7. AdministrationPortlet

7.1. Introduction

The AdministrationPortlet is used to deploy and undeploy portlet applications, and to manage object definitions for datasources of type contentrepository. For details, see Section 4, “Portlet implementation” and Section 8.6.3.1, “Datasources of type contentrepository .

7.2. Deployment

Deployment is the process of installing portlet applications on a Gentics Portal.Node Server so that it can render and use the portlets contained in the portlet application. A valid .war file, generated by the SDK's build script (MyPortletapplication/tools/build.xml) is required, and needs to be uploaded with your browser using the AdministrationPortlet.

During deployment of an portletapplication the affected portlets are unavailable for a short time, which means that their boxes will be invisible for the portal visitor. The applicationserver or portal requires no restart.

[Note]Note

It is necessary to correctly configure a Tomcat user with role manager and enter the login data for this user into the Portal Configuration File in the <administration-section>. Otherwise the deployment of portletapplications will not work! See Section 8.8.2, “Deployer” for details.

[Note]Note

The AdministrationPortlet's deployment feature is currently only supported on Tomcat. For deployment of portletapplications on other servers, please get in contact with us.

7.3. Objectmanagement

In the objectmanagement, you can define the object definitions for datasources of type contentrepository.

[Note]Note

When defining equally named attributetypes for different objecttypes, it is important to use identical definitions. The AdministrationPortlet will warn you about violations.

7.3.1. ViewWizard

7.3.1.1. Basic Functionality

The ViewWizard is part of the ObjectManagement Module and will assist you in generating views for your objects. Furthermore a simple navigation view wich lists your generated views will also be created. Once your objects and their attributes have been defined using the ObjectManagement Module you can create views for your objects.

Select all objects you want to generate views for in the ObjectManagement Module and click the "Generate Views" button. This will lead you to the ViewWizard where a list of selected objects and their ForeignLinkAttributes is presented. For those attributes there are two options available:

  1. No Edit: this option will just list the linked objects, but provide no facility to edit them. If you want to edit the linked object you have to generate a seperate view.

  2. Edit Nested: when selecting this option you will be able to create and edit linked objects via a nested form component. Of course you can generate seperate views to edit those objects as well.

After setting the options for your objects you have to enter a pnode id. Please keep in mind that the corresponding pnode must have a proper viewBaseDir, otherwise creation of views will fail with an appropriate error message. You will be asked to confirm overwrite if previously generated views have been found inside the portlet's viewBaseDir. If you agree to overwrite all your changes to those views will be lost. The navigation view will be generated each time you create views without overwrite confirmation so be sure you don't edit it in any case.

After clicking the "Generate Views"-button and possibly confirming the overwrite message your views are written to disk and ready to use. Now you can start editing your objects right away!

7.3.1.2. Integration of the Navigation View

To integrate the autogenerated navigation view in your portal template you just have to create a pnode, which will assign it's id to the main pnode when the onViewChange event occurs. Furthermore you'll need to define a template which loads the navigation view when the pnode's windowstate is set to "normal". Have a look at the Gentics Portal.Node SDK Portal for detailed information on how to implement this.

7.3.2. Data import

The 'data import' link next to each objecttype in the objecttype list can be used to import new data into the contentrepository for the corresponding objecttype. For a detailed description of the csv file header format and the parameters, see Section 2.2.8.8, “CSVDataImportAction”.

The file encoding selection must match the file format, else the imported text will be corrupted or the import may fail. The file must be selected directly before the import is started, because the file is not stored on the server.

A filename for a logfile can be specified, where all log output of the import will be stored. The logfile is created, after the import is finished. Both the fileprefix and the logfile specify files and paths on the server. The files to import must be placed on the portal server.

After the import is finished, the imported objects can be deleted, using the 'Dismiss import' button. The import can be dismissed, until a new import is started. The loglevel selection allows to select how much information is displayed in the logmessages display. This does not affect the logfile.