Introdution
to Community Builder
Community Builder is a WebObjects environment
consisting of a suite of applications that share a template framework.
Community
Builder Architecture
Each application in the suite uses components from a
template pool (CLCommunityTemplatesFRM). The templates are all constructed
from a collection of resusables display components(CLDisplayFRM.
CLCommunityTemplatesFRM contains two types of templates:
page and layout.
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Page Templates produce compete html pages,
i.e. full WOComponents. They are ready to be used as is by any
application that supplies the required bindings. |
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Layout Templates are page portions,
one or more of them may be included in a page template. They
are thus partial WOComponents. Layouts are useful for example
when two or more application wish to use the same basic template
but header and/or footer information is different for each of
the applications. A layout will in this case contain the essential
display structure (e.g. text - image - text displayed vertically).
Each client applications can then create its own page template
which includes this layout and a tailored or existing header/footer
layout. |
CLDisplayFRM contains all of the display objects
that are used by the page and layout templates. They may also be
used in application pages directly, in effect by-passing the template
structure. Although this may be a desirable option on occassion
it is suggested the one first consider using existing templates
or defining new ones so that pool of reusable templates serve its
intended purpose.
How
to Build a Template
Although there may be variations to the method
outlined here, these are the basic steps needed to create a template
for Community Builder:
| 1. |
From ProjectBuilder add a new WOComponent
to CLCommunityTemplatesFRM. This will be your page template
so give it an appropriate name ending in the suffix "Page".
e.g. MyTemplatePage. |
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| 2. |
If you need to create a new layout template for
this page template, you will need to add a second new WOComponent
to CLCommunityTemplatesFRM, this one will be a partial component.
In most cases this will be closely related to the page component
so it's name should be similar, so give it the same name as
the page component without the Page suffix. In our example
this would thus be MyTemplate. (See TextBlockPage and
TextBlockPage for an example of this occurrence).
Steps 3 - 5 apply to both the create of page and layout templates. |
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| 3. |
Open the new WOComponent in WebObjects
Builder. Using the "Add Custom WebObject" tool
in the menubar build the new tempate by adding any display
objects or layout templates needed. Be sure not to
include a page template to you new page template. |
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| 4. |
You will need to supply your own code to make
various objects display appropriately. For example ,you may
wish inlcude both CLTextNugget and CLTextNuggetEdit so that
you can display and edit a chunk of text on the same page. (See
the TextBlock template java and html files for a specific
example of this.) |
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| 5. |
Supply the appropriate bindings for all objects
included. See the Community
Builder Frameworks section for details |
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Community
Builder Frameworks
