[Building Sakai] "Full-Window" Helpers

[Noah Botimer]

I will have to check back through this thread later. I think there is  
value in solving both of these problems. My original thought was that  
a modal would be less-favored for this specific problem. But for this  
email...

I've done this "escape the iframe" thing with SimpleModal. It was  
kind of a pain, but it worked pretty easily and well once built. I  
was just talking with Jim and Gonzalo here last week about this issue  
with respect to the jQuery UI Dialog (which is what I think should be  
in trunk, rather than jqModal -- watch the commit logs). This is  
something we really want to do and make easy and consistent.

The last time I ran through the code, they didn't support a target  
container/document, but it may be implemented by now. I'll be  
checking into this issue sometime soon. If it's not there, I will  
hack it in and try to contribute it back to jQUI -- maybe with the  
help of some of our Fluid buddies, who are certainly better with JS  
than I am.

Thanks,
-Noah

On Mar 19, 2009, at 4:35 PM, Daniel McCallum wrote:

> I'm not sure that quite does it b/c the modal's display area is  
> limited
> to the iframe. I suppose theoretically I could have a script in an
> iframe specify the content location for a modal container in the  
> parent
> frame and register trigger events with that container. I'm not a js/ 
> css
> expert by any means, but it's not obvious to me how one pulls off that
> trick. If you have code examples, I'd love to have a look. Or perhaps
> I'm just missing something obvious in jqModal?
>
> Thanks again.
>
> - Dan
>
> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
>> Hi Daniel,
>>
>> just implement a modal window with the contents of your helper. The
>> background gets a mask that renders it unclickable until the modal
>> window closes. If you have a web accessible path to you helper app  
>> then
>> you can supply the window with a URL to use as the contents. They  
>> will
>> also have an onClose handler that you can use to perform your
>> refresh/redirect. Many JS frameworks around can do this, but trunk is
>> now using jqModal, so you might be best using that one. Thickbox  
>> is also
>> great.
>>
>>
>> cheers,
>> Steve
>>
>> ---
>> Steve Swinsburg
>> Portal Systems Developer
>> Centre for e-Science
>> Lancaster University
>> Lancaster
>> LA1 4YT
>>
>> email: s.swinsburg at lancaster.ac.uk  
>> <mailto:s.swinsburg at lancaster.ac.uk>
>> phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
>>
>> On 19/03/2009, at 5:52 PM, Daniel McCallum wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have a requirement to render a helper tool in what amounts to
>>> full-window mode. That is, the helper tool is launched in such a way
>>> that it hides the portal's site and page navigation so that only the
>>> helper's UI is clickable.
>>>
>>> Is there a canonical way to meet such a requirement?
>>>
>>> This is Sakai 2.5.x. The tool launching the helper is rendered in an
>>> iframe. Both the launching tool and helper tool are SpringMVC+JSP.
>>>
>>> Here's my idea...
>>>
>>> 1) Custom portal handler or markup which generates crippled portal
>>> chrome around the normal output (tool iframe) of /portal/page.
>>>
>>> 2) JS link in launching tool which directs the portal frame to
>>> /portal/[my-handler]/{pageId}?toolstate-{toolId}={toolState} where
>>> {toolState} triggers rendering of the helper.
>>>
>>> 3) On helper completion, redirect to value of  
>>> Tool.HELPER_DONE_URL as
>>> usual. That URL serves a response which fires a client-side  
>>> redirect of
>>> the portal frame to an uncrippled state with appropriate tool  
>>> state info
>>> ... e.g. a /portal/directtool/{toolstate} or
>>> /portal/site/{siteId}/{pageId}?{toolstate}
>>>
>>> All of this seems much more difficult to get right than simply using
>>> "inline" helpers as usual or just popping out a separate window.  
>>> Am I
>>> missing a simpler option. Am I over-worried about seen or unforeseen
>>> pitfalls?
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>> - Dan McCallum
>>> Unicon, Inc
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