Thanks for the help RobertT, but I actually started off with that and it throws a slightly different error that I couldn't quite make sense of.
This time, the code actually runs when I save it, but the Studio Preview function fails to render the preview with this error:
Freemarker template 'preview' processing failed:
RenderQueueException:Render queue error in BeginRender[forums/contributions/Optional:messagelistpanel.simplemessagelist.list.componentdisplay]: Failure reading parameter 'messageRowModelDatas' of component forums/contributions/Optional:messagelistpanel.simplemessagelist.list: lithium.boards.core.Community cannot be cast to lithium.coreapi.boards.IMessage
Hi clint
This error gives us a little more info, it appears that there is a render queue failure there. http://tapestry.apache.org/component-rendering.html
Without knowing the code that follows in the component that you're trying to include and pass this into it becomes a bit more complex. You may need to build your own component completely to replace the standard "forums.widget.message-list-panel" component in this instance.
Basically the error is telling us that rendering is out of sequence, you need to load the data before rendering. Not sure it's an easy fix though unless one of the Lithium dev's is able to provide more info?
Thanks RobertT, I'd love to build my own list-panel component if I just had a starting point. Wish I could see the source code of the OOTB one. Did I miss a KB article or How-To somewhere that shows a basic structure for a component like this? I'm not a fan of calling "black box" code that I can't see and is not documented, like the message-list-panel, so I'd be happy to build my own.
UPDATE: I've switched over to LiQL and an API v2 style of query for my message list and that has given me SO MUCH more flexibility in what I'm displaying. I think I've got the list built that I want to display, now I just need to learn the CSS/wrappers/style parts to display my widget like I'd like it to display....getting closer
