[sakai2-tcc] Roster tool changes

[Daniel Robinson]

Dear Sakai 2 Technical Coordination Committee,

Earlier in the year, Adrian Fish and myself at Lancaster University,  
UK, volunteered to take over the development and maintenance of the  
Roster tool. We have rewritten the tool in a separate branch using  
JavaScript and Trimpath, and the plan is to move Roster to an indie  
project. Details of the work are attached to the following JIRA ticket:

http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-18778

We have tried to resolve outstanding JIRA tickets along the way. All  
of the issues incorporated on the above ticket, plus sub-tasks, are  
resolved. Once the new code is committed to trunk, we can close those  
issues.

Details of new tool:

We have maintained the feature set of the old Roster tool.

We have maintained the same Roster UI with two exceptions: 1. some  
small changes have been made to fix outstanding JIRA tickets (see  
above); 2. some small layout changes to the Pictures view have been  
made, and we plan on further developing the Pictures view to integrate  
with Profile2. We plan on seeking input from the wider Sakai community  
for new feature requests.

We have removed all executable code from the old Roster tool in the  
new version. There is no API for the new Roster tool. The new tool  
consists of JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and a SakaiProxy and EntityProviders  
written in Java. The new Roster tool is a webapp that can be deployed  
without restarting Sakai.

We have moved the rendering to the browser client, so content is  
rendered more quickly and server load is decreased.

We have converted the localization bundles from the old Roster tool to  
maintain the internationalization support.

We have reduced the number of tool/API dependencies e.g. the  
dependency on the old Profile API has been removed.

If anyone would like to test the work for themselves, the code is  
available:

https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/roster/branches/trimpath_work

Please bear in mind the branch is under active development.

If anyone has any questions or requires further clarification, please  
don't hesitate to ask.

Best wishes,

Daniel and Adrian