Folks, Was experimenting with patterns to componentize presentations. Found Tiles absolutely well suited with its concept of Controller per tile. But I realize that populating the tile maynot be the only thing that I want to, one may want to do more things which are generic in nature rather than being Tile specific. For example, a common requirement is to display or hide, on the basis of the context of the request (and that may be more than just principal and role). There may be many such requirements which I may want to dynamically want to plug on in a generic manner to a selection of my tiles. An ideal way probably would have been to have the ability to define a set of controllers in a particular sequence for a Tile along with the Tile definitions, but since there is an option for only one, I probably need to work my way around. So here's a thought broken down into a number of points:
* Let me define a single generic Controller * Along with it define my own configuration schema where in I can define a mapping of my presentation components to the set (and sequence of the controllers that should be executed before the presentation is made). Of course I can cache it and take care of dynamic changes to this cache at runtime etc (if I need to) * Now let me define a generic Security Controller for my site which encapsulates the understanding of the implementation of security policies on my site. * Along with this generic Security Controller now I define a schema where I can define a mapping of my presentation components to the associated security rules. Of course I can cache it as well along with taking care of dynamic changes to this cache at runtime etc (if I need to) * Now when every Component is to be displayed my generic Controller (not the generic security controller) is invoked which looks at the sequence of controllers to be executed and coordinates the display, and if my generic security controller is also to sequenced then it is just brought into picture by the generic controller and it utilizes the ComponentContext and the security mappings configurations to execute what ever security rules its wants to. Just wanted to have your opinions on the model, and if there are alternative models that have been tried for similar scenarios (I believe the scenario is a very common scenario). Of course I know it for a fact that Action PlugIn extension by ASQdotCOM can also be be utilized for such a need cheers, pdhoolia
