Full HTML for

Basic foilset Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals

Given by Geoffrey C. Fox at NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting on October 22-23 99. Foils prepared October 24 99
Outside Index Summary of Material

This describe how one first defines a portal with betterportalML
Then makes it collaborative with SPDL (Shared Portal Definition Lanaguage)

Table of Contents for full HTML of Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals

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1 Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals
2 Portal Assumptions
3 SPW Shared Portal on the Web
4 A Collection of Shared Portal Components
5 SPW will build on General Portal Standards
6 Portal Programming Model
7 Shared Portals on the Web I
8 Shared Portals on the Web II
9 SPW Architecture
10 SPDL Document Header
11 Declare the Shared Objects in Portal
12 Define User Roles in SPW
13 Define Collaborative Sessions involving a given Shared Object
14 Define Synchronization of Portal Object

Outside Index Summary of Material

HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 1 Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
Presentation at Alliance Metadata Meeting Oct 23 99
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/offbeatxmloct99
Geoffrey Fox
Syracuse University
NPAC
111 College Place Syracuse NY 13244 4100
3154432163
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 2 Portal Assumptions

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
Portal will be defined by multiple XML Web Pages with "control" information
  • XML Pages access Portal components which at least today will be largely HTML
Portal Entry
SubPortal1
SubPortal2
SubPortal4
SubPortal3
SubPortal21
SubPortal22
Page101
Page211
Page212
Page221
Page301
Page401
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 3 SPW Shared Portal on the Web

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
If our personal portal is (multiple) Web pages, then we need
(better)portalML to define
  • Template for Portal defined by Portal Administrator
  • Particular customized invocation of this template for each user
SPDL which is XML to define collaborative structure
Assume "version 5" browsers so can assume W3C Document Object Model
SPW Web Page
SubPage1
SubPage2
SubPage4
SubPage3
SubPage21
SubPage22
......................
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 4 A Collection of Shared Portal Components

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<sharedportaldef>
.
. .
</sharedportaldef>
SPDL document
Web browser
Regular content
Web page
Document Fragments as Shared objects
In W3C DOM, each Web Page (HTML Page)is defined as a
set of Nodes -- You choose which nodes (and their children)
that you wish to share and then events are exchanged
maintaining state consistency with logic defined by XML page
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 5 SPW will build on General Portal Standards

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
"(better)portalML" -- define the user's customized portal layout and what they can choose from
  • define available objects and layout (number of columns etc. generalizes ideas in Flow,..,GridBag Object layouts in Java AWT)
  • e.g. <portal name="" ><columns=3/><portalobject mode="forced" source=""><placeat layout="flow1" position="1" > ......
  • placement of component objects on pages and specification of their parameters and location e.g. access weather object for suchandsuchcity with suchandsuch sensor overlay
  • choice of nifty JavaScript or Java index
  • rendering preferences such as resolutions and "universal access"
  • borders, backgrounds etc.
Portal building tools will exist for developers (architect template for portal i.e. differentiate my.NPAC from my.Netscape) and users ( specialize portal template )
Such general tools will be competition for specialized systems like WebCT for education
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 6 Portal Programming Model

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
Computing abstracted as a set of hierarchical Toolbars Toolbars are defined in XML (portalML) and rendered in HTML for user interface. XML interpreted on middle tier as some suitable service.
Toolbars are formed from components which are portal (shared) objects stored in some repository
Computing Toolbars include user profile, application area (user choice), code choice (application specific), results, visualization (where "command" could be AVS), collaboration, programming model, (HPF, Dataflow specialized tools), resource specification, resource status,
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 7 Shared Portals on the Web I

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
Each "Shared Portal on the Web" or SPW is a set of XML and HTML documents
An XML document defines the collaboration Structure as a refinement of basic portal structure (portalML) -- who is allowed in "Shared Portal"; what objects can be there; where they are stored
  • This replaces the suite of undocumented rigid policies in TangoInteractive as well as scattered configuration files
  • There is one such XML document for each type of SPW e.g. there would be alliancechemegyportal.xml or pacstraining.xml etc.
  • We have developed the XML based SPDL (Shared Portal Definition Language) which is currently quite simple and is used in the SPW structure definition
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 8 Shared Portals on the Web II

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
There is an HTML document defines the shared portal itself; it instantiates particular objects and is presentation layer
  • There is an associated XSL style sheet which invokes necessary programmatic capabilities and interprets XML islands in HTML document. These islands are defined in SPDL
  • There can be many SPW's presentation layers with a given SPDL structure
  • This (HTML + Style sheet) combination replaces the current TangoInteractive "Control Applet"
We will re-use some existing client side Java as SP agent and control objects invoked from style sheets
The TangoInteractive Server can also be largely re-used
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 9 SPW Architecture

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
Content
Web Server
Shared by SPW Agent invoked by
Events
Trapped by Browser and shared by SPW
XML SPW Specification
Shared Event
Service
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 10 SPDL Document Header

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<sharedportaldef>
<head>
<title>Result Presentation</title>
<protocol type="plain">
<server>kopernik.npac.syr.edu</server>
<port򘮓</port>
</protocol>
</head>
The Header contains the title of the Shared Portal.
It also declares how the shared portal communicates with the collaboration framework. (I.e. server in Tango language)
The plain client/server protocol is chosen here with the collaboration server running on the machine: kopernik.npac.syr.edu on the port: 5555.
Other protocols such as IIOP can be used as well.
Initialize shared portal definition
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 11 Declare the Shared Objects in Portal

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<sharedobject name="viewer"/><location> http://www.npac.syr.edu/experiments/apps/viewer.jar
  • </location>
  • <width</width>
  • <height</height>
</shared_object>
<sharedobject name="chat">......</sharedobject>
This fragment describes shared portal objects that are used in the shared portal.
  • Two shared portal objects are declared.
  • Other portal objects which are not declared here, will not be supported by the Shared Portal Framework
Maybe should use <portalobject mode="SPWshared" >
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 12 Define User Roles in SPW

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<roles>
<object_roles name="viewer">
  • <role_item name="creator" mode="static" >
  • <user_group>syracuse</user_group>
  • </role_item>
  • <role_item name="observer" mode="static" >
  • <user_group>boston</user_group>
  • <user_group>washington</user_group>
  • </role_item>
</object_roles>
</roles>
The fragment of the SPDL document on this page defines the roles for the users of the shared object: in particular we illustrate with the roles creator and observer.
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 13 Define Collaborative Sessions involving a given Shared Object

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<sessions>
  • <portal_sessions>
    • <session_item enter_mode="automatic" init_mode="none">
      • <user_group>syracuse</user_group>
      • <user_group>boston</user_group>
      • <user_group>washington</user_group>
    • </session_item>
  • </portal_sessions>
</sessions>
This fragment defines how the collaboration sessions are created in the shared portal.
The members of all three groups automatically enter the collaboration session when they access the result analysis page.
This means that when a user opens the page with the shared portal defined by this document, she immediately starts the collaboration with other users without executing any special actions.
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared October 24 99

Foil 14 Define Synchronization of Portal Object

From Off Beat XML Uses in Computing Portals NCSA Portal/Metadata Meeting -- October 22-23 99. *
Full HTML Index
<synchronization>
  • <portal_synchronization>
    • <synchronization_item mode="instant">
      • <user_group>syracuse</user_group>
      • <user_group>boston</user_group>
      • <user_group>washington</user_group>
    • <synchronization_item>
  • </portal_synchronization>
</synchronization>
This fragment of the SPDL document specifies that whenever one of the users change the state of their shared object, this change will be immediately propagated to the shared objects of the other users.
Such a "instant" mode is declared for all shared objects present in the shared portal.
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