External Navigation Connector - When is it executed?

[Former Member]

Hi,

I'm implementing an external navigation connector. My understanding was that the connector was executed at the potal runtime, and therefore the navigation tree from the external system is fetched every time a user opens a portal. However, it appears that it gets executed when I deploy the par file to the server??? If that's the case, this connector is no good since the navigation tree from the external system will be stale! Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

Help!

Mina

Edited by: Mina Gould on Oct 3, 2008 5:59 PM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Mina,

this answer comes too late I guess but still...

external navigation connectors are invoked when the portal needs to build the navigation tree. This usually happens when a navigation is being performed (i.e. the user has clicked somewhere in the TLN or DLN). There's no reason for invoking the connector right after deploy if that's so there's something wrong.

Bear in mind that portal does not support caching for external navigation connectors (I assume you are using 04s). It says it does support but there is an internal bug and as a matter of fact you have to take care for caching your navigation trees by your self.

Good luck and best regards,

--epexpert

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I appreciate you taking the time to follow up on this question.

Regards,

Mina

[Former Member]

Hi Mina,

I dont think it will execute after deployment itself.

You have to use that connector in portal whenever you need by executing at portal runtime

Koti Reddy

[Former Member]

Thank you for your reply, Koti.

I know it does not make sense, but when I print a message (fake error message just to see when it's called) from the Navigation connector, it gets logged after the deployment. When I actually launch a portal, the mesage does not get logged!

I'm so confused.

Thanks,

Mina

Edited by: Mina Gould on Oct 6, 2008 4:40 PM

Edited by: Mina Gould on Oct 6, 2008 4:40 PM

[Former Member]

For those who are interested...

It was because of how the sample code was built. Now that I modified how it would work, it executes at the true runtime.

Thanks,

Mina