[ovirt-devel] UI plugins - access to engine styles and libraries

[Vojtech Szocs]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Vojtech Szocs" <vszocs at redhat.com>
> To: "Martin Sivak" <msivak at redhat.com>, "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme at redhat.com>, "Alexander Wels" <awels at redhat.com>
> Cc: "engine-devel at ovirt.org" <devel at ovirt.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 5:23:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [ovirt-devel] UI plugins - access to engine styles and libraries
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> (adding Greg and Alex in case they have any thoughts)
> 
> if you build your UI plugin in a way that requires CSS styles,
> JS libraries etc. at runtime (dynamic linking), you can utilize
> oVirt branding servlet [a] to serve branding-related resources.

Just a note - another way of building your UI plugin is to use
tools that take your CSS styles and JS sources (including 3rd
party ones) and produce a self-contained bundle for deployment.

oVirt Dashboard, for example, follows this approach:

  https://github.com/vojtechszocs/ovirt-dashboard-ui-plugin

(soon, we'll sync it with ovirt-engine-dashboard on our gerrit
and continue developing the project there)

With this (static linking) approach, you don't need those CSS
or JS resources at runtime; your webapp is self-contained and
optimized (containing only stuff it really uses).

We also have two RPM packages (initiated by Juan) for building
(oVirt) webapps that require a JS build step, utilizing tools
around the Node.js platform:

  ovirt-engine-nodejs [Node.js runtime]
  ovirt-engine-nodejs-modules [all frontend dependencies]

Regards,
Vojtech

> 
>   [a] org.ovirt.engine.core.branding.BrandingServlet
> 
> By default, oVirt Engine ships with single branding package:
> 
>   $ ls /etc/ovirt-engine/branding/
>   00-ovirt.brand
> 
> That `00-ovirt.brand` directory symlinks to:
> 
>   /usr/share/ovirt-engine/branding/ovirt.brand
> 
> containing all branding-related resources.
> 
> To fetch them, use the following URL:
> 
>   http://example.com/ovirt-engine/webadmin/theme/<path_to_file>
> 
> where <path_to_file> is relative to `ovirt.brand` directory.
> 
> In your UI plugin, you can use the newly introduced API to
> construct this URL more easily [b]:
> 
>   var url = api.engineBaseUrl() + 'webadmin/theme/' + pathToFile
> 
>   [b] https://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/55694/
> 
> WebAdmin UI itself loads following CSS styles (in this order):
> 
> - web_admin.css
> - common.css
> - gwt_common.css
> - patternfly/css/styles.min.css
> - patternfly-ovirt.css
> - ovirt-patternfly-compat.css
> - ovirt.css
> 
> For starters, you can load PatternFly-specific CSS only.
> 
> As for JS libraries, these are typically provided through
> PatternFly RPM, to which `patternfly` directory symlinks.
> 
> For starters, you can use stuff under `patternfly/js` and
> `patternfly/components` (these are PF's own dependencies).
> 
> oVirt ships its own version of jQuery (v1.11) + Bootstrap
> (v3.3.6) -- please don't use them!! If you're wondering
> why we use custom jQuery and Bootstrap, see here:
> 
>   https://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/41228/
>   https://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/55546/
> 
> (@Greg, any plans for upgrading to PF-provided jQuery?)
> 
> Regards,
> Vojtech
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Martin Sivak" <msivak at redhat.com>
> > To: "engine-devel at ovirt.org" <devel at ovirt.org>
> > Cc: "Moran Goldboim" <mgoldboi at redhat.com>, "Vojtech Szocs"
> > <vszocs at redhat.com>, "Oved Ourfali" <oourfali at redhat.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 5:30:49 PM
> > Subject: UI plugins - access to engine styles and libraries
> > 
> > Hi everybody,
> > 
> > there is one piece I always missed when developing my optimizer plugin
> > and that is the access to the engine css styles.
> > 
> > I feel it might be pretty easy and good for both bandwidth and
> > branding to expose them using some "well known" url from the engine.
> > All plugins would be then able to (re-)use the same styling
> > information and basic javascript libraries (jQuery, angular, whatever
> > you decide the core engine will use).
> > 
> > So far, each UI plugin has to link to its own version of libraries and
> > define (and maintain) custom color theme.
> > 
> > Do you think this would be doable for 4.0?
> > 
> > Best regards
> > 
> > --
> > Martin Sivak
> > SLA / oVirt
> > 
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