Programming the Frame Set Portal

I am working on what I call the frameset portal
http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/jira/browse/SAK-12402
This allows a JSR-168 portlet in Sakai to request to be shown with no left navigation. This has applications for externally hosted tools and content – like the iframe tool and the IMS Tool Interoperability tool.
The way most LMS’s do this is by using a frame set. The LMS puts a little tiny nav bar in a frame at the top so the user can get back to the LMS and puts the content in a second frame that gets the rest of the screen. This uses a frameset instead of iFrames – so the usability is not too bad – of course the accessibility is not so good. But for content that lives in a URL – this is the only choice other than a popup. This is better then a popup in many people’s opinion (and mine as well).
I think that this will allow publisher content to look really nice in Sakai.


I started working this morning at about 8 AM and have the first version working at 11PM. I really like working on holiday breaks.
I started with Ian’s portal refactor branch(SAK-12350). to make things easier to join back up with Ian as he completes his work.
Screenshot
It is really cool – screenshots soon in the Jira Entry. Now I want to rest, eat, and watch some Rock Band – now that the whole neighborhood has had 12 hours of solid practice.
Tomorrow I have a few things to clean up. I probably need to make my own branch which is a branch of Ian’s branch to check this stuff in so folks can look at it.
I also need to try to get a SiteMaker development environment up and running so I can work on adding IMS tool interop to site maker – which is another of my holiday tasks.
To do list:
– Decide if we really want to pre-buffer content – or should we make a property to control this – so we only pre-load content when we are dealing with one of these “maximize requesting” portlets.
– Tighten down when we will do this – must be one tool and a JSR168 tool on the page.
– Clean things up – remove prints and debugging.
– Talk to Ian to get his blessing on this :)