This article describes the Mashup Center 2.0 content store.
The purpose of the content store is to provide widget developers with a simple file system-like area to store and retrieve static Web resources such as HTML, CSS, JS and images. Regardless of whether you are working in a single-server or clustered environment, widget resources in the content store are persisted in a single location either in the local file system or in a database. You can manage these Web resources through the RemoteModel JavaScript API as well as through WebDAV-like URLs.
Mashup Center 2.0 utilizes the content store through the
widget builder feature. You can access the widget builder directly from the mashup builder to create your own lightweight widgets and then deploy them to the content store. These widgets are called
lightweight widgets because they are simple ZIP files that you can edit and replace in the content store without having to package and deploy them as WAR files to the application server. When you need to edit a lightweight widget, you can simply edit the files in the content store. To connect to the content store, you can use the widget builder or a WebDAV client. Regardless of the access method, you can edit and save a file in its current location. The changes are effective immediately in the file system, and the next time you refresh the browser, the widget contents are updated.
Widget developers can even create their own variation of a widget builder application using the RemoteModel JavaScript API, This consolidates widget creation, development, and deployment into the Mashup Center environment itself. For more information about the RemoteModel JavaScript API, see the
IBM Mashup Center 2.0 API Specification.
You can also use the content store as a repository for resources that your other widget applications need at runtime. For example, you may have a PictureViewer widget that allows users to upload and display pictures. In this case, although the widget is deployed to the application server, the widget can access the users HOME directory in the content store to retrieve and display the images at runtime.
For details about how to work with the content store, see the following topics:
Understanding how files are stored in the content store
Accessing the content store through the file system
Example of using the Remote JavaScript API
For information about how administrators can secure the content store, see
Securing the content store.