AWESOM-O: Chetan's blog

Wanna add your favorite video onto the WebSpace Portal or display a flash video ad... follow these steps to add a simple flash player to play your flv files. For better understanding on using Content Management System, Web Content Display Portlet just skim through KLV's blog

Download and install latest webspace install here.

In this post I am going to use jw flash player for demo. Download the free player and do the following:

1. Upload player.swf(from downloaded jwplayer) to document library and note the url from the file details.

2. Upload your flv file to document library and note the url from the file details.

Create a Structure:

1. Login as admin@example.com

2. Go to Control Panel.

3. Select Web Content from left navigation under Content category.

4. Select Structures tab to create a new structure for FLV player user inputs.

5. Click on Add Structure.

6. Check Autogenerate ID, provide Name("FLV Player Structure") and Description.

7. Click on Add Row. Provide Name as "file". Select type from dropdown as "Text".

8. Click on Add Row again. Provide Name as "player". Select type from dropdown as "Text".

9. Click on Save.

Create a Template:

1. Select Templates tab -> Click on Add Template button.

2. In the Template form, check Autogenerate ID, Name("FLV Player"), Description.

3. Click on Select button and select the Structure created above.

4. Click on Launch Editor. Here you can create the vm template.

5. Clear the commented text and copy the following in it.

<embed width="100%" height="300" align="center" flashvars="file=$file.data" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="opaque" scalemode="showall"
movie="$player.data" swliveconnect="false" salign="" menu="false" play="false" loop="true"
devicefont="true" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" base="." quality="best" name="player" id="player" style=""
src="$player.data" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>

6. Click on Update button which closes the editor and Click Save button in the Template form.

We are ready to Add Content to the template which we have created just now.

Add Web Content:

1. In the same Templates tab Click on Actions button next to the template created above.

2. In the context menu populated select "Add Web Content".

3. In the Web Content form provide Name("My Video"), in File text field enter your flv file context path location, the document library url of flv video uploaded.

4. Provide the player URL with the document library url of player.swf file.

5. Click on Save and Approve button.

We are done with Control Panel part and now we are ready to display the video content onto the portal.

1. Go to your page or create a new page by clicking on Add Page.

2. Go to Menu -> Add Application -> Content Management and add Web Content Display portlet.

3. Click on Configuration on the portlet -> Select the WebContent("My Video") you created above.

4. We just added content to the Web Content Display portlet. Click on Return to full Page.

I've surely witnessed the goodness of flex charting and its so easy. Continued from my previous entry let's see now how flex charting helps us in achieving the RIA dashboard on Project WebSynergy. This blog is just a layer on top from my colleagues Sandeep's, Murali's blogs ;).

Flexification of a Pentaho Dashboard :)

• Creating graphs with Adobe’s Flex Builder 3 is a pretty simple. A basic knowledge of mxml and actionscript combination will help us creating the dashboard.
• Using the Flex Builder design the layout using drag and drop components. Drag and drop the type of charts onto the panel. This will generate the default code for charts with placeholders for the x-axis and y-axis.
  

//init() - event to handle any postprocessing tasks that must be performed after the component is completely created and initialized.

private function init():void
  {

        //call the http service on pentaho xaction.
        trService.send();
  }

//<mx:itemClick> will get the clicked data item which can be used to drill down further.

// setter method will be called taking the input hitdata when an item is clicked 

• Use <mx:HTTPService> to make a pentaho xaction call. This will return a SOAP response which can be easily handled by ResultEvent. 
  
• <mx:HTTPService id="trService" url="http://localhost:8080/pentaho/ServiceAction?solution=samples&amp;path=steel-wheels/dashboards&amp;
  action=Sales_by_Territory.xaction&amp;userid=joe&amp;password=password" result="handleTRResult(event)"/>

     //   Action script method handles the result event after executing the httpservice call.


• private function handleTRResult(event:ResultEvent):void
        {
          territoryRevenue = new ArrayCollection();
          territory.dataProvider = territoryRevenue;
          // Creates an array collection parsing the node tree of the SOAP response headers
          var hdrTR:ArrayCollection =     event.result.Envelope.Body.ExecuteActivityResponse.swresult['COLUMN-HDR-ROW']['COLUMN-HDR-ITEM'];
         
          for each (var plDat:Object in event.result.Envelope.Body.ExecuteActivityResponse.swresult['DATA-ROW'])
          {
            var pl:Object = new Object();
            pl[hdrTR[0]] = plDat['DATA-ITEM'][0];
            pl[hdrTR[1]] = plDat['DATA-ITEM'][1];
            territoryRevenue.addItem(pl);
          }
        }
• Now once all the charts on the dashboard are well coordinated and connected save the mxml file and follow the Murali's process.

• Use the PortalPack NetBeans plugin to quickly develop and deploy portlets on Project  WebSynergy

• Check out the flex source here and portlet screencast.