Setting gadget userprefs affects other gadgets on the page

[jkranes]

I have created a simple gadget to experiment with the gadget setprefs feature.  The gadget is based on google's reference implementation.  The gadget is then added to a portal page using the dashboard portlet.

I have noticed that when my gadget updates a user preferences value, all other gadgets on the same portal page are refreshed and lose any state they may have had.  Is this expected behavior?  I would have expected that updating user preferences would be implemented as an ajax request to the server and thus and should affect only the state of the gadget that is making the request.

Is the behavior that I am seeing normal?  Is there some way to set preferences in a way that does not affect other gadgets?

I am using the latest GateIn version (3.1 final with Jboss AS 5.1.0)

Gadget XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<Module>
  <ModulePrefs 
    title="Gadget4">
    <Require feature="opensocial-0.8"/>
    <Require feature="setprefs" /> 
    </ModulePrefs>
  <UserPref 
    name="counter" 
    display_name="counter"
    datatype="hidden"/>
  <Content type="html">
  <![CDATA[ 
    <div id="content_div" style="height: 100px;"></div>
    <script type="text/javascript">

    // Get user preferences
    var prefs = new gadgets.Prefs("test");
    var counter = prefs.getInt("counter");
    var div = document.getElementById('content_div');
    div.innerHTML = "The count is " + counter + ".";
    // Increment value of "counter" user preference
    function incrementCounter() {  
      counter++;
      prefs.set("counter", counter);
    }

    // Reset value of "counter" userpref to 0
    function resetCounter(){
      prefs.set("counter", 0);
      div.innerHTML = "Count reset to " + prefs.getInt("counter") + ".";
    }

    </script>
    <input type=button value="Count" name="count" onClick="incrementCounter()">
    <input type=button value="Reset" name="reset" onClick="resetCounter()">
  ]]> 
  </Content>
</Module>

[kien_nguyen]

That behaviour is incorrect, user pref belongs to one gadget that is owner. So setting preference will not effect to other gadgets. You can review prefs from some default gadgets of GateIn such as Rss Reader, Todo, etc

[jkranes]

I tested the default GateIn Rss Reader gadget and I get the same behavior.

Looking at the HTTP traffic between the browser and the portal server, it seems that every time preferences are updated, the browser makes a GET call to:

/portal/private/classic/home/Gadgets?portal:componentId=e66af489-b4e9-4e85-bbe5-fc7fd5933262&portal:type=action&uicomponent=bba61489-a4af-460b-939d-cf17608d9a75&op=SaveUserPref&ajaxRequest=true&userPref={%22counter%22:22}

(where /private/classic/home/Gadgets is the URL of the portal page that contains my gadgets)

the response to this request contains an HTML <div> with content for the entire dashboard portlet, including all the gadgets.  This content is then used to replace all existing content in the dashboard portlet, i.e. all the gadgets are replaced with new content from the server.

This seems very wrong to me.

Is it possible this is a bug or could it be something in my configuration causing GateIn to behave this way?   I am using the standard downloaded configuration without any changes.

[jkranes]

I have logged this as a bug: https://jira.jboss.org/browse/GTNPORTAL-1471

[kien_nguyen]

I commented on GTNPORTAL-1471