Deploying Zimlet & limitations?

mghaught · Post by **mghaught** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:38 pm

Hey all,
I'm currently starting to play with zimlets and I've run into an error deploying my test zimlet. I have read through the spec but perhaps I missed something. It appears that my test zimlet fails to be installed. It only ends up in the LDAP list disabled. For starters my zimlet only has two files, com_rs_marty.zml and config_template.xml. Here's the command and its output:
marty@zdemo:/opt/zimbra/bin$ ./zmzimletctl deploy /home/marty/com_rs_marty.zip

[] INFO: Deploying Zimlet com_rs_marty in LDAP.

[] INFO: Installing Zimlet com_rs_marty on this host.

Error: No such file or directory

Also, I have two other general questions about what zimlets can and can't do in Zimbra. First, can I add a menu item to the 'new' dropdown and have that trigger my zimlet? If so, can the modification of that dropdown be handled via the zimlet deployment or is that elsewhere in Zimbra that it would be configured? Second, can a zimlet's canvas output add content to the message body of an email? So the flow would be select, under the new dropdown choose 'marty message' that creates a blank email message and pops up my zimlet. I do some things in the zimlet and it outputs html/text into the message body of the empty email.
Cheers,

Marty

marcmac · Post by **marcmac** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:41 pm

Shouldn't you be running that command as the zimbra user?
As for modifying the "new" menu - I don't think that's covered (at least, it wasn't in the last version of the spec I read).

mghaught · Post by **mghaught** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:06 pm

Thanks, su to the zimbra user deployed it fine.
Now, I still have those two questions. After some clarification, it turns out I don't want to add something to the new dropdown but instead add something to the mail button bar. Does anyone know if they can be handled within the scope of Zimlets? I'll clarify them below.
1) Add a button to the mail button bar. So let's say I want to add a new button right next to the send button. Is there another PanelItem for the mail button bar? Or does this need to be added in a different way (non-zimlet based)?
2) Have a zimlet affect the message body of an email. I'm guessing this would be handled through javascript. So if there an object for the message body that a zimlet's script could call to change the message body. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance. If these questions belong else, please let me know and I'll post them there.
Cheers,

Marty

marcmac · Post by **marcmac** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:36 pm

The answer to both questions is no, zimlets won't allow that. Additionally, having a zimlet modify the message body is a bit problematic - remember, zimlets run on the _client_ - so if it changes the message, you're displaying something other than what's actually stored on the server (or from what you'd see with an IMAP client.)
And, from a SOX compliance point of view, the whole idea is a bit of a nightmare.
What are you trying to accomplish? If you're basing the mod on a regex, couldn't you make it a content object in the zimlet, and display whatever via a mouseover tooltip?

mghaught · Post by **mghaught** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:07 pm

Okay, sure. The goal is to allow users to embed rich content into their email. For instance, loading video into an email. In this case the user would click the button to invoke the zimlet which would handle the rich content. Afterwards, it would need to then embed the output into the email. It could either do this via an attachment or inline image linking to a the video itself. Since I haven't delved into the details of how Zimbra sends email there may be other issues beyond the two that you've mentioned.
Cheers,

Marty

14319KevinH · Post by **14319KevinH** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:21 pm

You could just have user's attach the rich content and let the borwser fire a player.

mghaught · Post by **mghaught** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:08 pm

Actually, it won't since the media file does not exist on the client. We are looking to use Zimbra as an integration point with our online managed video system. So the Zimlet that I mentioned would be the hook into our system to allow a user to either record or select an existing media from our system.
So let's say I'm going to attach this content as an attachment. Is there a javascript function I can call to do this? I haven't seen any documentation that mentions anything about these sorts of calls. I have started reading through the javascript source but there's a lot of it so it will take me some time to digest it all.

I will post my question about modifying the mail buttons to the developer forum since it is not applicable to Zimlets. I did see the 'master' js file that seems to define the buttons.
Cheers,

Marty