Home Library 1.0 API

THIS SECTION OF GCUBE DOCUMENTATION IS CURRENTLY UNDER UPDATE.

The Home Library manage and persist the users homes.

Architecture

The user's homes are organized in scopes.

The users and the homes for a specific scope are managed by the HomeManager.

Each user home (Home) have a workspace area (WorkspaceArea) and a data area (DataArea).

Figure 1. Home Library Reference Architecture

Workspace Area model

The figure 2 illustrate the Workspace Area model.

Figure 2. Workspace Area model

Each element contained in a workspace area is a WorkspaceAreaItem.

There are two kind of item container: the Workspace and the Basket, both can be referred as WorkspaceFolder.

A workspace can contain one or more workspacefolder.

A basket can contain only BasketItems.

In each workspace area there is a Default Basket, a special basket can't be deleted or moved.

The basket items are the effective user objects.

The figure 3 illustrate the BasketItem model.

Figure 3. Basket Item model

Setup the Home Library

Installation

To use the HomeLibrary you first need the HomeLibrary downloadable from:

• [1] last night build
• [2] gcube distribution site

Add the org.gcube.portlets.user.homelibrary.jar file to your gcore installation ($GLOBUS_PATH/lib folder).

Dependecies

The home library require some library to be used:

• xstream-1.3.1.jar XML serialization (XStream)
• xpp3_min-1.1.4c.jar XML serialization (XStream)
• bcprov-ext-jdk15-141.jar manipulate pdf
• iText-2.1.4.jar manipulate pdf
• ij140g.jar manipulate images

Add those libraries to your gcore installation ($GLOBUS_PATH/lib folder).

Configuration

To be used the Home Library need a folder where create a persistence dir (For test use is not necessary to configure it).

There are different way to specify the base dir where create the persistence dir:

1. set the HOME_LIBRARY_PERSISTENCE_DIR environment variable
2. set the system property catalina.base (generically set by tomcat), then the "catalina.base/webapps/usersArea" is used a base dir
3. If none of preceding properties is specified the system tmp directory is used a base dir. Make attention, sometime the tmp folder is delete at system reboot, use it only for test.

Inside the base dir a home_library_persitence dir is created and used.

Using the Home Library

Retrieve an User WorkspaceArea step by step

Firs of all is necessary to retrieve an instance of HomeManagerFactory, this can be done using the static methods from HomeLibrary class.

This example create an HomeLibrary instance that use a tmp directory (home_library_persistence) into the tmp system dir to save the library state. This directory is never deleted by the library. To reset the library state you can delete it.

HomeManagerFactory factory = HomeLibrary.getHomeManagerFactory();

Obtained the factory you can retrieve the HomeManager for a specified scope:

HomeManager manager = factory.getHomeManager(scope);

Where scope can be a GCUBEScope object or a GCUBEScope expression (for test you can use any expression).

Then we retrieve the User home:

User user = manager.createUser(portalLogin);
Home home = manager.getHome(user);

Where portalLogin is the user username used to login into the portal (for test you can use any username).

Finally we can get the WorkspaceArea with his root:

WorkspaceArea wa = home.getWorkspaceArea();
Workspace root = wa.getRoot();

Show the WorkspaceArea content

The utility class WorkspaceTreeVisitor offer two method for workspace area visit:

• visitSimple which show only workspace area item name's
• visitVerbose which show rich information about each item

There is an example (root is the user root workspace):

WorkspaceTreeVisitor wtv = new WorkspaceTreeVisitor();
wtv.visitSimple(root);
wtv.visitVerbose(root);

How to retrieve an User WorkspaceArea from a servlet

To retrieve a WorkspaceArea for a User you can use the getWorkspaceArea static method from HomeLibrary class. This method required only the current D4ScienceSession.

WorkspaceArea wa = HomeLibrary.getUserWorkspaceArea(session);

References

The most recent presentation about the Home Library can be found there: http://bscw.research-infrastructures.eu/bscw/bscw.cgi/d107608/06.%20HomeLibrary.ppt