eXo Platform 3.5

- Prev
- Next

## Chapter 5. Gadget development

## Gadgets

A gadget is a mini web application, embedded in a web page and running on an application server platform. These small applications help users perform various tasks.

GateIn 3.1 supports gadgets, such as Todo, Calendar, Calculator, Weather Forecasts and RSS Reader.

Default Gadgets:

Calendar

  The calendar gadget allows you to switch easily between daily, monthly and yearly views. Also, this gadget is customizable to match your portal's theme.

ToDo

  This application helps you organize your day and work group. It is designed to keep track of your tasks in a convenient and transparent way. Tasks can be highlighted with different colors.

Calculator

  This mini-application lets you perform the most basic arithmetic operations and can be themed to match the rest of your portal.

RSS Reader

  An RSS reader, or aggregator collects content from various, user-specified feed sources and displays them in one location. This content can include, but is not limited to, news headlines, blog posts or email. The RSS Reader gadget displays this content in a single window on your Portal page.

More Gadgets

  Further gadgets can be obtained from the Google Gadget site. GateIn 3.1 is compatible with most of the gadgets available here.

### Important

The following sections require more textual information.

### Existing Gadgets

### Create a new Gadget

### Remote Gadget

This is the reference to a remote gadget (stock one).

### Gadget Importing

After referencing the gadget successfully, import it into the local repository.

### Gadget Web Editing

Modify it from the Web where the Gadget was imported:

### Gadget IDE Editing

Edit it from your IDE thanks to the WebDAV protocol:

### Dashboard Viewing

View it from the Dashboard when you drag and drop the Gadget from listing to the dashboard.

## Set up a Gadget Server

### Virtual servers for gadget rendering

GateIn 3.1 recommends using two virtual hosts for security. If the gadget is running on a different domain other than the container (the website that 'contains' the app), it is unable to interfere with the portal by modifying the code or cookies.

An example would hosting the portal from http://www.sample.com and the gadgets from http://www.samplemodules.com.

To do this, configure a parameter called gadgets.hostName. The value is the path/to/gadgetServer in `GadgetRegisteryService`:

    <component>

      <key>org.exoplatform.application.gadget.GadgetRegistryService</key>

      <type>org.exoplatform.application.gadget.jcr.GadgetRegistryServiceImpl</type>

      <init-params>

        <value-param>

          <name>gadgets.hostName</name>

          <description>Gadget server url</description>

          <value>http://localhost:8080/GateInGadgetServer/gadgets/</value>

        </value-param>

      </init-params>

    </component>

It is also possible to have multiple rendering servers. This helps to balance the rendering load across multiple servers.

When deploying on the same server, ensure the gadget initiates before anything that calls it (for example; the webapp `GateInGadgets` which uses `org.exoplatform.application.gadget.GadgetRegister`).

### Configuration

#### Security key

A file called key.txt has to be generated for every installation of GateIn 3.1 to be secure. This file contains a secret key used to encrypt the security token used for the user authentication.

In the Linux systems, this file can be generated with:

    dd if=/dev/random bs=32 count=1 | openssl base64 > /tmp/key.txt

#### Gadget proxy and concat configuration

These servers have to be on the same domain as the gadget server. You can configure the container in `eXoGadgetServer:/WEB-INF/classes/containers/default/container.js`.

    "gadgets.content-rewrite" : {
      "include-urls": ".*",
      "exclude-urls": "",
      "include-tags": ["link", "script", "embed", "img", "style"],
      "expires": "86400",
      "proxy-url": "http://localhost:8080/eXoGadgetServer/gadgets/proxy?url=",
      "concat-url": "http://localhost:8080/eXoGadgetServer/gadgets/concat?"
    },

#### Proxy

To allow external gadgets when the server is behind a proxy, add the following code to the beginning of the JVM:

    -Dhttp.proxyHost=proxyhostURL -Dhttp.proxyPort=proxyPortNumber -Dhttp.proxyUser=someUserName -Dhttp.proxyPassword=somePassword

- Prev
- Up
- Home
- Next