Preface

This manual describes how to build portlets for Oracle Application Server Portal (OracleAS Portal) using a variety of tools and technologies. This includes understanding the various technology choices open to you, choosing the technology that best meets your requirements, and using the appropriate tools to build and deploy your portlets.

Intended Audience

This manual is intended primarily for portal developers, but page designers may also find it useful.

The manual guides you through the process of first understanding and choosing a portlet technology, and then building your portlets with that technology. To find out which chapters will be of most interest to you, refer to the "Structure".

For information about the different privileges in OracleAS Portal and how these affect the tasks you can perform, see the Oracle Application Server Portal User's Guide.

What Is a Portal Developer? A portal developer is a user with the following global privileges: Create All Portal DB Providers and Manage All Shared Components. The main task of a portal developer is to build portlets and make them available to page designers and other users for inclusion on their pages. Since OracleAS Portal offers such a wide spectrum of tools and technologies for building portlets, a portal developer may or may not have substantial programming background.

What Is a Page Designer? A page designer (also known as a page manager) is a user with the Manage privilege on a page. A user with this privilege can perform any action on the page and can create sub-pages under the page. The page designer is often responsible for designing the layout (or region configuration) of the page and assigning privileges on the page to other users (for example, to determine who can add content to the page).

The scope of a page designer's control over a page may be limited if the page is based on a template.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Structure

This manual is organized as follows:

Part I (Portlet Overview)

This part provides an introduction to portlets.

Chapter 1 (Understanding Portlets)

This chapter explains portlets, and how portlet development compares with traditional Web page development.

Part II (Portlet Technologies)

This part includes considerations for choosing a portlet building technology and the specific benefits of using each portlet technology to help you decide which technology is best suited for your purposes.

Chapter 2 (Portlet Technologies Matrix)

This chapter presents a summary of portlet features, characteristics, technologies, and tools. It is presented in a matrix format, and is designed to help users decide which portlet building technology suits their needs best. It lists the technologies and tools they can use with OracleAS Portal on one axis, and the features and characteristics on the other.

Part III (Building Portlets)

This part contains the chapters that explain how to use the portlet technologies discussed in this manual.

Chapter 3 (Building Portlets with OmniPortlet)

This chapter explains how to use the various tabs and controls in the OmniPortlet wizard, as well as how to extend the functionality of OmniPortlet by installing pluggable extensions.

Chapter 4 (Building Content-Based Portlets with Web Clipping)

This chapter explains how to use the Web Clipping Studio to create a portlet based on a Web clipping.

Chapter 5 (Building Java Portlets)

This chapter explains how to create Java portlets based on the JSR-168 portlet standard, how to build Java portlets using Oracle's Portal Developer Kit-Java, and how to make a portlet out of your struts application.

Chapter 6 (Building PL/SQL Portlets)

This chapter explains how to create PL/SQL portlets based on the Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit-PL/SQL (PDK-PL/SQL). To make effective use of this chapter, you should already know PL/SQL and have some familiarity with the PL/SQL Web Toolkit.

Part IV (Appendixes)

This part contains supporting information in appendixes.

Appendix A (Building Portlets with the Portlet Builder)

This appendix describes the process of creating a portlet through a wizard and steps you through creating, editing, managing, and running different types of portlets.

Appendix B (Troubleshooting OracleAS Portal)

This appendix explains how to troubleshoot your portlets.

Glossary

The glossary provides definitions for terms used in this and other OracleAS Portal manuals.

Related Documents

For more information, see the following manuals in the OracleAS Portal documentation set:

• Chapter 12, "Oracle Application Server Portal", in the Oracle Application Server Release Notes

• Oracle Application Server Portal User's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Portal Configuration Guide

• Oracle Application Server Portal Error Messages Guide

You may also find the following manuals in the Oracle Application Server documentation set useful:

• Oracle Application Server Concepts

• Oracle HTTP Server Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Web Cache Administrator's Guide

Conventions

The following conventions are also used in this manual:

Convention	Meaning
italicized text	Italicized type introduces important terms used for the first time.
boldface text	Boldface type is used for emphasis, and to represent the names of items as they appear on your screen.
CAPITALIZED text	Capitalized text indicates procedure names.
< >	Angle brackets enclose user-supplied names.
[ ]	Brackets enclose optional clauses from which you can choose one or none.
. . .	Vertical ellipsis points in an example mean that information not directly related to the example has been omitted.

Browser Recommendations

When using OracleAS Portal, we recommend that you use one of the following Web browsers:

• Netscape 4.79

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or 5.5 (with Service Pack 1) for Windows 2000

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 for Windows XP

You may encounter JavaScript errors if you use a browser older than the recommended minimum.

Cache Settings

To ensure that your browser is always displaying valid portal content, please make sure that your browser cache settings are as follows:

In Internet Explorer:

1. From the menu, choose Tools > Internet Options.

2. Make sure you are on the General tab.

3. In the Temporary Internet File section, click the Settings button.

4. In the Check for newer versions of stored pages radio group, select Every visit to the page.

5. Click OK.

6. Click OK.

In Netscape:

1. From the menu, choose Edit > Preferences.

2. Expand the Advanced node.

3. Click Cache.

4. In the Document in cache is compared to document on network radio group, select Every time.

5. Click OK.

Image Settings

Please make sure that images are automatically loaded as follows:

In Internet Explorer:

1. From the menu, choose Tools > Internet Options.

2. Click the Advanced tab.

3. Scroll through the list of options to the Multimedia node, and select Show Pictures.

4. Click OK.

In Netscape:

1. From the menu, choose Edit > Preferences.

2. Click Advanced.

3. Select the Automatically load images check box.

4. Click OK.

Sometimes this setting is disabled to increase performance on low bandwidth connections. However, one common problem that occurs when images are not automatically loaded is that once logged out, you cannot login again without closing and reinvoking the browser. Hence, we recommend that this setting is always enabled.