This chapter steps through the process of making the decisions that affect the design of a gear. It is important to make these decisions before you begin implementing the gear. For an overview of the process of building a gear, see the Gear Implementation Overview section of the Introduction chapter.
There are three important concepts that comprise the high-level design of a gear:
Each of these concepts is used to determine the correct content to render as a gear for a user’s request. Any gear you develop will need at least one Gear Mode, Display Mode, and Device Output, but the actual number of each that the gear has ultimately depends on the design decisions you make for the gear.
This chapter also discusses other considerations in gear design:
Gear Alerts
You will need to determine whether your gear will need to send alerts when certain actions occur.
Gear Administration Considerations
You may need to design how a gear is configured for different portal contexts.
Localization Considerations
If your gears will need to be localized for use in different languages or regions, you will need to plan accordingly.
Extending an Existing Gear
The easiest way to create a new gear is to copy and extend an existing gear.
The final section of this chapter is an example of gear design: Example: A Discussion Forum Gear.
