[Engine-devel] UI Plugins: PoC patch revision 7 is here

[Vojtech Szocs]

Hi guys, 

the latest revisi on of UI Plugins proof-of-c on cept patch is now available for you to experiment with. I've split revision 7 changes apart from revision 6 to make it easier to review new features that were added into revision 7. 

You can download and apply UI Plugins patches from oVirt Gerrit code review system: 

    1. revision 6 - http://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/8120/ 
    2. revision 7 - http://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/9250/ 

Please read on to learn what's new in this revisi on . If you have any comments, questi on s or ideas, please let me know! 



Engine REST API integration 

UiInit is not the only event handler function anymore! :) 

UI plugin infrastructure now integrates with Engine REST API by acquiring new REST API session [1] upon successful user authentication. 

REST API session ID is provided to plugins via RestApiSessionAcquired event handler function. For example: 

api.register({ 
RestApiSessionAcquired: function(sessionId) { 
// Do something with newly acquired session ID 
} 
}); 

Note that UiInit function is still the first function to be invoked on the given plugin. Plugins can therefore expect RestApiSessionAcquired function to be called shortly after UiInit function. 

For now, UI plugin infrastructure guarantees that acquired Engine REST API session will be valid while the user stays authenticated in WebAdmin. This is done by keeping REST API session alive via periodic heartbeats (HTTP requests) in the background. This also means that it's safe to store and use REST API session ID until RestApiSessionAcquired function is called again with new value. In future, we might consider dropping this kind of guarantee to avoid the keep-alive heartbeat, and use some kind of "is session valid" query to determine if the REST API session is still valid. 

After the user signs out of WebAdmin, Engine REST API session will be closed, as per [1]. After signing in again, the process of acquiring new REST API session and calling RestApiSessionAcquired function repeats with new session ID value. 

Engine REST API integration also works seamlessly with auto login - if the user is already logged in on the backend, running WebAdmin in new window (tab) will take him directly to the main (authenticated) section of the application. In this case, UI plugin infrastructure remembers the currently valid REST API session ID using HTML5 local storage (or cookie if the browser doesn't support it). 



New API function: showDialog 

It's now possible to open custom dialogs using showDialog function. For example: 

api.register({ 
UiInit: function() { 
api.addMainTabActionButton('Host', 'Show Test Dialog', { 
onClick: function() { 
api.showDialog('Test Dialog', 'http://www.ovirt.org/', 600, 400); 
} 
}); 
} 
}); 

The signature of showDialog function is following: 


showDialog (title, contentUrl, width, height) 

For now, dialogs are shown using window.open API (non-modal browser popups ). This will be changed in future, providing close integration with GWTP / WebAdmin dialog infrastructure. 



New API function: setMainTabContentUrl 

It's now possible to update content URL of the given custom main tab using setMainTabContentUrl function. For example: 

api.register({ 
UiInit: function() { 
// Use 'about:blank' URL to display empty content 
api.addMainTab('Custom Tab', 'custom-tab', 'about:blank'); 
}, 
RestApiSessionAcquired: function(sessionId) { 
var url = 'http://www.ovirt.org/?s=' + encodeURIComponent(sessionId); 
api.setMainTabContentUrl('custom-tab', url); 
} 
}); 

In the above example, we first add an empty custom main tab. We do this in UiInit event handler function because we know that it's the best place for one-time UI initialization :) As soon as we receive REST API session ID, we update the URL of the custom main tab. This is just an example how REST API session ID can be sent over to your server as part of main tab content URL. 

The signature of setMainTabContentUrl function is following: 


setMainTabContentUrl(historyToken, contentUrl) 

Note that historyToken essentially identifies the custom main tab. 



That's it for now, let me know what you think! 

Regards, 
Vojtech 


[1] http://wiki.ovirt.org/wiki/Features/RESTSessionManagement 

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