Portal Preview

[sjivan]

A couple of users have asked about portal support. Writing portals in SmartGWT / SmartClient is fairly simple as the Layouts have animation, and dynamic add / remove built-in. Here's an example of a SmartClient Portal

http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/...animation.html

API's for this will be added in the next release, and likely a nightly build over the next few weeks.

Sanjiv

[zerozerosette]

Thanks Snajiv, that's a great example. But I have a further question: how can I keep this nice portal behavior while adding custom drag'n'drop features? For example, I need three columns with different size, and when a portlet is dropped on a bigger/smaller column, it must resize itself, adapting its width and height. Is adding a new DropHandler, and rewriting all the logic, the only way?
Something like this:

addDropHandler(new DropHandler() {
            public void onDrop(DropEvent event) {
                int newPosition = getDropPosition();
                Canvas draggable = EventHandler.getDragTarget();
                //Dropped on draggable's parent, reorder
                if (draggable.getParentElement() == PortalColumn.this) {
                    reorderMember(PortalColumn.this.getMemberNumber(draggable), newPosition);
                    return;
                }
                //Resize
                draggable.setHeight(size.getPixelSize());
                draggable.setWidth(size.getPixelSize());
                addMember(draggable, newPosition);
                reflowNow();
            }
        });

Thank you for your answer...

[Isomorphic]

So long as you have not called setWidth() on the portlet with a fixed pixel value (which establishes that pixel value as one that SmartClient Layouts must respect), moving the portlet between different Layouts should result in auto-sizing behavior.

[zerozerosette]

Thanks for your answer... that would work, but in addition to resizing the portlets I need to change their contents, because a small portlet's content is different from a medium or a large one (a ListGrid put in a large portlet should show many fields, but when it is dropped on a smaller column it could hide most of the fields, or even be replaced with another widget). Any suggestion?

Thank you again...

[Isomorphic]

Seem like you could add a method that notifies the portlet of the size of column it's being dropped into, allowing it to do whatever it wants, for example, hide fields if it contains a grid.

[zerozerosette]

It seems I finally got it. I added a resize/hiding fields/whatever method to my Portlet class' DragRepositionStopHandler. I hope this will prove to be the correct approach.

Another question:
When I move an empty portlet everything is fast, but when I add a listgrid to it (with addItem) there's a lag as i drop it on a column.
Is this related to http://forums.smartclient.com/showthread.php?t=833 ?

Thank you again!

[Isomorphic]

Yes, that would be the cause of any lag, however, if it's a non-trivial lag it may indicate extra work is going on (eg maybe there are two clear/draw cycles or similar). You should be able to see this in the Developer Console by enabling log categories like "draws", "clears", and "redraws".

[kccheng]

Originally Posted by sjivan

A couple of users have asked about portal support. Writing portals in SmartGWT / SmartClient is fairly simple as the Layouts have animation, and dynamic add / remove built-in. Here's an example of a SmartClient Portal

http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/...animation.html

API's for this will be added in the next release, and likely a nightly build over the next few weeks.

Sanjiv

Where can I find the SmartGWT version of this sample ?
Thanks

Regards
KC

[tomhj]

Has the GWT wrapper for the SmartClient portal component(s) been finished yet?

[sjivan]

Its on the TODO list but if you're in a hurry or would liek to lend a hand, you can try writing the SmartGWT equivalent of it yourself and post here if you run into any roadblocks. The code is fairy small.

View Source here :
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/...animation.html

and the Portal code itself

portalComponents.js

Sanjiv