18 Working with the Web Clipping Portlet

This chapter describes Web Clipping and explains the user interface elements associated with the Web Clipping portlet.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Permissions:

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you must be a portal moderator or a portal member with the portal-level permission Basic Services: Edit Page Access, Structure, and Content (standard permissions) or the Pages: Edit Pages (advanced permissions).

For more information about permissions, see Section 29.1, "About Roles and Permissions for a Portal."

Note:

The Web Clipping portlet is deprecated in Release 11g (11.1.1.7.0). Consider using a clipper pagelet using Oracle WebCenter Portal's Pagelet Producer. For more information, see the "Managing the Pagelet Producer" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

18.1 About Web Clipping

Web Clipping is a publishing portlet that enables you to integrate any web application with applications built using Oracle WebCenter Portal Framework and with WebCenter Portal. It is designed to give you quick integration by leveraging the existing user interface of the web application. With Web Clipping, you can consolidate content from web sites scattered throughout a large organization.

With Web Clipping, you can clip an entire web page, or a portion of it, and reuse it as a portlet. You can clip basic and HTML-form-based sites. Use Web Clipping when you want to copy content from an existing web page and expose it in your Portal Framework application as a portlet.

Web Clipping supports the following features:

  • Navigation through various styles of login mechanisms

    Web Clipping supports various login mechanisms including form- and JavaScript-based submission and HTTP Basic and Digest Authentication with cookie-based session management.

  • Fuzzy matching of clippings

    Fuzzy matching enables the Web Clipping engine to correctly identify a web clipping and deliver it as portlet content even if the web clipping is reordered within the source page or if its character font, size, or style changes.

  • Personalization

    Personalization enables you to expose input parameters that end users can modify when they personalize the portlet. Parameters can be exposed as public parameters that you can map as page parameters. This feature enables end users to obtain personalized clippings.

  • Integrated authenticated web content through single sign-on

    You can use external applications and leverage Oracle Single Sign-On to clip content from authenticated external web sites.

  • Inline rendering

    Inline rendering enables you to set up Web Clipping portlets to display links within the context of the portlet. When a user clicks a link in the Web Clipping portlet, the results display within the same portlet. You can use this feature with internal and external web sites.

  • Proxy authentication

    Web Clipping supports proxy authentication, including global proxy authentication and authentication for each user. You can use this feature if proxy servers require authentication. You can specify proxy server authentication details, including type (Basic or Digest) and realm in the provider.xml file. In addition, you can specify a scheme for entering user credentials as follows:

    • All users automatically log in using a user name and password that you provide.

    • All users are required to log in using a user name and password that they provide.

    • All public users (not authenticated into the WebCenter Portal application) automatically log in using a user name and password that you provide, while valid users (authenticated into the WebCenter Portal application) log in using a user name and password that they provide.

    For more information, see the "HTTP or HTTPS Proxy Configuration" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

  • Support for HTTPS

    Web Clipping enables you to clip content from HTTPS-based external web sites if appropriate server certificates are acquired.

  • Open Transport API

    By default, the Web Clipping provider supports only HTTP challenge-based authentication methods, such as Basic and Digest and form submission logins. To support custom authentication methods, such as Kerberos proxy authentication, you can use the Web Clipping Transport API. For more information, see the "Using the Web Clipping Transport API" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

  • Reuse of a wide range of web content

    Web Clipping provides basic support of pages written with JavaScript, applets, and plug-in enabled content, retrieved through HTTP GET and POST methods of form submission.

    Web Clipping also supports clipping of content from pages written with HTML 4.01, including:

    • Clipping of <applet>, <body>, <div>, <embed>, <img>, <object>, <ol>, <span>, <table>, and <ul> tagged content

    • Preservation of <head> styles and fonts, and CSS

    • Support for UTF-8 compliant character sets

    • Navigation through hyperlinks (HTTP GET), form submissions (HTTP POST), frames, and URL redirection

  • Globalization support

    Web Clipping provides globalization support in URLs and URL parameters. For information about how Web Clipping determines the character set of clipped content, see Section 18.5, "Current Limitations of the Web Clipping Portlet."

  • Persistent storage of Web Clipping definitions

    Web Clipping definitions are stored persistently in a repository. For information about Web Clipping repository, see the "Web Clipping Portlet Configuration Tips" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

  • Encryption of secure information

    Any secure information, such as passwords, is stored in an encrypted form, according to the Data Encryption Standard (DES), using Oracle encryption technology.

18.2 Adding a Web Clipping Portlet Instance to a Page

In WebCenter Portal, if you have sufficient privileges, you can add a Web Clipping portlet instance to a page in the same way that you would add any other resource catalog component. For information, see Chapter 14, "Adding and Editing Resource Catalog Components on a Page."

Note:

In WebCenter Portal, avoid adding a Web Clipping portlet instance to a Movable Box component (see Section 15.9, "Working with the Movable Box Component"). The Movable Box component duplicates the showDetailFrame that the portlet provides by default. Adding a portlet to a Movable Box creates an unnecessary and potentially error-prone redundancy.

When you add an instance of the Web Clipping portlet to a page, access the portlet's Component Properties dialog and ensure that the Render Portlet In I Frame property is set to true. This displays the Web Clipping portlet in its own inline frame (iframe) in View mode. For information about the Component Properties dialog, see Section 18.4, "Setting Web Clipping Portlet Properties."

Note:

If the Web Clipping portlet is not available in the resource catalog, it could be that it has not yet been registered with WebCenter Portal. Your system administrator must register the Web Clipping portlet producer. For more information, see the "Registering an Oracle PDK-Java Portlet Producer in WebCenter Portal" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

18.3 Working with the Web Clipping Portlet

Web Clipping content is defined at runtime. There are two ways to clip and save web content:

  • Customize the portlet to set up a Web Clipping portlet to display content to all users

  • Personalize the portlet to set up your own, personal view of a Web Clipping portlet

Both options take you into Web Clipping Studio, where you can:

  • Browse for web content

  • Choose the exact portion of the web content to clip

  • Preview the clipped content as a portlet

  • Save the clipped content as a portlet

  • Set portlet properties and save the updated portlet information

To clip web content for display in the Web Clipping portlet:

  1. Open the Find a Web clipping page:

    • To set up a Web Clipping portlet to display content to all users, open the page in edit mode (Composer) and click the Customize icon in the portlet header.

    • To set up your own, personal view of a Web Clipping portlet, click the Personalize icon in the portlet header.

    The Find a Web clipping page opens (Figure 18-1).

    Figure 18-1 The Find a Web Clipping Page

    Description of Figure 18-1 follows
    Description of "Figure 18-1 The Find a Web Clipping Page"

    Note:

    When running a portlet that has an Edit mode, the Personalize option in the portlet header appears only to authenticated users. Unauthenticated or public users do not see the Personalize option. What this means is that, for personalization to work, some form of security must be implemented for your application.

    If you are a developer creating portlets and pages, then you may want a quick way to test the Edit mode of your portlet without creating a complete security model for your application. For information about how you can quickly add the necessary security for testing portlet personalization, see the "Configuring Basic Authentication for Testing Portlet Personalization" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

  2. In the URL Location field, enter the URL of the web page that contains or links to the content you want to clip.

  3. Click Start.

    Web Clipping Studio displays the page you specified (Figure 18-2).

    Note:

    You can clip Secure Socket Layer (SSL)-enabled web sites if certificates of those sites are added to the certificate store. Certificates of SSL-enabled web sites that use Equifax, VeriSign, or Cybertrust certificates are included in the default certificate store.

    For information about adding certificates, see the "Adding Certificates for Trusted Sites" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

    Figure 18-2 A Web Page Displayed in Web Clipping Studio

    Description of Figure 18-2 follows
    Description of "Figure 18-2 A Web Page Displayed in Web Clipping Studio"

  4. If your starting web page is not the page you plan to clip, then within Web Clipping Studio browse to the content you want to clip.

    As you click hyperlinks in the web page, Web Clipping Studio records your navigation links.

    Notes:

    Only the significant browsing operations are recorded for later playback during the show mode. Any browsing operations that do not contribute to the eventual web clipping are discarded. Discarded links are not visited.

    For any web sites that require HTTP Basic or Digest Authentication, a form is displayed that requests user name and password information. This encoded authentication information is recorded as part of the browsing information.

  5. On the page that contains the content you want to clip, click the Section icon or link on the Web Clipping Studio banner (Figure 18-3).

    If you intend to clip the full web page, it is not necessary to section the page. You can clip the full page by clicking the Select icon or link instead of Section when you are on a page you want to clip.

    Figure 18-3 The Section Icon and Link in the Web Clipping Studio Banner

    Description of Figure 18-3 follows
    Description of "Figure 18-3 The Section Icon and Link in the Web Clipping Studio Banner"

    Sectioning divides the target web page into its clippable sections (Figure 18-4).

    Figure 18-4 Sectioned Web Page in Web Clipping Studio

    Description of Figure 18-4 follows
    Description of "Figure 18-4 Sectioned Web Page in Web Clipping Studio"

    After you click Section, you cannot browse links in the displayed page. To browse to other locations through page links, then click Unsection on the Web Clipping Studio banner. For more information about using Web Clipping, you can click the Help icon or link on any of the Web Clipping pages.

    Note:

    To adjust sectioning to encompass smaller or larger areas on the web page, use the Section Smaller and Section Larger options on the Web Clipping Studio banner. Click Section Smaller to divide the web page into more, smaller sections. For example, click Section Smaller to drill down one level of nested tables. Click Section Larger to divide the web page into fewer, larger sections.

  6. At the top-left corner of the section you want to clip, click Choose.

    You can choose only one section at a time. Web Clipping Studio displays a preview of your chosen section.

  7. If the displayed section is the clipping you want, then click Select on the Web Clipping Studio banner.

    If the displayed section is not the clipping you want, then click Unselect to return to the page containing the section. You can choose another section on the page, or click Unsection to remove sectioning, enabling you to navigate to another page.

    Note:

    Some sections may contain no data, only whitespace. For example, a web page may contain an HTML <DIV> tag that contains no text or images. If you click Choose on a section that contains no data, then Web Clipping displays a preview, but the preview correctly shows only whitespace. In this case, click Unselect on the preview page to return to the sectioned page. Then, select a section containing data.

    Once you have made your selection, the Web Clipping Studio displays the Find a Web clipping page with the selected web clipping's properties.

  8. Adjust the clipping's property values as necessary:

    • URL Rewriting—Controls the behavior of links embedded in the clipped content.

      Select from:

      • None—To specify that link targets display on a new browser tab.

      • Inline—To specify that link targets display inside the portlet. If you have integrated with an external application or are logged into the clipped site, and if you choose Inline for URL Rewriting, then the session is maintained to the clipped site while browsing.

        Note:

        The URL Rewriting option is available only when you customize a portlet. This option is not available when you personalize a portlet.

    • Title—A title to display in the portlet header.

    • Description—A description of the clipping. The description is not displayed in the portlet.

    • Time Out (seconds)—The number of seconds to allow for the portlet to render before it times out.

    • Expires (minutes)—The number of minutes before cached portlet content expires. Once cached content expires, the next time the portlet is refreshed—either by a browser refresh or by clicking the Refresh link in the portlet itself—portlet content is retrieved from the web page from which the clipping originated.

    • Parameterize Inputs—Options for customizing parameters associated with the clipped content.

      Select the Click to start parameterizing check box to customize parameters associated with the content, and then perform the following steps:

      1. From the Parameters list, choose the parameters you intend to customize.

      2. From the Personalizable list, select a parameter if you intend to enable users to provide their own parameter values when they personalize the portlet. Select None if you do not want to allow this.

      3. In the Display Name field, enter a name to be displayed for the parameter.

      4. In the Default Value field, enter a default value for the parameter.

      Note:

      The Parameterize Inputs section displays only if you entered information in a form and then selected the section including the form for your web clipping.

  9. Click OK to save changes to property values and to display the selected clipping in the Web Clipping portlet on your page.

    Note:

    Web Clipping portlets support additional properties that influence the way the portlet is rendered. For information, see Section 18.4, "Setting Web Clipping Portlet Properties."

    Figure 18-5 shows the selected web clipping in your Web Clipping portlet.

    Figure 18-5 Clipped Content in a Web Clipping Portlet

    Description of Figure 18-5 follows
    Description of "Figure 18-5 Clipped Content in a Web Clipping Portlet"

Note:

The Refresh link in the Web Clipping portlet retrieves data from cache or from the originating web site, depending upon the value you provided for Expires (minutes).

18.4 Setting Web Clipping Portlet Properties

The Web Clipping portlet has associated properties that control the look and feel of the portlet on the page. Users with sufficient privileges can access these properties through the Component Properties dialog (Figure 18-6).

Tip:

For information about accessing the Component Properties dialog, see Section 14.3, "Modifying Components."

Figure 18-6 Web Clipping Portlet Component Properties

Description of Figure 18-6 follows
Description of "Figure 18-6 Web Clipping Portlet Component Properties"

The following sections provide information about properties of the events task flows and describe the properties on the Parameters tab:

18.4.1 About Web Clipping Portlet Properties

The properties on the Parameters the Display Options tabs of the Component Properties dialog control the default Web Clipping portlets content. For descriptions of the parameters on these tabs, see Section 18.4.2, "Web Clipping Portlet Properties." For some task flows, parameters on this tab facilitate the wiring of the task flow to page parameters and page definition variables.

Changes to the properties on the Display Options, Style, and Content Style tabs affect the appearance and behavior of the task flow. These properties are common to all task flows. For more information, see Section 14.3, "Modifying Components."

The contents of the Events tab depend on the events supported by the task flow. For more information, see Section 14.3.7, "Working with Component Contextual Events."

All properties on the Parameters and Display Options tabs provide access to an Expression Language (EL) editor, which you can use to select or specify a variable value instead of a constant value. Click the Edit icon next to a property field to open the editor. For more information about using the editor and for descriptions of common EL expressions, see the "Expression Language Expressions" appendix in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

Note:

Wherever you enter EL on the generic Display Options tab in the Component Properties dialog, the entry is automatically validated. If the EL syntax is invalid, an error appears and the value is neither applied nor saved. Generic Display Options are those cataloged in Table 14-1, "Display Options Properties".

EL validation is not performed on non-generic display options.

18.4.2 Web Clipping Portlet Properties

Table 18-1 describes the properties that are unique to the Web Clipping portlet.

Table 18-1 Web Clipping Portlet Component Properties

Property Description Location

Param#

Use to map page parameters to the parameters specified when the Web Clipping portlet was defined. These parameters enable you to contextually wire portlets and pages. For more information, see Chapter 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and ADF Components."

Parameters tab

All Modes Shared Screen

For Web Clipping, set this property to false to ensure that all portlet modes, except Show, are rendered each on their own page. Setting this property to true may prevent you from editing certain sections of your web clipping in the Web Clipping wizard.

Display Options tab

Id

A unique identifier for the portlet instance.

Display Options tab

Partial Triggers

Use to initialize a partial page refresh, which is a way of refreshing an area of a page without having to redraw the entire page.

Enter the IDs of the components that trigger the partial update. The portlet listens on the specified trigger components. If a trigger component receives a trigger event that causes it to update in some way, this portlet also requests to be updated.

Display Options tab

Render Portlet in I Frame

Use to render the portlet in an inline frame (iframe), omit an iframe, or let the portlet decide. Valid values are:

  • auto (default): The portlet tag checks the portlet response and decides if an iframe is required

  • true: Render the portlet instance in an iframe

  • false: Render the portlet instance inline

Placing a portlet inline on a page provides a better user experience as compared to placing it in an iframe. However, at times, it may be required to include a portlet in an iframe. For example:

  • The portlet is a JSF portlet

  • The portlet contains a file upload element

  • The parser throws an exception because it is not able to parse the markup

Display Options tab

Title

Enter a title for the Web Clipping portlet, to display in the portlet header.

Display Options tab

18.5 Current Limitations of the Web Clipping Portlet

When you use Web Clipping, you should be aware of the following limitations:

  • If the site that you intend to clip uses a large amount of JavaScript to manipulate cookies or uses the document.write JavaScript method to modify the HTML document being written, then you may not be able to clip content from the site.

  • When you integrate with partner applications (by using mod_osso), you cannot clip directly through those partner applications in an authenticated manner. However, you can use partner applications through the external application framework.

  • You cannot use the Web Clipping portlet to clip Oracle Portal pages and ADF pages. As a workaround, reregister the same producer in the destination portal and edit the portal manually.

  • You cannot use the Web Clipping portlet to clip a web page that contains multiple frames, that is, a frameset.

  • Note the following about Web Clipping and the use of a CSS:

    • If a web page contains multiple portlets that use a CSS, then they should not conflict if the CSS uses distinct style names (such as OraRef) to specify a style within an HTML tag, rather than using an HTML tag name (such as <A>) as the name of the style.

    • If one portlet uses a CSS, and that CSS overwrites the behavior of HTML tags by using the name of the tag (such as <A>) as the name of the style, and a second portlet on the same page does not use a CSS, the second portlet is affected by the style instructions of the CSS of the first portlet.

    • If two portlets on the same page use a different CSS and each CSS overwrites the behavior of HTML tags by using the name of an HTML tag (such as <A>) as the name of the style, then the style that is displayed depends on the browser.

  • Web Clipping checks for globalization support settings in the following way:

    1. Web Clipping checks the Content-Type in the HTTP header for the charset attribute. If this is present, then it assumes that this is the character encoding of the HTML page.

    2. If the charset attribute is not present, then Web Clipping checks the HTML META tag on the page to determine the character encoding.

    3. If the HTML META tag is not found, then Web Clipping uses the charset in the previous browsed page. If this is the first page, then it defaults to the ISO-8859-1 character encoding.

    4. If the value of the charset for Content-Type or META tag is not supported (for example, if the charset was specified as NONE), then Web Clipping uses the default character set, ISO-8859-1, not the charset in the previously browsed page.

  • To use the Web Clipping portlet, you must use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later for Windows 2000, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later for Windows XP. If you use browser versions older than these, then you may encounter JavaScript errors.

18.6 Troubleshooting the Web Clipping Portlet

This section provides information to help you troubleshoot problems you may encounter while using Web Clipping.

Encountered "x" at line n, column n. Was expecting one of : "x", "y" ...

Parser error message written to the log file.

Problem

The web content displayed in the Web Clipping portlet contains invalid HTML or JavaScript.

Solution

This is a site-specific issue, not a Web Clipping error. Contact the site's administrator for assistance.