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Summary
This concept page describes both how to control when an action is available and how to restrict access to such actions.
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Availability
The availability is based on the selection although specific exceptions exists. For instance not all actions operate on a selected node. For redo/undo we will enable/disable based on the undo history size.
Both in the actionbar and in the context menu we want to show actions as enabled or disabled. We do not want to replicate the configuration in both places. Therefore we will configure it on the actions themselves.
On the action definition we need to be able to specify
- the node types the action is available for
- whether its available when there's no selection
- and whether its available for properties
Q: We currently toggle show/hide on sections based on the node types. Is this desirable? It has the effect of actions moving around when the selection changes.
Q: Do we want to hide a section if all its actions are disabled? What if the user is not authorized to use any of the actions does it then make sense to hide the section?
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Access Control
Determining wether the current user has access to an actions should be based on roles. We need to configure the required roles on the action definition.
If the user does not have access we will show the action as disabled in the actionbar.
Appendix 1 - The current availability behaviour
We control availability by hiding sections and disabling groups or individual actions.
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Groups and items can be enabled/disabled.
The availability is based on the selection although specific exceptions exists. For instance not all actions operate on a selected node.
Logic charts for current behaviour
| Contacts App | S folderActions | G addActions | G editActions | S contactsActions | G addActions | G editActions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| no selection or root | x | x | x | x | ||
| mgnl:folder | x | x | x | x | x | |
| any other node | x | x |
...
| Pages | A delete | A preview | A edit | A export | A activate | A deactivate | A activateRecursive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| no selection or root | |||||||
| any selection | x | x | x | x | x | x | only if no sub pages |
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Configuration proposal (rejected)
on each level, section, group, action, we need to configure three things:
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| noSelection | boolean | false | available when no selection or not |
| nodeTypes | node | node with subnodes for each node type | |
| properties | boolean | false | available for properties or not |
if no constraints are configured for an action it takes the decision of the containing group, otherwise it takes its own decision
there is no way to configure availability for all node types
there is still a need for custom logic, like for checking activateRecursive, which is fine, because its unusual, but for undo/redo there ALWAYS has to be a custom check
Appendix 2 - Previous notes
Problem
The action bar can take several states within one sub-app.
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- Action bar definition should define two things:
- the structure: sections, groups, and all possible actions in these groups, in one single place. This ensures proper ordering of actions at all time
- the states that describe e.g. the section titles, the set of actions displayed, and potential substates. This mechanism should allow for additive composition of states (think of the use case for an optional AND editable area in page editor)
- Implementing context sensitivity then only means to configure these states properly and toggle between them.
It is likely that context sensitivity is not handled at all at the action bar level, but rather straight on the actions.- If so, the action bar definition is reduced to its sole structure.
- Edge case (page editor): do we provide a way to configure context-sensitive section titles?
Decision
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Access Control
Determining wether the current user has access to an actions should be based on roles. We need to configure the required roles on the action definition.
If the user does not have access we should show the action as disabled in the actionbar.
Overview
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