IBM WebSphere Everyplace Access V5 Handbook for Developers and Administrators Volume IV: Advanced Topics

58 IBM WebSphere Everyplace Access V5, Volume IV: Advanced Topics

2.1 Overview of simple notifications

Simple notifications are messages that originate from other users or applications.

The Message Center portlet provides Intelligent Notification users with a place to

send and receive simple notifications. In addition to that, Intelligent Notification

Services includes an API that lets developers build simple notification

functionality into any kind of application.

This section describes simple notifications that are implemented in the Intelligent

Notification Services component of WebSphere Everyplace Access. Figure 2-1

illustrates the basic architecture of this function where messages are sent from

other applications to users with one or more channel delivery options.

Figure 2-1 Simple notifications in Intelligent Notification Services

Simple notification applications build messages with information about the

sender, recipient, message content, and delivery preferences. These messages

are sent to the Notification Manager using CORBA/IIOP. The Notification

Manager queries the recipient’s preferences, or uses the preferences that

specified by the application, and sends out a notification that is based on those

preferences. The notification is delivered via the appropriate channel adapter to

the specified delivery channel.

Simple Notifications

Delivery

Channels

Notebook

Cellular

Phone

PDA

Voice

On

Match

Subscription

Manager

Content

Source(s)

Preferences

Subscriptions

Configurations

Preferences

Manager

Applications

Applications

Applications

Member

Services

Message

Center

Trigger

Handler

Notification

Manager

Portlets

Content

Adapter(s)

Channel

Adapters

Chapter 2. Simple notifications 59

The steps to implement a simple notification functionality in an application are:

1. Include in the Java classpath the Intelligent Notification Services JAR files

insUtil.jar and insNmClient.jar. These JAR files are located in the directory

ins_home\lib, where ins_home is in the installation directory, C:\Program

Files\WebSphere\INS.

2. Import the following packages:

– javax.naming.Context

– java.util.*

– com.ibm.pvc.ins.nm.client.*

– com.ibm.pvc.ins.nm.server.Request

– com.ibm.pvc.ins.nm.server.NotificationService

3. Create a Notification Manager client instance.

The NmClientFactory class allows you to create a local Enterprise JavaBean

(EJB) or a remote EJB for the Notification Manager client instance. You must

specify a context provider URL to create this instance. By default, it is

corbaloc:iiop:localhost:2809. However, it is possible to specify an alternate

context provider URL.

The context provider URL is specified in the XML file insBaseConfig.xml that

is located in ins_home\config\xml, where ins_home is the Intelligent

Notification Services home installation directory (for example C:\Program

Files\WebSphere\INS).

The available methods to create a Notification Manager client instance are:

– createLocalNmClient(): creates a local instance using default initial

context provider URL of corbaloc:iiop:localhost:2809

– createLocalNmClient(java.util.Hashtable): creates a local instance using

context provider URL specified.

– createRemoteNmClient(): creates a remote instance using default initial

context provider URL of corbaloc:iiop:localhost:2809

– createRemoteNmClient(java.util.Hashtable): creates a remote instance

using context provider URL specified.

4. Create a notification object, which is necessary to build the message.

Note: The imported Intelligent Notification Services packages are part of

the ins_home\lib\insNmClient.jar file, where ins_home is the Intelligent

Notification Services home installation directory (for example C:\Program

Files\WebSphere\INS).

60 IBM WebSphere Everyplace Access V5, Volume IV: Advanced Topics

5. Set up the sender, recipient, message contents, and delivery preferences into

the notification object.

Some of the most important and available methods are:

– addDeliveryChannel (Delivery Channel): adds the specified delivery

channel to the list of channels notification through which messages are

delivered.

– addDeliveryChannel(java.lang.String): adds the specified delivery channel

to the list of channels notification through which messages are delivered.

The parameter specifies either the delivery channel name

(“dcname#name”) or protocol type (“type”).

– setBinaryMsgType(): sets the message content type to binary.

– setMultiDevices(boolean): specifies whether the message is delivered to

all of the recipients through available delivery channels or if the message

is delivered to each of the recipients delivery channels in order, until

delivery is successful.

– setTextMsgType(): sets the message content type to text.

– setFromUserID(java.lang.String): sets the user ID of the message sender.

– setMsgPriority(int): sets the priority of the message.

– setMsgText(java.lang.String): sets the text of the message.

– setSubjectText(java.lang.String): sets the subject of the message.

– setToGroupID(java.lang.String): sets the group ID of the message

recipients.

– setToUserID(java.lang.String): sets the user ID of the message recipient.

6. Pass the message to the Notification Manager.

The sendMessage(Notification) method delivers a notification to the

Notification Manager. This method belongs to the NotificationService

interface and the NotificationServiceLocal interface, depending the kind of

Notification Manager client instance created (local or remote).

Note: For more information about Intelligent Notification Services classes and

methods, refer to the Javadoc documentation in

ins_home\javadoc\insjavadoc.jar, where ins_home is the Intelligent

Notification Services home installation directory (for example C:\Program

Files\WebSphere\INS).