Building an ADF Application

Overview

ADF Applications are a combination of custom coding, CommonSpot API calls, and CommonSpot Custom Elements. Applications can do many things but on a whole they are used to allow content contributors to easily manage structured data within the CommonSpot site.

Prerequisites

To build Applications using the ADF it is essential that you become familiar with some of the common interfaces available to you as a developer. Since the ADF is an extension of CommonSpot, the more you know about how CommonSpot works in general the better. Some places to get started:

• CommonSpot Documentation: browse to /commonspot/help/ on your CommonSpot Authoring server to gain access to all of the documentation available in your installation
• Browse the Articles on the CommonSpot Community Site to learn what others are doing with the API's
• Contact your Account Manager for upcoming training dates

Core folders and files

The following steps are instructions for creating a new application in the ADF.

Note: A 'Starter App' is available for download on the [http://community.paperthin.com/projects/pt_starter_app/ CommonSpot Community Site]. See the [[Starter_Application|Starter Application]] wiki page for more details.

1. Pick a name for your application (See ADF Applications Best Practices for more on naming your application)

1. Create a new directory for your application (application names and application directories do NOT have to match) within the /ADF/apps/ directory
2. Copy the contents of the 'Starter App' into your new application directory
3. Open the 'AppBeanConfig.cfm' file in your applications directory. See the App Bean Config wiki page for more details.
4. Update the 'appBeanName' variable with the name for your application and the comment header at the top of the file with your application name.

// App specific variables
appBeanName = "myAppName";

1. Save the updated 'AppBeanConfig.cfm' file.
2. Reset the ADF for the server and site.
3. If no error messages appear, then your application is configured within the ADF.

Adding functionality

Where you go from here is very much up to you. Some things that you might do are:

• Build a CommonSpot Custom Element(s) to house your content
• Build a Custom Field Type to enhance the management of data
• Construct some Application Components to help control the entry and display of data from your Custom Element(s)