[Building Sakai] Writing a Helper

[Nate Angell]

I'm wondering if you have considered the Sakai portfolio community
work on integrating rubrics? A post to the
portfolio at collab.sakaiproject.org list may generate some useful ideas,
as well as folks with shared needs.

Also, have you seen sakai's integration with iRubric?
http://www.rcampus.com/sakai/

--
Nate Angell
Client Evangelist
http://www.rsmart.com
http://twitter.com/xolotl
http://xolotl.org

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 9:01 AM,  <mizematr at notes.udayton.edu> wrote:
>
> Thanks for getting back to me, the code you included will serve as a great
> starting point for me.  Basically, our faculty are looking to fill out a
> rubric form when grading an assignment for accreditation purposes.  My plan
> is to have the metaobj helper create a new form item, store it in the same
> resource location that attachments are stored for the assignment
> (/content/attachment/<site id>/Assignments/<not yet sure what this id
> is>/<filename>, then return to the assignment grade screen. I'd like to
> either use the metaobj helper currently written for the Resources tool, or,
> if I must, write a new helper which tweaks the metaobj resource helper for
> use in the assignments tool.
>
> The example that I'd found used the ToolServlet.startHelper function so I'd
> started playing around with that, but will look at this too.  Thanks much.
>
> Matthew Buckett <matthew.buckett at oucs.ox.ac.uk> wrote on 04/29/2010 05:27:24
> AM:
>
>> On 28 April 2010 19:09,  <mizematr at notes.udayton.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > Is there any documentation out there for writing a Sakai helper from
>> > scratch?  My googling has turned up little to nothing on the topic.
>>
>> Are you wanting to write a helper to replace an existing one?
>> Or call an existing helper from a new tool?
>> Or just curious how helpers work?
>>
>> I've written a new helper for handling some stuff from Site Info and
>> I've called existing helpers from tools, so can probably go a dig up
>> how I did it....
>>
>> Ok, so to dispatch to a helper in a tool I did:
>>
>> I have a path inside my tool that always passes the request through
>> to a helper:
>>
>>       ActiveTool tool =
>> ActiveToolManager.getActiveTool("sakai.sitesetup");
>>       req.removeAttribute(ActiveTool.NATIVE_URL); // Forgot why I did
>> this....
>>       tool.help(req, res, null, null);
>>
>> Then to start the helper I stuff some stuff into the sakai session and
>> redirect to the path I've mapped to the helper:
>>
>>       // This will actually be a tool session specific to this tool.
>>       HttpSession session = request.getSession();
>>       // Chuck the URL into the session so another controller can use it.
>>       session.setAttribute(ATTRIBUTE_URL, newSite.getName());
>>
>>       // This is the URL the helper should send the browser to when done
>>       session.setAttribute(Tool.HELPER_DONE_URL, request.getContextPath()+
>> request.getServletPath()+getReturnPath());
>>
>>       // Stash some stuff into the session so the helper can see it.
>>       session.setAttribute(SiteHelper.SITE_CREATE_SITE_TYPES,
>> "project,course");
>>       session.setAttribute(SiteHelper.SITE_CREATE_SITE_TITLE,
>> newSite.getTitle());
>>
>>       // Then redirect/forward through to the path mapped to the helper.
>>
>> My helper then has control and as long as it doesn't change the path
>> should continue working. When it's done it redirects the browser to
>> the Tool.HELPER_DONE_URL from the session:
>>
>>    ToolSession sakaiSession = SessionManager.getCurrentToolSession();
>>    String url = (String) sakaiSession.getAttribute(Tool.HELPER_DONE_URL);
>>    response.sendRedirect(url);
>>
>> Again the helper can pass results through the session if it wants to.
>>
>> Some examples of helpers in the Sakai codebase are the login tool,
>> resources file picker, permissions manager and in newer releases
>> (2.6+) parts of Site Info have been refactored into helpers (choosing
>> participants to add and managing groups).
>>
>> --
>>   Matthew Buckett
>>   VLE Developer, LTG, Oxford University Computing Services
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Matt Mize, Systems Administrator
> - Pay no attention to the man in the back office....
> Matt.Mize at notes.udayton.edu
> (937) 229-1024
>
> UDit Department, University of Dayton
> 300 College Park, Dayton, OH, 45469-1302
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