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.

  [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@redhat.com>
> To: "engine-devel@ovirt.org" <devel@ovirt.org>
> Cc: "Moran Goldboim" <mgoldboi@redhat.com>, "Vojtech Szocs" <vszocs@redhat.com>, "Oved Ourfali" <oourfali@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
>