Contents

List of Examples

List of Figures

List of Tables

Title and Copyright Information

Preface

• Audience
• Documentation Accessibility
• Related Documents
• Conventions

1 Introduction

• 1.1 Portlet Overview
• 1.2 Portlet Development and the Portal Life Cycle
  • 1.2.1 Architecture
  • 1.2.2 Development
  • 1.2.3 Staging
  • 1.2.4 Production
• 1.3 Getting Started
  • 1.3.1 Prerequisites
  • 1.3.2 Related Guides

Part I Architecture

2 Portlet Planning

• 2.1 Portlet Development in a Distributed Portal Team
• 2.2 Portlets in a Non-Portal Environment
• 2.3 Planning Portlet Instances
• 2.4 Security
• 2.5 Interportlet Communication
• 2.6 Performance Planning

3 Portlet Types

• 3.1 Java Server Faces (JSF) Portlets
• 3.2 Java Server Page (JSP) and HTML Portlets
• 3.3 Java Portlets
• 3.4 Java Page Flow Portlets
• 3.5 Struts Portlets
• 3.6 Browser (URL) Portlets
• 3.7 Clipper Portlets
• 3.8 Remote (Proxy) Portlets
• 3.9 Portlet Type Summary Table

Part II Development

4 Understanding Portlet Development

• 4.1 Portlet Components
  • 4.1.1 Portlet Properties
  • 4.1.2 Portlet Title Bar, Mode, and State
  • 4.1.3 Portlet Preferences
• 4.2 Resources for Creating Portlets
• 4.3 Portlet Rendering
  • 4.3.1 Render and Pre-Render Forking
  • 4.3.2 Asynchronous Portlet Content Rendering
  • 4.3.3 Portlets as Popups (Detached Portlets)
• 4.4 JSP Tags and Controls in Portlets
• 4.5 Backing Files
• 4.6 Support for Apache Portals Bridges

5 Creating Portlets

• 5.1 Supported Portlet Types
• 5.2 Portlets in J2EE Shared Libraries
• 5.3 Portlet Wizard Reference
  • 5.3.1 Order of Creation - Resource or Portlet First
    • 5.3.1.1 Creating the Resource First
    • 5.3.1.2 Create the Portlet First
  • 5.3.2 Starting the Portlet Wizard
  • 5.3.3 New Portlet Dialog
  • 5.3.4 Select Portlet Type Dialog
  • 5.3.5 Portlet Details Dialogs
• 5.4 How to Build Each Type of Portlet
  • 5.4.1 Building JSP and HTML Portlets
  • 5.4.2 Building JSF Portlets
  • 5.4.3 Building Java Portlets
  • 5.4.4 Building Browser Portlets
  • 5.4.5 Building Clipper Portlets
  • 5.4.6 Building Struts Portlets
  • 5.4.7 Building Remote Portlets
  • 5.4.8 Building Java Page Flow Portlets
• 5.5 Assigning Supporting Files
  • 5.5.1 Adding a Render Dependencies File
  • 5.5.2 Adding a Backing File
• 5.6 Adding a Portlet to a Portal
• 5.7 Deleting Portlets

6 Building Java Portlets

• 6.1 Building a Java Portlet
• 6.2 Java Portlet Deployment Descriptor
• 6.3 Portlet Modes and States
• 6.4 Portlet Preferences
• 6.5 Portlet Initialization Parameters
• 6.6 Portlet Filters
• 6.7 Order of Portlet Filters
• 6.8 Public Render Parameters
  • 6.8.1 Public Render Parameter Example
• 6.9 Event Handling with Java Portlets
• 6.10 Deleting Java Portlet Features
• 6.11 Using Container Runtime Options
  • 6.11.1 Standard Container Runtime Options
  • 6.11.2 Other Container Runtime Options Supported by WLP
• 6.12 Using Global (Shared) Properties
• 6.13 Setting Portlet-Level Container Runtime Options
• 6.14 Adding Custom Portlet Modes
• 6.15 Using Special Portlet Request Attributes
• 6.16 Using Portlet-Served Resource Links
  • 6.16.1 Using Direct Links
  • 6.16.2 Using Portlet-Served Resource Links
• 6.17 Exporting Java Portlets for Use on Other Systems
• 6.18 Importing Java Portlets
  • 6.18.1 Importing Java Portlets Into Your Eclipse Workspace
    • 6.18.1.1 Starting the Import Wizard
    • 6.18.1.2 Using the Import Wizard
    • 6.18.1.3 Accessing the Portlets
  • 6.18.2 Importing and Deploying JSR 286 Portlets in the Administration Console
• 6.19 JSR-286/JSR-168 Portlet Compatibility
  • 6.19.1 Generic JSR 168 Compatibility Modifications
  • 6.19.2 WebLogic Portal JSR 168 Compatibility Modifications
  • 6.19.3 WebCenter JSR 168 Compatibility Modifications
• 6.20 Adding an Icon to a Java Portlet

7 Creating Clipper Portlets

• 7.1 Introduction
• 7.2 Creating a Clipper Portlet
• 7.3 Modifying Clipper Portlet Properties
  • 7.3.1 Using the Properties Editor
  • 7.3.2 Setting Clipper Properties Manually as Preferences
• 7.4 Modifying the Appearance of a Clipper Portlet
• 7.5 Authenticating a Clipper Portlet
  • 7.5.1 Form-Based Authentication
  • 7.5.2 Basic HTTP Authentication
• 7.6 Configuring URL Rewriting
  • 7.6.1 Navigable Link Configurations
  • 7.6.2 Resource URL Configurations
  • 7.6.3 URL Rewriting Configuration Techniques
    • 7.6.3.1 Implementing IClipperUrlFilter
    • 7.6.3.2 Using Portlet Preferences
• 7.7 Clipper Portlets and HTTPS
• 7.8 Certificates and WebLogic Server
• 7.9 Refreshing the Original Clipper Portlet Page
• 7.10 Using Backing Files with Clipper Portlets
• 7.11 Updating Portlet Preferences While the Server is Running
• 7.12 Clipper Portlet Limitations

8 Working With JSF-Java Portlets

• 8.1 Overview
  • 8.1.1 Supported Portlet Bridges
• 8.2 Creating Java 2.0-JSF 1.2 Portlets
• 8.3 JSR-286 and JSR-329 Architecture
• 8.4 Understanding WLP and JSF Rendering Life Cycles
  • 8.4.1 WLP and JSF Life Cycles
  • 8.4.2 Invocation Order of WLP and JSF Life Cycle Methods
• 8.5 Accessing WLP Context Objects from JSF Managed Beans
• 8.6 Understanding Scopes and JSF Portlets
  • 8.6.1 Conceptual Scopes for Standard JSF Applications
    • 8.6.1.1 JSF Standard Scopes
    • 8.6.1.2 View Scope
    • 8.6.1.3 Pageflow/Conversation Scope
  • 8.6.2 Conceptual Scopes for Portal Applications
  • 8.6.3 Implementation Patterns for Portal Scopes
  • 8.6.4 Reinterpretation of the JSF Session and Request Scopes
  • 8.6.5 Global Session and Portlet Group Session Scopes
• 8.7 State Sharing
  • 8.7.1 State Sharing Concepts
  • 8.7.2 State Sharing Patterns
    • 8.7.2.1 HttpSession Versus HttpServletRequest
    • 8.7.2.2 Single Portlet Pattern
    • 8.7.2.3 Multiple Portlet Pattern
• 8.8 Using JSF in Java Portlets
  • 8.8.1 Servlet Request And Servlet Response
  • 8.8.2 PortletPreferences
  • 8.8.3 PortletPresentationContext
  • 8.8.4 Using JSPs in JSF Portlets
• 8.9 Converting Native JSF Portlets to Standard Java JSF Portlets
  • 8.9.1 Backing Files
  • 8.9.2 NamingContainer
  • 8.9.3 Events
  • 8.9.4 Preferences
  • 8.9.5 Localization
  • 8.9.6 Error Pages
  • 8.9.7 Portlet Modes
  • 8.9.8 ServletRequest/ServletResponse
• 8.10 Using Common WLP Features With JSF Portlets
  • 8.10.1 Portlet Container Features
    • 8.10.1.1 Portlet Modes
    • 8.10.1.2 Portlet Error Page
    • 8.10.1.3 Portlet Preferences
    • 8.10.1.4 Portlet Dependencies
  • 8.10.2 Portal Container Features and JSF Portlets
    • 8.10.2.1 Locale Provider
    • 8.10.2.2 Skeleton Files
  • 8.10.3 Ajax Enablement
    • 8.10.3.1 Partial Page Rendering Pattern
    • 8.10.3.2 Stateless API Request Pattern
    • 8.10.3.3 Portlet Aware API Request Pattern
• 8.11 Understanding Navigation Within a JSF Portlet
  • 8.11.1 Navigating Within a Portlet with the JSF Controller
  • 8.11.2 Support for Redirects
• 8.12 Interportlet Communication with JSF Portlets
• 8.13 Namespacing
  • 8.13.1 Client ID Namespacing with the View Components
  • 8.13.2 Client ID Namespacing with the WLP NamingContainer
  • 8.13.3 Javascript Namespacing with Portlet Tag Library
• 8.14 Code Examples for Common Use Cases
  • 8.14.1 Uploading Images
    • 8.14.1.1 File Upload with HTML tags
    • 8.14.1.2 File Upload with Tomahawk tags
  • 8.14.2 Login/Logout Example
    • 8.14.2.1 Login Portlet Design
    • 8.14.2.2 Handling Redirects with JSR-286/JSR-329
    • 8.14.2.3 Invalidating the Session with the JSR-329 Bridge
  • 8.14.3 Login Portlet Implementation
    • 8.14.3.1 JSF Login View
    • 8.14.3.2 JSF Managed Backing Bean
    • 8.14.3.3 Resource Bundle
    • 8.14.3.4 Portlet Definition File
    • 8.14.3.5 Redirect
  • 8.14.4 Putting Login Portlet Into A Portal environment
• 8.15 Preparing JSF Portlets for Production
  • 8.15.1 Configuration Tasks
    • 8.15.1.1 Configuring URL Templates for Proxy Servers
    • 8.15.1.2 JSF Portlets with WSRP
  • 8.15.2 Handling Errors
  • 8.15.3 Performance and Scalability
    • 8.15.3.1 JSF Portlets in a Clustered Environment
    • 8.15.3.2 Portlet Render Caching
  • 8.15.4 Securing JSF Portlets
    • 8.15.4.1 Deny Direct Access to the Portlet Views
    • 8.15.4.2 Session Timeouts
  • 8.15.5 Localizing JSF Portlets
    • 8.15.5.1 Configuring the Localization
• 8.16 Third-Party Libraries
  • 8.16.1 Facelets
  • 8.16.2 Tomahawk
• 8.17 Tips for Logging, Iterative Development, and Debugging of JSF Portlets
  • 8.17.1 Using Iterative Development for JSF Portlets
    • 8.17.1.1 Testing Outside of the Portlet Container
    • 8.17.1.2 Using Application Republish
    • 8.17.1.3 HttpSession Caching
    • 8.17.1.4 Handling OutOfMemory Errors
  • 8.17.2 Debugging
    • 8.17.2.1 Attaching Source (Step 1)
    • 8.17.2.2 Suggested JSF Framework Break Points (Step 2)
• 8.18 Appendix: JSFJavaPortletHelper

9 Developing Portlets

• 9.1 Portlet Properties
  • 9.1.1 Editing Portlet Properties
  • 9.1.2 Tips for Using the Properties View
  • 9.1.3 Portlet Properties in the Portal Properties View
  • 9.1.4 Portlet Properties in the Portlet Properties View
• 9.2 Portlet Preferences
  • 9.2.1 Specifying Portlet Preferences
    • 9.2.1.1 Specifying Preferences for Java Portlets in the Deployment Descriptor
    • 9.2.1.2 Specifying Preferences for Other Types of Portlets using Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse
    • 9.2.1.3 Configuring Portlet Preference Deployment Options
  • 9.2.2 Using the Preferences API to Access or Modify Preferences
    • 9.2.2.1 Getting Preferences Using the Preferences API
    • 9.2.2.2 Setting Preferences Using the Preferences API
    • 9.2.2.3 Getting and Setting Preferences for Java Portlets Using the Preferences API
    • 9.2.2.4 Getting and Setting Portlet Preferences Using the API for Other Portlet Types
    • 9.2.2.5 JSP Tags for Getting Portlet Preferences
  • 9.2.3 Portlet Preferences SPI
    • 9.2.3.1 Implement the SPI
    • 9.2.3.2 Using the SPI
  • 9.2.4 Best Practices in Using Portlet Preferences
    • 9.2.4.1 Desktop Testing of Portlet Preferences
    • 9.2.4.2 Users Must be Authenticated
    • 9.2.4.3 Do Not Store Arbitrary Data as Preferences
    • 9.2.4.4 Do Not Use Instance IDs Instead of Preferences
• 9.3 Using Shared Parameters
  • 9.3.1 Setting Shared Parameters
  • 9.3.2 Accessing Shared Parameters
  • 9.3.3 Persistence of Shared Parameters
  • 9.3.4 Creating Shared Parameters
• 9.4 Backing Files
  • 9.4.1 How Backing Files are Executed
  • 9.4.2 Thread Safety and Backing Files
  • 9.4.3 Scoping and Backing Files
  • 9.4.4 Backing File Guidelines
    • 9.4.4.1 Adding a Backing File Using Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse
    • 9.4.4.2 Adding the Backing File Directly to the .portlet File
• 9.5 Portlet Appearance and Features
  • 9.5.1 Portlet Dependencies
    • 9.5.1.1 Introduction
    • 9.5.1.2 Identifying Portlet Dependencies
    • 9.5.1.3 Creating, Editing, and Adding a Dependency File
    • 9.5.1.4 Example Dependency Files
    • 9.5.1.5 Considerations and Limitations
    • 9.5.1.6 Scoping JavaScript Variables and CSS Styles
    • 9.5.1.7 Rewriting Resource URLs
  • 9.5.2 Portlet Modes
    • 9.5.2.1 Adding or Removing a Mode for an Existing Portlet
    • 9.5.2.2 Properties Related to Portlet Modes
  • 9.5.3 Creating Custom Modes
  • 9.5.4 Custom Mode Properties
  • 9.5.5 Portlet States
    • 9.5.5.1 Modifying Portlet States in Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse
    • 9.5.5.2 Minimizing or Maximizing a Portlet Programmatically
  • 9.5.6 Portlet Title Bar Icons
  • 9.5.7 Portlet Height and Scrolling
    • 9.5.7.1 Making All Portlets Scroll
• 9.6 Getting Request Data in Page Flow Portlets
• 9.7 JSP Tags and Controls in Portlets
  • 9.7.1 Viewing Available JSP Tags
  • 9.7.2 Viewing Available Controls
• 9.8 Portlet State Persistence
• 9.9 Advanced Portlet Development with Tag Libraries
  • 9.9.1 Adding ActiveMenus
    • 9.9.1.1 Configuring the ActiveMenus Tag
    • 9.9.1.2 Using the ActiveMenus Tag
  • 9.9.2 Enabling Placeable Movement
    • 9.9.2.1 Using the DragDrop Tags
  • 9.9.3 Enabling Dynamic Content
    • 9.9.3.1 Understanding the DynamicContent Tags
    • 9.9.3.2 Using the DynamicContent Tags
  • 9.9.4 Using the User Picker
    • 9.9.4.1 Using the UserPicker Tags
• 9.10 Detached Portlets
  • 9.10.1 Considerations for Using Detached Portlets
  • 9.10.2 Building Detached Portlets
• 9.11 Working with Inlined Portlets
  • 9.11.1 Extracting Inlined Portlets
  • 9.11.2 Setting the Theme of an Inlined Portlet
• 9.12 Extracting Books and Pages
• 9.13 Avoiding Committing Responses

10 Optimizing Portlet Performance

• 10.1 Performance-Related Portlet Properties
• 10.2 Portlet Caching
• 10.3 Remote Portlets
• 10.4 Portlet Forking
  • 10.4.1 Configuring Portlets for Forking
  • 10.4.2 Architectural Details of Forked Portlets
    • 10.4.2.1 Understanding Request Latency and the Portal Life Cycle
    • 10.4.2.2 Queuing and Dispatching Forked Portlets for Processing
    • 10.4.2.3 Threading Details and Coordination
    • 10.4.2.4 Forking Versus Asynchronous Rendering
  • 10.4.3 Best Practices for Developing Forked Portlets
    • 10.4.3.1 Consider Thread Safety
    • 10.4.3.2 Consider the Runtime Environment for Forked Portlets
    • 10.4.3.3 Use Caution with Interportlet Communication and Forked Portlets
• 10.5 Asynchronous Portlet Content Rendering
  • 10.5.1 Implementing Asynchronous Portlet Content Rendering
  • 10.5.2 Thread Safety and Asynchronous Rendering
  • 10.5.3 Considerations for IFRAME-based Asynchronous Rendering
  • 10.5.4 Considerations for AJAX-based Asynchronous Rendering
  • 10.5.5 Comparison of IFRAME- and AJAX-based Asynchronous Rendering
  • 10.5.6 Comparison of Asynchronous and Conventional or Forked Rendering
  • 10.5.7 Portal Life Cycle Considerations with Asynchronous Content Rendering
  • 10.5.8 Asynchronous Content Rendering and IPC
    • 10.5.8.1 File Upload Forms
    • 10.5.8.2 Disabling Asynchronous Rendering for a Single Interaction
    • 10.5.8.3 URL Compression

11 Monitoring and Determining Portlet Performance

• 11.1 Introduction
• 11.2 Use Case
• 11.3 Detecting a Misbehaving Portlet
• 11.4 Disabling the Bad Portlet and Enabling an Alternative Portlet

12 Configuring Local Interportlet Communication

• 12.1 Introduction
• 12.2 Overview of Interportlet Communication Techniques
• 12.3 Differences Between Portal Events and Java Portlet Events
• 12.4 Portlet Event Handling
  • 12.4.1 Event Handlers
    • 12.4.1.1 Generic Event Handlers
  • 12.4.2 Event Actions
  • 12.4.3 Event Types
• 12.5 Using the Portlet Event Handlers Wizard
  • 12.5.1 Opening the Portlet Event Handlers Wizard
  • 12.5.2 Portlet Event Handlers Wizard - Add Handler Field Descriptions
  • 12.5.3 Portlet Event Handlers Wizard - Add Action Field Descriptions
  • 12.5.4 Definition Labels and Interportlet Communication
• 12.6 Custom Event Handling
• 12.7 Events in Java Portlets
  • 12.7.1 Overview
  • 12.7.2 Adding a Processing Event
  • 12.7.3 Adding a Publishing Event
  • 12.7.4 Modifying a Java Portlet Event
  • 12.7.5 Deleting a Java Portlet Event
• 12.8 Subscribing Java Portlets to Portal Framework Events
  • 12.8.1 Custom Event Namespaces
  • 12.8.2 Local Name for Notification Events
• 12.9 Public Render Parameters
• 12.10 Shared Parameters
• 12.11 IPC Special Considerations and Limitations
  • 12.11.1 Using Asynchronous Portlet Rendering with IPC
  • 12.11.2 Consistency of the Listen To Field
• 12.12 About QNames and Aliases
  • 12.12.1 QNames and Aliases in Events
  • 12.12.2 QNames and Aliases in Shared Parameters / Public Render Parameters

13 Interportlet Communication Example With Event Handling

• 13.1 Before You Begin – Environment Setup
• 13.2 Basic IPC Example
  • 13.2.1 Create the Portlets
    • 13.2.1.1 Create the JSP Files and Portlets
  • 13.2.2 Create the Backing File
  • 13.2.3 Attach the Backing File
  • 13.2.4 Add the Event Handler to bPortlet
  • 13.2.5 Test the Project
  • 13.2.6 Summary

14 Adding the Content Presenter Portlet

• 14.1 Using the Content Presenter Example
  • 14.1.1 Starting the Content Presenter Example
  • 14.1.2 Performing Inline Editing in the Content Presenter Example
    • 14.1.2.1 Entering Inline Edits
    • 14.1.2.2 Enabling Inline Editing for the Training Announcement Portlet
  • 14.1.3 Enabling Inline Editing in Your Portlets
• 14.2 Configuring the Content Presenter Portlet in Your Portal
  • 14.2.1 Configuring the Content Presenter Portlet
    • 14.2.1.1 Changing How Much Content Appears in the Portlet
    • 14.2.1.2 Using Portlet Publishing to Expose a Content Presenter Portlet

15 Adding a Third-Party Portlet

• 15.1 Using the Collaboration Portlets
• 15.2 Autonomy Portlets
• 15.3 Documentum Portlets
• 15.4 MobileAware Portlets

16 Using the Collaboration Portlets

• 16.1 What Are Collaboration Portlets
• 16.2 Adding Collaboration Portlets to Your Portal
  • 16.2.1 Step 1: Add Collaboration Facets
  • 16.2.2 Step 2: Add Collaboration Repository to Your Domain
  • 16.2.3 Step 3: Create a Role for Collaboration Portlet Users
  • 16.2.4 Step 4. (Optional) Configure a Repository
  • 16.2.5 Step 5. Entitle the Collaboration Data Repository
  • 16.2.6 Step 6. Add Users to the New Role
  • 16.2.7 Step 7. Configure the Collaboration Portlets
  • 16.2.8 Step 8. Add Collaboration Portlets to Your Desktop
• 16.3 Configuring Collaboration Portlets for a Shared View
  • 16.3.1 Overview of User and Common Area Portlets
  • 16.3.2 Configuring a Common Area Portlet
• 16.4 Using the Collaboration Portlet Source Code
  • 16.4.1 Copying the Source Code to Your Project
  • 16.4.2 Source Code Disclaimers
• 16.5 Using the Calendar Portlet
  • 16.5.1 Adding a Calendar Appointment
  • 16.5.2 Managing Your Calendar
• 16.6 Using the Mail Portlet
  • 16.6.1 Configuring the Mail Portlet
    • 16.6.1.1 Removing a Mail Account
  • 16.6.2 Sending E-Mail
  • 16.6.3 Viewing Mail
  • 16.6.4 Managing Mail
  • 16.6.5 Searching Mail
• 16.7 Using the Contacts Portlet
  • 16.7.1 Adding a Contact
  • 16.7.2 Filtering and Navigating Contacts
  • 16.7.3 Managing Contacts
  • 16.7.4 Searching Contacts
• 16.8 Using the Tasks Portlet
  • 16.8.1 Adding a Task
  • 16.8.2 Managing Tasks
• 16.9 Using the Discussion Forums Portlet
  • 16.9.1 Adding a Category and a Discussion Forum
  • 16.9.2 Adding a Discussion Topic
  • 16.9.3 Replying to a Discussion Topic
  • 16.9.4 Managing Discussion Forums
• 16.10 Setting Up the Rich Text Editor
  • 16.10.1 Enabling Rich Text Editing
    • 16.10.1.1 Modifying Portlet Preferences for Rich Text Editing

Part III Staging

17 Assembling Portlets into Desktops

• 17.1 Portlet Library
• 17.2 Managing Portlets Using the Administration Console
  • 17.2.1 Copying a Portlet in the Library
  • 17.2.2 Modifying Library Portlet Properties
  • 17.2.3 Modifying Desktop Portlet Properties
  • 17.2.4 Deleting a Portlet
  • 17.2.5 Managing Portlets on Pages
    • 17.2.5.1 Adding Portlets to a Page
    • 17.2.5.2 Positioning Elements on a Page
  • 17.2.6 Overview of Portlet Categories
    • 17.2.6.1 Creating a Portlet Category
    • 17.2.6.2 Modifying Portlet Category Properties
    • 17.2.6.3 Adding Portlets to a Portlet Category
  • 17.2.7 Overview of Portlet Preferences
  • 17.2.8 Creating a Portlet Preference
  • 17.2.9 Editing a Portlet Preference
  • 17.2.10 Overview of Delegated Administration
  • 17.2.11 Overview of Visitor Entitlements

18 Deploying Portlets

• 18.1 Deploying Portlets

Part IV Production

19 Managing Portlets in Production

• 19.1 Pushing Changes from the Library into Production
• 19.2 Transferring Changes from Production Back to Development

A Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse Portlet Database Data

• A.1 Database Structure for Portlet Data
  • A.1.1 Removing Portlets from Production
• A.2 Portlet Resources in the Database
  • A.2.1 Types of Database Tables
  • A.2.2 Management of Portlet Data
  • A.2.3 How the Database Shows Removed Portlets