Grouper Developers Forum

["GW Brown, Information Systems and Computing" <>]

Hi Loris,

The forms for custom types are pretty basic. I did consider something more 
sophisticated but it quickly got very complicated e.g. selecting from a 
restricted set of values - which may depend on other attributes, or 
applying validation (now possible through hooks). With the advent of web 
services, it becomes more complicated because someone building an 
alternative UI based on web services may want to 'share' the same 
configuration and that tends to place the functionality in the API rather 
than the UI.

That said, there are a couple of ways in which you can customise the edit 
screen using dynamic tiles - see DefaultTemplateResolverImpl Javadoc

By default the edit panels for each group type are configured in 
media.properties using:
        groupType.view.editGroupAttributes=/WEB-
                                                
INF/jsp/groupTypeEditAttributesView.jsp

you can add group type specific templates e.g.
groupType.<your type name>.view.editGroupAttributes=/WEB-
                            INF/jsp/custom/<your template>.jsp

This approach would give you the most flexibility for arranging elements, 
adding instructions etc, though to use the existing action you'd need to 
name form elements appropriately.

It is also possible to customise at the field level:

default config is:
field.attribute.view.editValue=/WEB-INF/jsp/fieldATTRIBUTEEditValueView.jsp

you can add:
field.<field name>.view.editValue=/WEB-
                       INF/jsp/custom/<your template>.jsp

Let me know if you would like any help using one of these approaches.

There has been talk of allowing multi-valued group attributes and allowing 
the same field in multiple group types. Those changes would require 
modifications to the UI and we could review how the UI works then, however, 
a full-featured form builder is probably out of scope - unless there is 
sufficient demand.

Gary





--On 13 March 2009 08:38 +0100 Loris Bennett <> 
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This is a rather minor point, but I would like to have custom types with
> bivalent attributes which could displayed as checkboxes or radio
> buttons. An example would be an attribute "exportToLDAP" which would be
> used as a filter for LDAPPC.
>
> Cheers
>
> Loris
>
> On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 09:02 -0500, Tom Barton wrote:
> > As in the past, there will be a grouper working group meeting on "BoF
> > Monday" at the Internet2 meeting in April. It's scheduled for
> > 9:15-10:15am. Unlike in the past, this will be a grouper-only working
> > group, not shared with the signet project (alas). There will be a
> > separate session for the MACE-paccman working group.
> >
> > The abstract I submitted yesterday reads:
> >
> > "Grouper developers, adopters, and potential adopters come together to
> > discuss feedback from the field, get clear on the different types of
> > user interaction scenarios and how the Grouper toolkit should address
> > them, and hear about new and upcoming features."
> >
> > I thought it would be good to use the occasion to "get clear on the
> > different types of user interaction scenarios". Basically, I'm
> > interested to hear about approaches adopters have taken or would like to
> > take to UIs for managing groups. When is a general purpose group
> > management UI needed vs a UI element embedded in another application
> > context vs a separate UI for managing a single group, or some more
> > focused aspect of group management?
> >
> > I'm also looking for people who'd like to give feedback on how grouper
> > worked to solve some problem, or perhaps you found it couldn't do so
> > because of something it lacks.
> >
> > If you don't plan to attend but have feedback on grouper's adoptability
> > or a view to contribute to the UI discussion, please either let someone
> > know so they can proxy your input, or write the list and we can start
> > the discussion here. I'd be happy to proxy anyone's input.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Tom
> --
> Dr. Loris Bennett (Mr.)
> Freie Universität Berlin
> ZEDAT - Zentraleinrichtung für Datenverarbeitung / Computer Center
> Compute & Media Service
> Fabeckstr. 32, Room 221
> D-14195 Berlin
> Tel ++49 30 838 51024
> Fax ++49 30 838 56721
> Email 
>
> Web www.zedat.fu-berlin.de



----------------------
GW Brown, Information Systems and Computing