Integrate a Model-Glue Application into FarCry

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:04:00 -0400

I'm sure there are other ways to do this but this is how I was able to integrate an existing Model-Glue application into a FarCry site. I am using ModelGlue 2.0, the latest ColdSpring BER as of this posting, and the latest beta of reactor. My MG app in question is a events calendar. Its a pretty simple application using MG, Reactor, and ColdSpring. Because I don't want to use ColdFusion mappings (and its running on CF7 so no per application mappings) I copied modelglue, reactor, and coldspring into {farcry_root}/projects/{site_name}/www as www/modelglue, www/reactor, and www/coldspring. If you are using mappings you can skip that step. Next, I created a simple include file called _mgCal.cfm in {farcry_root}/projects/{site_name}/includedObj. The code for this is as follows:

Now, in the FarCry webtop, under the site tab, navigate to the root node, and under utility, create a new navigation node called "Calendar" and under that, a new include called "Calendar". Publish both. The friendly URL should be /go/calendar, but it can be whatever you like. Now we have to copy our MG application into the site tree. Create a new folder called "mg" under the www folder. This is where all my MG apps will live. So I copy my "mgCal" folder from my test site into the "mg" folder I just created giving me a directory structure like so:

/www/mg/mgCal/
/www/mg/mgCal/config
/www/mg/mgCal/controller
/www/mg/mgCal/model
/www/mg/mgCal/views
/www/mg/mgCal/Application.cfm
/www/mg/mgCal/index.cfm
etc

Now we have a few modifications to make to the MG app to get it to run from this location. Depending on how you first created the MG app, your settings may be different. In your MG App's index.cfm file add the following line above the <cfinclude> that calls Model-Glue.

Now MG can find your ColdSpring configuration file. In your ColdSpring configuration file edit the following properties: In your modelGlueConfiguration bean: The paths should be straight forward, but your defaultTemplate property must be set to the FriendlyURL of your include.


/mg/mgCal/views
/mg/mgCal/views/generated
/mg/mgCal/config/ModelGlue.xml
/mg/mgCal/config/scaffolds/Scaffolds.xml
/go/calendar

In your reactorConfiguration bean:


/mg/mgCal/config/reactor/Reactor.xml
/mg/mgCal/model/data/reactor

You will want the paths to match those you set up in the previous steps. Now for the tedious part. This was easy for me since I only have a few views, but a complex app with a large number of views will probably be a bit more work. In each view that calls #viewState.getValue('myself')# you will have to, prior to any of those calls run the following statement:

This is to prevent a url like /go/calendar?event=some.mgEvent from happening. The friendlyURL is hiding some other FarCry URL variables. So there is already a ? in the URL. This will replace the ? that MG creates with an ampersand so you can attach the MG url variables. easily. Thats all it took to get my simple calendar MG app running under FarCry. A more complex app may need more to get running, but at least this will get you started. If any one has any suggestions on a better way to handle this, I am all ears. I tried to find another instance of someone doing this in both the FarCry and Model-Glue lists to no avail.

n42 Designs - FarCry

Integrate a Model-Glue Application into FarCry