User Profiles and Clusters

Hi everyone,

 

I am currently creating an reasonably large application intended for distribution to multiple users via jnlp. Now I have tinkered with jnlp and got the basic prototype distributing great after sorting a few idiosyncrasies, however before I go any further with the business logic there are two areas with which I would like some guidance as this is the first time I have used this platform and I am coming from a “J2EE” background and not a “swing/Netbeans RCP” one.

 

One of the requirements is that users from different functional groups can log in, now the suggestion is that once they have logged in (I have already made the login work using the link on the Netbeans wiki as a basis) depending on their functional/security group they will obtain a different set of loaded modules and layout, for example if the sales manager was logging in he would have access to modules(following their loading) possibly relating to sales figures, commissions etc whilst an sales person would only have access to product information, ordering, order status etc. I have been doing a bit of digging and in the past someone has mentioned “profiles” in Netbeans but all the references I seem to get search results for link to the “profiler,” so I am not sure if I am going down the right path.

 

I was planning to create a number of “clusters” such as Sales then like the login module use the Netbeans “module installer” to look at the functional/security group of the users, obtain a mapping to the clusters/modules that should be loaded for the user and then utilise a default “profile” for the user which defines layouts(“modes” of the TopComponents) and any Options? Would this be a correct assumption and if I have got the right end of the stick with the “profiles” described above could someone possibly send me a link to some information regarding it.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Caza

 

 

Caza,

 

I suspect answers to this question will get a broad range of perspectives.  I personally like to separate the gui from the data layer as much as possible.  For example our genTELLECT system has a NBP gui that talks to a mysql database using JAX-WS.  The gui knows nothing about the data.  The data descriptions are stored in the db and the gui gets those descriptions to build the appropriate views into the data.  When a user logs in I get his permissions from the database and then dynamically adjust the views accordingly.  For example, my database admin module allows a user with administrator privileges to add users and groups and therefore those panes are shown in the gui.  Normal users never see those panes.  I chose to put all  database admin related functions in one module instead of creating separate modules for users and administrators and then using the loader to customize the gui.

 

The way I chose is just one way and may not be right for you at all.

 

Joe

 

 

 

Hi everyone,

 

I am currently creating an reasonably large application intended for distribution to multiple users via jnlp. Now I have tinkered with jnlp and got the basic prototype distributing great after sorting a few idiosyncrasies, however before I go any further with the business logic there are two areas with which I would like some guidance as this is the first time I have used this platform and I am coming from a “J2EE” background and not a “swing/Netbeans RCP” one.

 

One of the requirements is that users from different functional groups can log in, now the suggestion is that once they have logged in (I have already made the login work using the link on the Netbeans wiki as a basis) depending on their functional/security group they will obtain a different set of loaded modules and layout, for example if the sales manager was logging in he would have access to modules(following their loading) possibly relating to sales figures, commissions etc whilst an sales person would only have access to product information, ordering, order status etc. I have been doing a bit of digging and in the past someone has mentioned “profiles” in Netbeans but all the references I seem to get search results for link to the “profiler,” so I am not sure if I am going down the right path.

 

I was planning to create a number of “clusters” such as Sales then like the login module use the Netbeans “module installer” to look at the functional/security group of the users, obtain a mapping to the clusters/modules that should be loaded for the user and then utilise a default “profile” for the user which defines layouts(“modes” of the TopComponents) and any Options? Would this be a correct assumption and if I have got the right end of the stick with the “profiles” described above could someone possibly send me a link to some information regarding it.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Caza

 

 

Hi Joe,

 

Thanks for the feedback the prototype has extension points and SPIs that have been designed to plug in various data layers (for example it is using java persistence for testing whilst the middleware is being built) so I agree with you whole heartedly on that point of separating GUI and data concerns especially coming from a MVC background. I have even been looking at the possibility of using Spring to aid the flexibility following reading up on some Swing/Spring links but I am not sure if Netbeans would get on with it or even if it is actually necessary due to Netbeans current features.

 

I wasn’t actually going to be that granular in creating specific modules for user groups but clusters of modules for larger groups of users i.e. Sales, Marketing, Accounts. The reason being for efficiency and security, as this is going to be deployed by JNLP and used by a diverse range of users and groups and because it also to be extensible i.e. as needs persist more modules will be added or extended; optimally once the user has logged in for the first time the NCP will download the relevant clusters or modules like it does already in Nebeans 6.1 whereby it allows you to download just the SE, Web & J2EE, Ruby etc  using the plugin module (which come to think of it I may take a look at) but just not give the user the option, it is done automatically for them behind the scenes; Similar to the IDE a user may only work with about 20MB of the modules but if they have to download the whole package it may be 100s of MBs, I had already asserted the possibility that a sales manager and sales person would in fact be utilising different views of the same module.

 

Due to my lack of experience with NCP I wasn’t sure if the “profile” module did actually exist and I hadn’t just read it wrong and it had stuck in my head, NCP seem to have a lot of effective features but not all seem to be documented fully and I am gradually getting through the APIs, however I don’t want to reinvent something that could possibly be already there. I presume dynamically adjusting the views is as simple as adjusting the Windows, Windows2, Modes etc in the Netbeans “FileSystem” accordingly from the loader?

 

My thinking is

 

User Login -> Authenticate -> Obtain “User” Profile from DB/LDAP -> Use “Plugin Installer” to obtain appropriate modules” -> Download/Install/Update modules -> Customise Views -> Show GUI

 

Are there current Netbeans APIs what would assist in the above or would I need to have a fully customised loader.

 

Thanks again,

 

Caza

 

 

Caza,

 

I suspect answers to this question will get a broad range of perspectives.  I personally like to separate the gui from the data layer as much as possible.  For example our genTELLECT system has a NBP gui that talks to a mysql database using JAX-WS.  The gui knows nothing about the data.  The data descriptions are stored in the db and the gui gets those descriptions to build the appropriate views into the data.  When a user logs in I get his permissions from the database and then dynamically adjust the views accordingly.  For example, my database admin module allows a user with administrator privileges to add users and groups and therefore those panes are shown in the gui.  Normal users never see those panes.  I chose to put all  database admin related functions in one module instead of creating separate modules for users and administrators and then using the loader to customize the gui.

 

The way I chose is just one way and may not be right for you at all.

 

Joe

 

 

 

Hi everyone,

 

I am currently creating an reasonably large application intended for distribution to multiple users via jnlp. Now I have tinkered with jnlp and got the basic prototype distributing great after sorting a few idiosyncrasies, however before I go any further with the business logic there are two areas with which I would like some guidance as this is the first time I have used this platform and I am coming from a “J2EE” background and not a “swing/Netbeans RCP” one.

 

One of the requirements is that users from different functional groups can log in, now the suggestion is that once they have logged in (I have already made the login work using the link on the Netbeans wiki as a basis) depending on their functional/security group they will obtain a different set of loaded modules and layout, for example if the sales manager was logging in he would have access to modules(following their loading) possibly relating to sales figures, commissions etc whilst an sales person would only have access to product information, ordering, order status etc. I have been doing a bit of digging and in the past someone has mentioned “profiles” in Netbeans but all the references I seem to get search results for link to the “profiler,” so I am not sure if I am going down the right path.

 

I was planning to create a number of “clusters” such as Sales then like the login module use the Netbeans “module installer” to look at the functional/security group of the users, obtain a mapping to the clusters/modules that should be loaded for the user and then utilise a default “profile” for the user which defines layouts(“modes” of the TopComponents) and any Options? Would this be a correct assumption and if I have got the right end of the stick with the “profiles” described above could someone possibly send me a link to some information regarding it.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Caza