Understanding the basics of a CDF dashboard
We have already mentioned that CDF will work on the browser as a HTML page that will make use of the JavaScript and CSS languages, frameworks, and libraries.
But how does CDF really work? When we are making a request to the Pentaho platform to get a dashboard, we make a request to a Pentaho plugin. That request is done through the Web API that the plugin is providing on the server side. This server-side code is written in Java, and by reading the dashboard's files, will send the HTML and JavaScript code to the browser for the execution of the dashboard on the client side (the browser). This code will include some scripts that are mandatory so that the plugins can execute themselves in the browser. The number of libraries may vary depending on the components included. The following image is a really simple diagram that should give you a clear understanding of how the requests to get the dashboards are handled:
