Configuring ContextHub

ContextHub is a framework for storing, manipulating, and presenting context data. For more detail on ContextHub, please see the developer documentation. ContextHub replaces Client Context in the touch UI.

Configure the ContextHub toolbar to control whether it appears in Preview mode, to create ContextHub stores, and add UI modules using the Touch-Optimized UI.

By default, ContextHub is enabled in an AEM installation. ContextHub can be disabled to prevent it from loading js/css and initializing. There are two options to disable ContextHub:

• Edit the ContextHub's configuration and check the option Disable ContextHub
  1. In the rail click or tap Tools > Sites > ContextHub
  2. Click or tap the default Configuration Container
  3. Select the ContextHub Configuration and click or tap Edit Selected Element
  4. Click or tap Disable ContextHub and click or tap Save

or

• Use CRXDE Lite to set the property disabled to true under /etc/cloudsettings/default/contexthub 

Configure the Adobe Granite ContextHub OSGi service to show or hide the ContextHub UI on your pages. The PID of this service is com.adobe.granite.contexthub.impl.ContextHubImpl.

To configure the service you can either use the Web Console or use a JCR node in the repository:

• Web Console: To show the UI, select the Show UI property. To hide the UI, clear the Hide UI property.
• JCR node: To show the UI, set the boolean com.adobe.granite.contexthub.show_ui property to true. To hide the UI, set the property to false.

When showing the ContextHub UI, it only appears on pages on AEM author instances. The UI does not appear on pages of publish instances.

Configure the UI modes and modules that appear in the ContextHub toolbar in Preview mode:

• UI Modes: Groups of related modules
• Modules: Widgets that expose context data from a store and enable authors to manipulate the context

UI modes appear as a series of icons on the left side of the toolbar. When selected, the modules of a UI mode appear to the right.

Icons are references from the Coral UI icon library.

Add a UI mode to group related ContextHub modules. When you create the UI mode, you provide the title and icon that appear in the ContextHub toolbar.

Add a ContextHub UI module to a UI mode so that it appears in the ContextHub toolbar for previewing page content. When you add a UI module, you are creating an instance of a module type that is registered with ContextHub. To add a UI module, you must know the name of the associated module type.

AEM provides a base UI module type as well several sample UI Module types upon which you can base a UI module. The following table provides a brief description of each one. For information about developing a custom UI module, see Creating ContextHub UI Modules.

The UI module properties include a detail configuration where you can provide values for module-specific properties. You provide the detail configuration in JSON format. The Module Type column in the table provides links to information about the JSON code required for each UI module type.

Create a Context Hub store to persist user data and access the data as needed. ContextHub stores are based on registered store candidates. When you create the store, you need the value of the storeType with which the store candidate was registered. (See Creating Custom Store Candidates.)

When you configure a store, the Detail Configuration property enables you to provide values for store-specific properties. The value is based on the config parameter of the store's init function. Therefore, whether you need to provide this value, and the format of the value, depends on the store.

The value of the Detail Configuration property is a config object in JSON format.

AEM provides the following sample store candidates upon which you can base a store.

This example illustrates how to configure a store and display the data in a UI module. In this example, the MD5 service of the jsontest.com site is used as a data source for a store. The service returns the MD5 hash code of a given string, in JSON format.

A contexthub.generic-jsonp store is configured so that it stores data for the service call http://md5.jsontest.com/?text=%22text%20to%20md5%22. The service returns the following data which is displayed in a UI module:

The contexthub.generic-jsonp sample store candidate enables you to retrieve data from a JSONP service or a web servcie that returns JSON data. For this store candidate, use the store configuration to provide details about the JSONP service to use.

The init function of the ContextHub.Store.JSONPStore Javascript class defines a config object that initializes this store candidate. The config object contains a service object that includes details about the JSONP service. To configure the store, you provide the service object in JSON format as the value for the Detail Configuration property.

To save data from the MD5 service of the jsontest.com site, use the procedure in Creating a ContextHub Store using the following properties:

• Configuration Title: md5
• Store Type: contexthub.generic-jsonp
• Required: Select
• Enabled: Select
• Detail Configuration (JSON):
  {
     "service": {
        "jsonp": false,
        "timeout": 1000,
        "ttl": 1800000,
        "secure": false,
        "host": "md5.jsontest.com",
        "port": 80,
        "params":{
           "text":"text to md5"
        }
     }
  }

Add a UI module to the ContextHub toolbar to display the data that is stored in the example md5 store. In this example, the contexthub.base module is used to produce the following UI module:

Use the procecure in Adding a UI Module to add the UI module to an existing UI Mode, such as the sample Perona UI Mode. For the UI Module, use the following property values:

• UI Module Title: MD5
• Module Type: contexthub.base
• Detail Configuration (JSON):
  {
     "icon": "coral-Icon--data",
     "title": "MD5 Converstion",
     "storeMapping": { "md5": "md5" },
     "template": "<p>{{md5.original}}</p>
                  <p>{{md5.md5}}</p>"
  }

A debugging mode for the ContextHub can be enabled to allow for troubleshooting. The debug mode can be enabled either through the ContextHub configuration or via CRXDE.

Edit the ContextHub's configuration and check the option Debug

Use CRXDE Lite to set the property debug to true under /etc/cloudsettings/default/contexthub

Silent mode suppresses all debug information. Unlike the normal debug option, which can be set independently for each ConextHub configuration, silent mode is a global setting which takes precedent over any debug settings on the ContextHub configuration level.

This is useful for your publish instance, where you don't want any debug information at all. Because it is a global setting, it is enabled via OSGi.

When an upgrade to AEM is performed, the ContextHub configurations are backed up and stored in a safe location. During the upgrade, the default ContextHub configurations are installed, replacing the existing configurations. The backup is required to preserve any changes or additions that you have made.

ContextHub configurations are stored below the /etc/cloudsettings/default node, in a folder named contexthub. After an upgrade, the backup is stored below a node named /etc/cloudsettings/default-pre-upgrade_yyyymmdd_xxxxxxx, in a folder named contexthub. The yyyymmdd part of the node name is the date when the upgrade was performed.

To recover your ContextHub configurations, use CRXDE Lite to copy the nodes that represent your stores, UI modes, and UI modules from below the default-pre-upgrade_yyyymmdd_xxxxxx node to below the /etc/cloudsettings/default node.