Dynamic Dashlet in Alfresco Share

[alejandrogarcia]

Hi folks,

I'm relatively new in Alfresco Share development and I was trying to figure out how to achieve what I explain above.

As a user experience requirement, I need to create a dynamic dashlet.

According to what I need, a dynamic dashlet would be a special dashlet that can load inside "almost every content". I say almost every content because of course this kind of dashlet would have its own limits of course. At the same time, it would be nice that the dynamic dashlet has the ability of being maximized, what in fact would show the real content (for example, an Alfresco page).

Perhaps my question is ambiguous, but the intention to give the user the chance of check execute common functionality inside that special dashlet, this way the user doesn't have to leave the dashboard improving the user experience as a consequence.

Did anybody have had such requirement or similar before? Would that be possible to do?

I would like to know some tips and suggestions in order to find out the right approach.

Thanks in advance.

[ddraper]

A dashlet is just a WebScript that is registered as a member of the dashlet family. If you really want to get a dashlet to render entire Alfresco pages then the only way to achieve this would be with an iframe (because you pages/templates/regions/components are all defined at a higher level than a WebScript - this means that there is no way a WebScript could render a page internally.

If you want to be able to dynamically maximise a dashlet on the dashboard then you'd need to be dynamically customizing the user-dashboard template with the maximise request (to switch between multi-column to single column) and then setting a preference for the height of the dashlet. It wouldn't be a particularly simple task. You'd arguably be better off replacing the dashboard page with your own implementation and your own dashlet framework implementation to achieve dynamic maximisation/restoration actions.

Regards,
Dave

[alejandrogarcia]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your answer.

I posted a similar question on Stackoverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12973535/dynamic-dashlet-in-alfresco-share) and I had a reply that from point of view makes sense. Could you have a look to it and let me know what do you think?

Regarding to the maximization feature, what's the "maximise request"? I didn't know anything about it before.

Thanks.

Regards.

[ddraper]

From your original post:

At the same time, it would be nice that the dynamic dashlet has the ability of being maximized, what in fact would show the real content (for example, an Alfresco page).

The answer on StackOverflow is similar to what I've just posted back on your other topic (it would probably better if you closed off one of these threads) - the WebView would be a sensible approach to try but the dashlet doesn't have the "maximise" feature - although you could have a single column dashboard and make the WebView dashlet take up most of the page. That said, you've have very little control over navigation - for example if you do remove the header then you'd be largely be constrained to the page configured to be displayed.

Also, if this dashlet is for a user dashboard rather than a site dashboard then you wouldn't have any control over the initial content (unless you create an extension module to customize it to always be set to a specific value - but then you effectively prevent your users from using that dashlet for its intended purpose).

Regards,
Dave