custom header and footer and would like not to change the service.xml from jboss-portal.sar.
Thanks in advance.

[antoine_h]

would like not to change the service.xml from jboss-portal.sar

that is what I wanted to : keep the default (for portal manipulation and help sometime).

you can build the new own customizer, with your jsp etc...
but you will have to modify the jboss-service.xml, to register your customizer in the stack of interceptors of page.

to build a sar, look at jboss documentation : wiki, jmx documentation.
sar is "service archive" (for internet search).
they are quiet simple : also look the structure of the one of the portal.

you can make it with ant, or any packaging tool that can be adapted to sar structure.

[explorer]

Thank you for the reply.