Portal Development Guide

Introduction to Portals

What is a Portal?

What is the Portal Framework?

Portal Development and the Portal Life Cycle

Architecture

Development

Staging

Production

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Related Guides

Part I Architecture

Planning Your Portal

Production Operations (Propagation and Deployment)

Portal Development in a Distributed Portal Team

Federated Portals

Security

Content Management

Interaction Management

Performance

Portals and Mobile Devices

Part II Development

Understanding Portal Development

Portal Components

Portal Component Hierarchy

Portal Development Environment in Workshop for WebLogic

WebLogic Portal and Shared J2EE Libraries

File-Based Portals and Streaming Portals

Java Controls in Portals

JSP Tags in Portals

Asynchronous Rendering

Backing Files

How Backing Files are Executed

Thread Safety and Backing Files

Scoping and Backing Files

Using the Session to Pass Data Between Life Cycle Methods

Backing File Guidelines

Adding a Backing File Using Workshop for WebLogic

Adding the Backing File by Editing the XML File

Page Flows in Portals

State/Session Management

HTTP Session Sharing

Setting up Your Portal Development Environment

Roadmap for Environment Setup Tasks

Portal Perspective

WebLogic Domain Configuration Wizard

Portal EAR Project Wizard

New Portal EAR Project – Select Project Facets Dialog

Add and Remove Projects Dialog

Portal Web Project Wizard

New Portal Web Project – Portal Web Project

New Portal Web Project – Select Project Facets dialog

New Portal Web Project - Web Module Dialog

New Portal Web Project - WebLogic Web Module Dialog

Portal Datasync Project Wizard

Create New Datasync Project – EAR Projects

Associating Web and Datasync Projects with EAR Projects

Associating an Web Project with an EAR Project

Associating an Datasync Project with an EAR Project

Using the Merged Projects View

Opening the Merged Projects View

Working with the Merged Projects View

Running a Project on the Server

Stopping the Server

Customizing a Perspective

Setting WebLogic Portal Preferences in Workshop for WebLogic

Preferences in the WebLogic Portal Section

WebLogic Portal Preferences in the General Section

Integrating Applications into WebLogic Portal

Integrating an Existing Web Application into Workshop for WebLogic

Integrating Struts Applications

Preparing Your Struts Application for Integration

Refactor

Add Tags if Needed

Override Certain Behaviors of a RequestProcessor

Refactor any Existing Custom Action Servlet

Remove the <html:link> Tag

Integration Steps

Best Practices and Development Issues

Integrating Java Server Faces

JSF and the namingContainer JSP Tag

Integrating Page Flows

Adding Facets to an Existing Project

Other Methods of Integrating an External Web Application into a Portal

User Interface Development with Look And Feel Features

Look And Feel Framework Overview

Working with Look And Feel Files

Defining a Look And Feel for a Desktop

Customizing Look and Feels

Combining Skins and Skeletons in a New Look And Feel

Defining Titlebar Buttons and Window Icons

Modifying CSS Files

Working with Genes and Chromosomes

Gene Example

Creating a Chromosome and Genes

Using the Look And Feel Editor with Genes

Creating a New Look and Feel

Working with Skins

Best Practices

Considerations for Microsoft Internet Explorer

About Portlet Title Bar Icons

Working with Skeletons

What is a Skeleton?

Guidelines for Creating Custom Skeletons

Enabling XHTML in a Portal

Working with Themes

Using Themes with Microsoft Internet Explorer

Developing a Theme

Using Look And Feels From Previous Portal Releases

Troubleshooting Look And Feels

The Look And Feel Editor

Overview

The Look and Feel Editor Window

Opening the Look And Feel Editor

Style Hierarchy Tab

Style Description Panel

CSS Inheritance

Using the Inherited Styles List

View Area

Outline View

Properties View

Tips for Using the Look and Feel Editor

Using the Link Style Hiearchy Selection with HTML Preview Selection Button

Enabling the Mouse Motion Button

Look And Feel API

Working with Shells

Creating a New Shell

Modifying a Shell

Applying a Shell to a Portal Desktop

Placing Portlets in a Header or Footer

Working with Layouts

Creating a Standard Layout

Creating a Custom Layout

The Layout File

Example of a Custom Layout

The Skeleton JSP

The html.txt File

Working with Navigation Menus

Using Images for Page Tabs

Building User Interfaces to Address Accessibility Guidelines

Accessibility Checkpoints

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Government Regulations and Standards

Accessibility Evaluation and Testing Tools

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative

Lynx Viewer

Developing Portals Using Workshop for WebLogic

Creating a Portal

Add a Page or Book to Your Portal

Creating a Standalone Book or Page

Extracting an Existing Page or Book to Re-Use

Adding a Book or Page Reference (Content)

Adding a Book or Page Reference from the Portal Editor

Adding a Book or Page Reference Using the Outline View

Rearranging Books and Pages

Setting Portal Component Properties

Editing Portal Properties

Tips for Using the Properties View

Presentation Properties

Desktop Properties

Book Properties

Page Properties

Placeholder Properties

Copying J2EE Library Files into a Project

Viewing Files that Override Shared J2EE Library Files

Custom Controls in Page Flows

Adding a Portal Control to a Page Flow

Adding an Action to the Page Flow

Portal Control Security

Deploy and View a Portal

Working with URLs

Creating URLs to Portal Resources

URL Compression

Implementing URL Compression

URL Compression Special Considerations

URL Compression and AJAX

URL Compression and Off-Site URLs

URL Compression and Frequently-Accessed Data

URL Troubleshooting

URL Templates and Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP)

Ampersand Entities in Portal URLs

Optional Look And Feel URL Templates

Working with Encoding in HTTP Responses

Cache Management in Workshop for WebLogic

Changing Cache Settings in Workshop for WebLogic

Improving WebLogic Server Administration Console Performance on a Managed Server

Behavior of the “Return to Default Page” Attribute

Adding Commerce Services to an Existing Portal Web Project

Customizing Problem Validation Settings

Enabling/Disabling WebLogic Portal Validation

Enabling/Disabling Validation Globally

Enabling/Disabling Validation Per Project

Customizing WebLogic Portal Validation Mappings

Overview

Customizing Validation Globally

Customizing Validation Per Project

Enabling Placeable Movement

Configuring the Portal in Workshop for WebLogic

Setting Up a Desktop in the Administration Console

Testing Placeable Movement

Enabling Placeable Movement for an Existing Desktop

Limitations

Using Placeable Movement with Custom Layouts

Introduction

Before You Begin

Rules for Using Placeable Movement with Custom Layouts

Sample Code

Localizing Titles for File-Based Books, Pages, and Portlets

Enabling Visitor Tools

What Are Visitor Tools?

Enabling Visitor Tools

Verifying the Portal Visitor Tools Facet

Enabling Visitor Tools for a Desktop

Creating Portals for Multiple Device Types

Enabling Multichannel Features in a Portal Web Application

Roadmap for Multichannel Processing

Developing Portals for Use in a Multichannel Environment

Manage Portlet Client Classifications

Use the Client Attribute in JSP Tags

Develop Appropriate Look And Feels

Interaction Management Development

Designing Portals for Optimal Performance

Asynchronous Desktop Rendering

Choosing the Method of Asynchronous Rendering

Configuring Asynchronous Desktop Rendering

Control Tree Design

How the Control Tree Works

How the Control Tree Affects Performance

Using Multiple Desktops

Why This is a Good Idea

Design Decisions for Using Multiple Desktops

Optimizing the Control Tree

Enabling Control Tree Optimization

Setting the Current Page

How Tree Optimization Works

Multi Level Menus and Control Tree Optimization

Limitations to Using Tree Optimization

Disabling Tree Optimization

Other Ways to Improve Performance

Use Entitlements Judiciously

How Entitlements Affect Performance

Recommendations for Using Entitlements

Limit User Customizations

Optimize Page Flow Session Footprint

Use File-Based Portals for Simple Applications

Why Use a File-based Portal?

Limitations to Using File-based Portals

Create a Production Domain in Development

Optimize Portlet Performance

Obtaining Debug Information

Introduction

Configuring and Enabling Debug

Using Debug in Your WLP Code

Turning Debug Output On and Off

Package-Level Debugging

Directing Output to a File

Reloading Debug Properties

Example debug.properties File

Public WLP Class Debug Reference

WLP Framework Classes with Debug Support

WLP Core Services Classes with Debug Support

WLP Virtual Content Repository Classes with Debug Support

WLP UCM Classes with Debug Support

WLP Administration Console Classes with Debug Support

Part III Staging

Managing Portal Desktops

Administration Console Overview

Administration Console Library of Resources

Starting and Logging In to the Administration Console

Opening the Administration Console

Logging In to the Administration Console

Overview of Library Administration

Overview of Portal Administration

Portal Management

Overview of the Library

Desktop Templates

Creating a Desktop Template

Communities

Portal Resources

Updating Portal Resources

Viewing Resources for a Portal Web Application (Update WebApp)

Deleting a Portal Resource

Localizing a Portal Resource

Portals

Creating a Portal

Modifying Portal Properties

Desktops

Creating a Desktop

Disassembling to the Library

Decoupling of Property Settings

Modifying Desktop Properties

Books

Creating a Book

Managing Book Content

Adding Portal Elements to a Book

Positioning or Removing Portal Elements on a Book

Modifying Library Book Properties and Contents

Modifying Desktop Book Properties

Portlets

Copying a Portlet in the Library

Deleting a Portlet

Modifying Library Portlet Properties

Modifying Desktop Portlet Properties

Portlet Preferences

Creating a Portlet Preference

Editing a Portlet Preference

Portlet Categories

Creating a Portlet Category

Adding Portlets to a Portlet Category

Modifying Portlet Category Properties

Look And Feels

Modifying Look And Feel Properties

Shells

Modifying Shell Properties

Themes

Modifying Theme Properties

Menus (Navigation)

Modifying Menu Properties

Layouts

Modifying Layout Properties

Deploying Portals to Production

Shared J2EE Libraries

Shared J2EE Library References in config.xml

Anatomy of a Shared J2EE Library

Overriding Shared J2EE Library Settings in the web.xml File

Servlet Mapping Overrides

Part IV Production

Managing Portals in Production

Pushing Changes from the Library into Production

Transferring Changes from Production Back to Development

Facet-to-Library Reference Tables

WebLogic Portal Facet-to-Library Reference Tables