Chapter 2 Understanding the Standard Portal Server Desktop

This topic describes the standard Desktop and how it delivers content to end users. This topic provides the following sections:

• About the Portal Server Desktop

• Delivering Portal Content

About the Portal Server Desktop

Portal Server aggregates and presents content to the end user. The primary end-user interface for Portal Server is the standard Desktop, which end users access by using an HTML browser.

End users can access and use two additional Desktops, if they are configured to do so:

• The mobile Desktop, using a mobile device

• The voice Desktop, using one of the following:

  • A phone

  • Software that enables Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and supports Voice over IP (VoIP)

For information about the mobile Desktop and the voice Desktop, see the Sun Java^TM System Portal Server Mobile Access documentation:

http://docs.sun.com/coll/1483.1.

Portal Server supports programmable modules that transform data into HTML (hypertext markup language) that the standard Desktop displays. For example, Portal Server converts XML (extensible markup language) data and RSS (really simple syndication) into HTML, and JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) files are executed to HTML. Content that is delivered can be static information or an application.

Administrators use the Portal Server management console and the command-line interface to manage the Desktop.

Delivering Portal Content

The standard Desktop displays a web page that arranges portal content in rows and columns. Portal Server uses two methods to deliver content to the Desktop:

• Channels - A specialized content area that occupies a small window within the page. A channel consists of the following:

  • A provider object

  • Configuration files

  • Data files, such as XML files and HTML templates, that support the channel

    Examples of channels are the following:

    • News channel - Displays links to online news and information

    • Mail channel - Displays mail messages sent to end users and allows end users to view and manage mail messages

• Container channels - An aggregation of channels. Often container channels are simply called containers. Portal Server supports AJAXTableContainerProvider, which provides rich user interaction with features such as loading and updating channels asynchronously and drag-and-drop positioning of channels.

  Examples of containers are the following:

  • Table container - Arranges channels into rows and columns

  • Tab container - Arranges channels (typically table container channels) with a tab navigation bar across the top, so that the end user views them one at a time

Portal Server supports the following kinds of channels:

• Standard Java portlets, which use the Portlet 1.0 standard defined by JSR 168, which allows portlets to run in multiple portal environments.

• Providers, which use proprietary interfaces. For example:

  • JSP providers for compiling and executing JSP files

  • XML providers for translating XML files

• Remote portlets, which use the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) 1.0 standard, a web services protocol for integrating JSR 168 portlets from remote sources.