Custom navigation region

[johnnythehun]

The navigation tab portlet gets displayed on every page, that has a layout region called 'navigation'.

In my scenario I need two navigation components - the default, tab-navigation on the top and a tree-like navigation of sub pages on the left.

Is there any way I can hard code a portlet to appear on every page with my custom layout? For example a 'sidenavigation' region that always gets filled with my TreeNavigation portlet?

(How does this work? How does the Navigation portlet always get injected into the navigation region?)

[johnnythehun]

I have found the solution, but I would like to ask the Portal developers if there is a more elegant solution.

If not, will a later version of JBoss Portal support
- injecting default portlets into "special" regions (like the navigation region, but with real portlets)
- or support markup in layouts that specify portlets to be injected at the place of the markup, for example

<p:injectPortlet instance="InjectMePortletInstance">
<parameters/>
</p:injectPortlet>

And the solution for Injecting content to a custom region for the current version is:

1. Create a class Named
MyPageCustomizerInterceptor that extends ControllerInterceptor

2. Get JBoss source and copy the contents of:
org.jboss.portal.core.aspects.controller.PageCustomizerInterceptor
into your class code.
Import a bunch of JBoss libraries

3. there is a part in the code in the "invoke" method:

if (tabbedNav != null)
 {
....
 }

instantly after this code insert the following (of course modified to your preferences). Modify the "BLAH2" and the "inject_region" strings to your needs.

 String toInject = "<h1>AT LAST! I have injected my custom stuff!</h1>";
 Map windowProps = new HashMap();
 windowProps.put(ThemeConstants.PORTAL_PROP_WINDOW_RENDERER, "emptyRenderer");
 windowProps.put(ThemeConstants.PORTAL_PROP_DECORATION_RENDERER, "emptyRenderer");
 windowProps.put(ThemeConstants.PORTAL_PROP_PORTLET_RENDERER, "emptyRenderer");
 WindowResult res = new WindowResult("", toInject, Collections.EMPTY_MAP, windowProps, null, WindowState.NORMAL, Mode.VIEW);
 WindowContext blah = new WindowContext("BLAH2", "inject_region", "0", res);
 rendition.getPageResult().addWindowContext(blah);
 Region region = rendition.getPageResult().getRegion2("inject_region");
 DynaRenderOptions.NO_AJAX.setOptions(region.getProperties());

3. Put your classes into a jar and put them under
JBOSS_HOME\server\default\lib\

4. Modify
JBOSS_HOME\server\default\deploy\jboss-portal.sar\META-INF\jboss-service.xml

replace org.jboss.portal.core.aspects.controller.PageCustomizerInterceptor in

<mbean code="org.jboss.portal.core.aspects.controller.PageCustomizerInterceptor"

with the full classname of your class

[johnnythehun]

I have been thinking about this concept.

Wouldn't it be a more elegant solution if I would use a custom regionRenderer, that renders a specific portlet if it finds a
injectPortlet="MyPortletToInjectInstance"
property in a region?

But I don't know how to do this.

What I found, is that the

1. DivRegionRenderer iterates through RegionRendererContext.getWindows()
Of course this getWindows() function will not return a WindowRendererContext for the injected portlet since it is not configured via xml or the admin page.

2. For every WindowRendererContext it renders the window via RendererContext.render()


So I assume I need to create a WindowRendererContext for every injected portlet too and call the RendererContext.render() with them.


3. JBoss implements whis WindowRendererContext with the WindowContext class.
The constructor of this class is:
WindowContext(java.lang.String id, java.lang.String regionName, java.lang.String order, WindowResult result)

- What is the id?
- regionname I can handle
- what is the order?

I think the above parameters can be easily created, but for the last parameter - WindowResult - I have no idea what to write.

The constructor of WindowResult is:
WindowResult(java.lang.String title, java.lang.String content, java.util.Map actions, java.util.Map windowProperties, java.util.List<org.w3c.dom.Element> headerContent, org.jboss.portal.WindowState windowState, org.jboss.portal.Mode mode)


Can anyone help me on this?

[johnnythehun]

Ok, I don't get where the portlet markup get's created.

I see that the WindowContext already get's the markup via its String content parameter, so I need to create the portlet markup BEFORE instanciating a WindowContext

But how do I create the markup for a specific portlet instance?
What is the class that I can instanciate or the utility I can call to create the markup?

I looked at DivPortletRenderer which calls PortletRendererContext.getMarkup() to get the markup.

PortletRendererContext is implemented via PortletRendererContextImpl.
The getMarkup() function of PortletRendererContextImpl gets the markup from the WindowContext.

So now I'm in a circle - I have to create the markup before any XYContext comes into the picture. But I don't know what creates the markup for a Portlet instance.

The best would be to have some Class or Function like:

new PortletMarkupGenerator(String portletInstanceName).getMarkup();


I found some code in the injectTabbedNav of PageCustomizerInterceptor class:

public String injectTabbedNav(PageCommand rpc)
 {
ControllerContext controllerCtx = rpc.getControllerContext();
 ControllerRequestDispatcher rd = controllerCtx.getRequestDispatcher(targetContextPath, tabsPath);

 //
 if (rd != null)
 {
 Page page = rpc.getPage();
 PortalAuthorizationManager pam = portalAuthorizationManagerFactory.getManager();
 PortalNodeImpl node = new PortalNodeImpl(pam, page);

 //
 rd.setAttribute("org.jboss.portal.api.PORTAL_NODE", node);
 rd.setAttribute("org.jboss.portal.api.PORTAL_RUNTIME_CONTEXT", Navigation.getPortalRuntimeContext());

 //
 rd.include();
 return rd.getMarkup();
 }
return null;
}

The following lines are used to access the jsp to create the tabs:

ControllerContext controllerCtx = rpc.getControllerContext();
 ControllerRequestDispatcher rd = controllerCtx.getRequestDispatcher(targetContextPath, tabsPath);

1. This function renders a jsp file, it doesn't render a Portlet.

2. This function uses a PageCommand instance to create the markup. But I don't see that a RegionRenderer gets a PageCommand parameter


So the best would still be to have some Class or Function like:

new PortletMarkupGenerator(String portletInstanceName).getMarkup();

[psevestre]

Hi,

I've faced a similar problem: A main menu with top-level pages and an accordion-style sidebar menu.

My solution:

1. In tabs.jsp, I always render both menus (ul/li structures)
2. In layout pages, I have two instances of the "navigation" region, using distinct "regionID" values.
3. In the theme CSS files, I show/hide the unwanted menu for each case, using the different regionIDs.

As an optimization, you can save the rendered markup on step 1 at session level when called from the first occurence of the nav region and use this cached data to render subsequent calls.

[nareshkumar.sanda]

hai,
I have a portlet in that i have some links when i click that appropriate portlet should be displayed in the right side of the portal page.How can i implement these king of communication between the portlets.

Thanks
-naresh

[soundspeace]

all the problem that you want to resolve.

just need edit in CSS only.
make sure make another id css such as :-

#navigationFooter {
}

#navigationFooter #tabHeader{
}

#navigationFooter #tabHeader ul{
}


something like this la... just give idea