Portal Modules & Module Types

Heather NatourSenior Software Engineer, Blackboard Community System

Road Map

What are Portals? Module Types Creating Modules API

Audience

B2 Developers that want to create Portal Modules Java/JSP Programmers Some knowledge of B2 Programming …Or Just Interested to see what’s possible with Portal

Modules

What are Portals?

Provides an Entry Point Provides a Customized User Experience Unites several sources of information and present them in one

central place Sites can customize Portal for a specific type of user or market

– Student, Faculty, East, West “Sticky”

Example of a “sticky” Portal

Blackboard Portal ComponentsTab

ModuleModule Edit

MinimizeDelete

Contents Layout

Module Types

Code for the Module Every Module has an associated Type – A Type could

have more than one instance One or more JSP pages

Pre Built Module Types

Include HTML Include URL RSS Channel

Module Type JSP Pages

View– What gets displayed when the module is rendered

Admin– Edit Global properties

Edit– User customizable properties

View

Rendered Inline No HTML Header or Body Tags

Edit

Calls the edit page

Edit

Admin

Admin Page for Global

Configuration

Manage Modules Page

Admin

Creating Module Types

JSP is easiest Tags Provided for Edit and Admin Pages (more info in

Dev Guide)– modulePersonalizationPage– modulePersonalizationReceipt– moduleAdminPage– moduleAdminReceipt

Portal API

Java Class: CustomData In package blackboard.portal.external Javadoc available in SDK

Portal API

CustomData data = CustomData.getModuleData(pageContext);

String text = data.getValue(“body.lunchMenu”); String text = data.getValue(“body.type”);

To get the Global CustomData for a module, use getModuleData(context)

Portal API

Can also save Global properties for a module using this same object

CustomData data = CustomData.getModuleData(pageContext);String text = data.setValue(“body.lunchMenu”, “Roast Turkey”);String text = data.setValue(“body.type”,”Entrée”);data.save();

Portal API

Similar Methods exist to set user specific data

CustomData data = CustomData.getModulePersonalizationData(pageContext);String text = data.setValue(“userpref.display”, “ALL”);data.save();

Packaging the Module Type

<module-type ext-ref="smpl-module" title="Sample Plug-in Module Type" uicreatable="true">

<jsp-dir>module</jsp-dir> <jsp> <view>view.jsp</view> <edit>edit.jsp</edit> <admin>admin.jsp</admin> </jsp> </module-type>

Put it in a System Extension Package JSPs in /module directory

Creating a Module

Can specify a module type already in the system or in the same installation package

Many modules can be created using the Bb supplied types

Could leverage types that become available in the community

Creating a Module

Module is packaged as a standard Building Blocks Package

bb-manifest.xml– module– channel

Specifying a Module

Manifest Entry (Module Def):

<module type="portal/channel" isadmin="true" useraddable="true" isdeletable="true" title="Sample Channel Module"> <description>Sample channel module. This module accesses the RSS channel installed with this plug-in.</description> <ExtraInfo> <property key="channel.id" type="String">macnews</property> </ExtraInfo></module>

Specifying a Module

Channel Manifest Entry (Channel Def):

<rss-channel ext-ref=“macnews" title=“Mac News"><data-url>http://www.macnn.xml/macnn.xml </data-url></rss-channel>

Specifying a Module

Can also optionally specify Portal Roles (Primary and Secondary)

<module-groups> <module-group id=“student"/> <module-group id=“faculty"/></module-groups>

Demonstration!