There’s an API for that! Why and how to build on the IBM Connections PLATFORM

There’s an API for that! Why and
how to build on the IBM
Connections PLATFORM
Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg
Senior Solution Architect and Partner
OnTime® by IntraVision

Agenda
• Brief intro to
–IBM Connections as a PLATFORM
–iWidgets for IBM Connections
–Developing for the Activity Stream
–SPI’s and Event handlers
Twitter: @lekkim
E-mail: mfh@intravision.dk
http://lekkimworld.com
http://slideshare.net/lekkim

Widgets – descriptor
<iw:iwidget id="com.example.ExampleWidget" supportedModes="view fullpage”
mode="view” lang="en" xmlns:iw="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/iWidget"
iScope="com.example.ExampleWidget">
<iw:resource uri="http://www.example.com/ExampleWidget.js" />
<iw:resource uri="http://www.example.com/ExampleWidget.css" />
<iw:content mode="view">
<![CDATA[
<div id="_IWID_widgetContent">Loading...</div>
]]>
</iw:content>
<iw:content mode="fullpage">
<![CDATA[
<div id="_IWID_widgetContent">Loading...</div>
]]>
</iw:content>
</iw:iwidget>

Widgets – iScope
dojo.provide("com.example.ExampleWidget");
dojo.declare("com.example.ExampleWidget", null, {
constructor: function() {},
onLoad: function() {},
onView: function() {},
onEdit: function() {},
onFullpage: function() {},
onSearch: function() {}
});

Widgets – declaration
Declaratively configured using widgets-config.xml
<widgetDef defId="com.example.ExampleWidget”
url="/ExampleWidget.xml" loginRequired="true”
showInPallette=”true” primaryWidget=”false”>
<itemSet>
<item name="resourceId" value="{resourceId}" />
<item name="profilesCtx" value="{profilesSvcRef}" />
<item name="myProp" value="Abc123" />
</itemSet>
</widgetDef>

Widgets – iContext
• An iContext instance is set into the iScope instance
• The iContext provides access to the widget markup (e.g. root
element), I/O related functions (i.e. URL rewriting), widget
attributes etc.
• The iContext is easily accessed from the iScope class using
this.iContext
• Important functions include:
– iContext.getRootElement() : DOM Element
– iContext.getElementById(id:string) : DOM Element
– iContext.getiWidgetAttributes() : ItemSet
– iContext.getUserProfile() : ItemSet
– iContext.io.rewriteURI(uri:string) : string
– iContext.iEvents.fireEvent(name:string, type:string, payload:object)

Loading prior to IBM Connections
5

Loading from IBM Connections 5

Loading from IBM Connections 5
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=1GLpA604Iic

Activity Stream
• The following is based on my highly acclaimed
(cough, cough) presentation on the Activity
Stream
• Much more detail and many examples there
• See http://slideshare.net/lekkim
Twitter: @lekkim

Activity Stream
• IS
– River of news – it’s like water flowing by you
– Notifications about ”stuff” happening in (other)
systems – we refer to these notifications as
entries
• ISN’T
– A new inbox – doesn’t replace email
– A perpeptual data store – entries are deleted
based on a server defined purge interval (default
is 30 days) unless saved or actionable

Activity Stream
• In my opinion it makes most sense to not consider
the activity stream as one single stream
• Instead think that
– Each user has his/her own (@me)
– There is a public stream (@public)
– A community may have a stream if the widget has
been added by a community owner – if there’s no
stream for a community posting to it will return a
”403 Forbidden”

Activity Stream
• You will mainly use the POST and PUT methods to send JSON data (Content-Type:
application/json) to the API
• JSON is super simple key/value data format. It has simple datatypes (strings,
numbers, booleans), objects and arrays
{
”email”: ”mh@intravision.dk”,
”niceGuy”: true,
”age”: 37,
”name”: {
”first”: ”Mikkel Flindt”, ”last”: ” Heisterberg”
},
”Connectospheres”: [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]
}

Activity Stream
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"verb": "post",
"title": "Some entry title",
"updated": "2013-05-17T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"title": "Some object title",
"objectType": "note",
"id": "1234567890-1234567890-1234567890"
}
}

Activity Stream
https://<host>/connections/opensocial/<auth>/rest/activitystreams
/<user ID>/<group ID>/<application ID>/<activity ID>
Component Meaning
<auth> (optional) If using form based authentication leave this component out. Otherwise options
are anonymos, basic, oauth.
<user ID> The user whose stream you’re addressing – use @me for current users stream, @public for
public stream or a community ID for the stream in a community.
<group ID> The group of entries you’re addressing – use @all for all posts or options for special
meaning such as @saved, @actions, @mentions. Refer for InfoCenter and resources slide
for more.
<application ID> When retrieving entries this refers to the application (or ”generator”) that created the entry.
All the IBM Connections app names can be used (profiles, blogs, wikis etc.) plus custom
ones (e.g. ontimegc). @all used for all applications.
<activity ID> Used to reference a specific event e.g. for updating saved status.

Activity Stream
1. /activitystreams/@me/@all
List my (current users) entries
2. /activitystreams/@public/@all
List public stream entries
3. /activitystreams/@me/@actions
List my actionable events
4. /activitystreams/@me/@saved/blogs
List my saved events from blogs
5. /@me/@all/@all/urn:lsid:lconn.ibm.com:activitystreams.story:bdb562f…
Work with entry from my stream based on ID
* All URLs above start with
https://<host>/connections/opensocial/<auth>/rest
Also used
when creating
new entries
(e.g. POSTing)

Other Programming Interfaces
• SPIs are lower-level programming interfaces which may be subject to
modification from release to release.
• Event SPI
– The IBM Connections Event SPI allows third parties to consume event data generated by
IBM Connections.
• Seedlist SPI
– Use the Seedlist service provider interface (SPI) provided with IBM Connections to
integrate your search engine with IBM Connections content.
• Service SPI
– You can use the IBM Connections Service SPI to learn about the applications running in
your IBM Connections deployment.
• User SPI
– You can use the IBM Connections User SPIs to access information about the users in
your IBM Connections deployment.

Event Handlers – declaration
Declaratively configured using events-config.xml
<postHandler enabled=”true" invoke="ASYNC"
name=”MyEventHandler” class="com.example.MyEventHandler">
<subscriptions>
<subscription source="*" type="*" eventName="*"/>

</subscriptions>
</postHandler>

Event Handlers – implementation
import com.ibm.connections.spi.events.EventHandler
public class MyEventHandler implements EventHandler {
public void init() throws EventHandlerInitException {}
public void destroy() {}
public void handleEvent(Event event) throws EventHandlerException {
String eventName = event.getName(); // event name
Person actor = event.getActor(); // person that triggered event
// look at the event name
if (event.getName().equals("profiles.person.photo.updated")) {
// a profile photo was updated
this.doEventProfilesPhotoUpdated(event);
} else if (event.getName().equals("profiles.updated")) {
// a profile was updated
this.doEventProfilesUpdated(event);
}
}
}

Event Handlers – summary
• Make event handlers asynchroneous
• What happens if your event handler fail?
• What happens if the recipient of the event
(3rd party API) fail?
• Be defensive – consider what happens if
events are lost

Thank you
• Presentations on slideshare.net – this one is
coming
• Contact me – often times more than willing to
help – I’ll let you know when it’s a project 
Twitter: @lekkim

There’s an API for that! Why and how to build on the IBM Connections PLATFORM

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