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Approach: The approach is described in Confluence in this page: Writing and using SuperHelpers within Sakai. That document is loaded with information. I'll try to work through the example of invoking a Citations helper from SRG to help clarify some of the ideas developed there.
Aside: We need to work through some examples like this to illustrate what set of attributes need to be known by a client to invoke helpers in this way. In the SRG example, I expect that we will offer the helper's functionality in a couple ways:
- Providing access to existing entities
- Enabling revision of existing entities
- Enabling creation of new entities of that type
For example, our webapp might be rendering an SRG and reach a point where a collection of citations is embedded in the document. The SRG "tool" might invoke a Citations helper to render that collection of citations. If the document is editable and/or that particular entity within the document is editable by the current user, the Citations helper might include a way to invoke an editor for the citations. Or the page itself might contain a way to select an item for revision, such that if the user selects that action for those citations, the citations helper will be invoked. Similarly, within the document, if the current user has permissions to add entities to the document and specifically if the current user has permissions to add citations within a particular context in the document, it should be possible to invoke a Citations helper to create a new collection of citations in that context.
In specifying a document model or a document template, what set of attributes or properties would be needed to enable these capabilities? I'll try to answer that question through this example.
More to come