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

[Michael Pasternak]

On 11/20/2012 12:13 AM, Itamar Heim wrote:
> On 11/19/2012 02:07 PM, Vojtech Szocs wrote:
>> Hi Itamar,
>>
>> UI plugin infrastructure translates internal business entities into JSON-like representations and passes those representations to UI plugins. (Internal entities are NOT
>> exposed to UI plugins directly.)
>>
>> Currently, all entities supported by UI plugin infrastructure (as per org.ovirt.engine.ui.webadmin.plugin.entity.EntityType) are transformed into following representation:
>>
>> { entityId: "[BusinessEntityGuidAsString]" }
>>
>> For example, a VM entity with entity ID "vm123" will translate to:
>>
>> { entityId: "vm123" }
>>
>> Translation is currently based on org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.BusinessEntity interface, like so: "BusinessEntity<? extends NGuid>" (we expect ID type
>> parameter to be NGuid-compatible). However, I've found that there are some entities (like Pool - org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.vm_pools) that don't
>> implement BusinessEntity interface.
> 
> ok, so we only pass the ID for now. good.
> 
>>
>> Quick question to backend folks - IIRC all entities extend org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.IVdcQueryable, but not all entities implement
>> org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.BusinessEntity interface. What is the precise relation between IVdcQueryable and BusinessEntity?
>>
>> As for UI plugins, currently all entities get translated to above mentioned basic JSON-like representation. You can see the relevant code in
>> org.ovirt.engine.ui.webadmin.plugin.entity.BaseEntity.from() static method. There's a TODO that says "make this class [BaseEntity] abstract and create specific entity for
>> each EntityType" - this means we are planning to extend the above mentioned basic JSON-like representation for different entity types.
>>
>> For example, for a VM entity we might do:
>>
>> { entityId: "[BusinessEntityGuidAsString]", osType: "[VmOsType]" }
> 
> just make sure the entity matches the REST API entity.
> (which probably means entityId should be changed to id?)

if we plan moving UI on top of API, you should be:

1. importing restapi-types project
2. writing intermediate layer to translate BE entities to API's using #1
3. using public entities from #2

this way your future migration to API (instead of native BE) will be much
more easier.

> 
>>
>> Vojtech
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Itamar Heim" <iheim at redhat.com>
>> To: "Vojtech Szocs" <vszocs at redhat.com>
>> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel at ovirt.org>
>> Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 5:24:52 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] UI Plugins: PoC patch revision 7 is here
>>
>> On 11/16/2012 06:08 PM, Vojtech Szocs wrote:
>>>> is there a clear list of all APIs supported now?
>>>
>>> Not yet, unfortunately, this should be part of "for plugin developers" wiki that is planned to be written in upcoming weeks.
>>
>> i just wanted to review how we solved not using internal entities as
>> part of the API
>>
> 
> 


-- 

Michael Pasternak
RedHat, ENG-Virtualization R&D