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Educates Frontend Plugin#

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Overview#

The Educates frontend plugin provides a comprehensive interface for discovering and accessing educational workshops within Backstage. It enables users to browse workshops from multiple training portals, view detailed information, and manage workshop sessions, all integrated seamlessly into the Backstage interface.

Features#

Workshop Discovery#

  • Browse available workshops across multiple portals
  • Filter and search capabilities
  • Workshop categorization and tagging
  • Multi-portal support

Workshop Details#

Comprehensive workshop information:

  • Title and description
  • Difficulty level
  • Duration estimates
  • Tags and labels
  • Capacity information
  • Availability status

Session Management#

  • Launch workshops in new browser tabs
  • Track active workshop sessions

User Interface#

  • Material design integration
  • Responsive layout
  • Intuitive navigation
  • Consistent Backstage styling

Components#

EducatesPage#

The main page component that provides:

  • Workshop catalog view
  • Portal selection
  • Session management interface

Workshop Cards#

Individual workshop displays showing:

  • Workshop title and description
  • Key metadata
  • Launch options
  • Status indicators

Portal Selection#

Interface for managing multiple training portals:

  • Portal switching
  • Portal-specific workshop lists

Technical Details#

Integration Points#

  • Backstage core platform
  • Educates backend plugin
  • Training portal APIs
  • Permission framework

Permission Framework#

Built-in support for Backstage's resource-based permission system:

  • educates.portal.view: Required for viewing and accessing specific training portals
  • Resource-based permission that controls access to individual portals

  • Supports conditional access based on user roles and portal ownership

  • educates.workshop.start: Required for launching workshop sessions

  • Resource-based permission that controls access to individual workshops
  • Supports fine-grained access control per workshop

Deprecated Permissions#

⚠️ The following permissions are removed in this version:

  • educates.workshops.view → Use educates.portal.view instead
  • educates.workshop-sessions.create → Use educates.workshop.start instead

Type Definitions#

Utilizes shared types from the common package:

  • Workshop
  • WorkshopEnvironment
  • TrainingPortalStatus
  • WorkshopSession

User Experience#

Workshop Discovery#

  1. Navigate to the Workshops page (requires educates.portal.view permission)
  2. Browse available workshops by portal
  3. View detailed workshop information

Workshop Launch#

  1. Select desired workshop
  2. Review workshop details
  3. Click launch button (requires educates.workshop.start permission)
  4. Access workshop in new browser tab

Session Management#

  1. View active sessions
  2. Monitor session status

Permission Requirements#

To use the frontend plugin, users need appropriate permissions:

Basic Access#

  • educates.portal.view: Required to view the workshops page and browse available workshops
  • educates.workshop.start: Required to launch workshop sessions

Advanced Access Control#

The plugin supports resource-based permissions that can be configured for: - Specific training portals - Individual workshops - Conditional access based on user roles - Portal and workshop ownership rules

Permission Integration#

The frontend automatically handles permission checks: - Workshop browse functionality requires portal view permissions - Launch buttons are only enabled for workshops the user can start - Portal switching respects portal-specific access controls - Workshop cards display appropriate access indicators