Portlets provide portal
users customized tools and services as well as information. Portlets
let you to integrate applications, tools, and services into your portal,
while taking advantage of portal security, caching, and customization. Users can then add these portlets to their My Pages or to community
pages.
Portlets
Portlets can be intrinsic or remote.
An intrinsic portlet consists of one or more sets of code that are
located on the portal computer. Your portal administrator needs to
install this code in the correct location before an intrinsic portlet
can be created. A remote portlet is a portlet hosted by a separate
remote server. When a user displays a My Page or community page that
includes a remote portlet, the portal contacts the appropriate remote
server to obtain updated portlet content.
Some portlets can
be placed only in certain areas of the page:
- Header portlets can be added to communities, community templates,
and experience definitions to change the branding of these objects
by replacing a banner at the top of the page (so that it differs from
the top banner displayed by the main portal).
- Footer portlets can be added to communities, community templates,
and experience definitions to change the branding of these objects
by replacing the banner at the bottom of the page (so that it differs
from the bottom banner displayed by the main portal).
- Content canvas portlets can be added below the top banner on community
pages that include a content canvas space (specified in the page layout).
Content canvas portlets can display across the entire width of the
page or across one or two columns. You cannot add more than one content
canvas portlet per page.
Portlet Web Services
Portlet web services
allow you to specify functional settings for your portlets,
leaving the display settings to be set in each associated portlet. There are intrinsic portlet web services and remote portlet web
services.
An intrinsic portlet web service references one or more sets of code
that are located on the portal computer. Your portal administrator
must install this code in the correct location before you can create
the associated intrinsic portlet web service.
A remote portlet web
service references services hosted by a separate remote server. These services can be hosted by a web site or can be provided by
code on a remote server. If the code is hosted by a remote server,
your portal administrator must install this code before you can create
the associated remote portlet web service. When a user displays a
My Page or community page that includes a remote portlet, the portal
contacts the appropriate remote server to obtain updated portlet content.
Portlet Templates
Portlet templates allow
you to create multiple instances of a portlet, each displaying slightly
different information. For example, you might want to create
a Regional Sales portlet template, from which you could create different
portlets for each region to which your company sells. You might even
want to include all Regional Sales portlets on one page for an executive
overview.
After you have created a portlet from a portlet template,
there is no further relationship between the two objects. If you make
changes to the portlet template, these changes are not reflected in
the portlets already created with the template.
Portlet Bundles
Portlet bundles are
groups of related portlets, packaged together for easy inclusion on
My Pages or community pages. You might want to create portlet
bundles for portlets that have related functions or for all the portlets
that a particular group of users might find useful. This makes it
easier for users to find portlets related to their specific needs
without having to browse through all the portlets in your portal.
Portlet Content Caching
Caching some portlet
content can greatly improve the performance of your portal. When you
cache portlet content, the content is saved on the portal for a specified
period of time. Each time a user requests this content—by accessing
a My Page or community page that includes the cached portlet—the portal
delivers the cached content rather than running the portlet code to
produce the content.
When you create a portlet, you can specify
whether or not the portlet should be cached, and if it is cached,
for how long. You should cache any portlet that does not provide user-specific
content. For example, you would cache a portlet that produces stock
quotes, but not one that displays a user e-mail box.
If you
develop portlet code, you can and should define caching parameters.
For more information on portlet caching, refer to the Oracle
WebCenter Interaction Web Service Development Guide, which
is located on the Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/bea.html or the documentation provided with the portlet software.
Portlets Available with the Portal
Some
portlets (and their necessary portlet web services and remote servers)
are automatically created in the
Portal Resources folder when you install the portal. There are also portlets that
are available with the portal installation, but require additional
steps to complete installation. For information on the additional
installation steps, refer to the
Installation Guide for Oracle
WebCenter Interaction.
Note: You can also create your own portlets,
have a web developer or an Oracle portlet developer create portlets
for you, or download portlets from the Oracle Technology Network at
http://www.oracle.com/technology/index.html.
For information on installing and configuring portlets provided
as a software package, refer to the portlet software documentation
instead of the procedures in this guide. For information on developing
portlets, see the Oracle WebCenter Portlet Toolkit for .NET
Development Guide, which is located on the Oracle Technology
Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/bea.html.
The following navigation portlet can be used with
the Portlet-Ready Navigation scheme (set in an experience definition)
to provide custom navigation for your portal:
The following branding portlets enable you to add custom
branding to your portal pages:
The following login portlets can be added to guest default
profiles so users can log in to the portal:
- Portal Login: This portlet allows
users to log in to the portal. You probably want to add this to all
your guest users' home pages so that users can log in from the default
page displayed when they navigate to your portal.
- Tag Login Portlet: This portlet is provided
as an example of a custom login portlet that uses adaptive tags; you
can customize it and add it to your guest users' home pages so that
users can log in from the default page displayed when they navigate
to your portal. This portlet is stored in the Portal Resources folder.
For information on adaptive tags, see the Adaptive Page Layouts section of the Oracle WebCenter Interaction UI Customization
Guide, which is located on the Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/bea.html.
The following user profile portlets are included on the
user profile page by default:
- Folder Expertise: This portlet displays
the folders for which the user is an expert. Portal administrators
can add users to a folder as an expert through the Related Resources
page of the Folder Editor, or, if users have the Self-Selected Experts
activity right, they can add themselves as experts when they are browsing
folders in the Knowledge Directory. This portlet is stored in the
Portal Resources folder and is displayed on the user profile page
by default.
- General Information: This portlet displays
user profile information such as name and address, but it is configurable
by the portal administrator to display any information. If your portal
displays a legacy layout (rather than adaptive layouts), this portlet
is displayed on the user profile page by default. This portlet is
stored in the Portal Resources folder.
- Managed Communities: This portlet displays
the communities to which the user has Edit or Admin access. If your
portal displays a legacy layout (rather than adaptive layouts), this
portlet is displayed on the user profile page by default. This portlet
is stored in the Portal Resources folder.
The following portlets are ready to be added to My Pages
and community pages:
- Job Histories Intrinsic Portlet: This portlet displays
the same job history information that is displayed on the Job History
page of the Automation Service Manager. This portlet is stored in
the Portal Resources folder.
- Portal Search: This portlet lets users
search your portal and access their saved searches. Users might want
to add this to their home page for easy access to their saved searches.
This portlet is stored in the Portal Resources folder.
- RSS Reader Portlet: This portlet lets users
specify an RSS or ATOM feed to display on a My Page. This portlet is stored
in the Portal Resources/RSS Reader folder, but is available only if
the portal administrator installed the Remote Portlet Service and
imported the RSS Reader migration package.
- RSS Community Reader Portlet:
User Activities: This portlet displays
a user’s status history and any other recent activities that are submitted
by other applications. This portlet is stored in the Activity Service folder, but is available
only if the portal administrator installed the Remote Portlet Service
and imported the Activity Service migration package.
To view another user's
activities, open the user's profile and look at the User Activities
portlet displayed in the profile. To subscribe to e-mail notification
or an RSS feed of the user's activity, click the appropriate button
at the bottom of the user's User Activities portlet.
- User Status: This portlet lets users post their current status. This portlet is stored in the Activity Service folder, but is available
only if the portal administrator installed the Remote Portlet Service
and imported the Activity Service migration package.
The following portlet templates (and any necessary portlet
web services and remote servers) are created when you install the
portal:
- Community Links Portlet Template: This template is used
by the portal to create portlets that display the links saved in a
Community Knowledge Directory folder. This portlet template is stored
in the Portal Resources folder.
- Content Snapshots: This template is used
by the portal to create portlets that display the results of a Snapshot
Query. This portlet template is stored in the Portal Resources folder.