27 Working with Pagelets

This chapter provides an introduction to Pagelet Producer and describes how to export and import Pagelet Producer resources.

This chapter includes the following topics:

See Also:

  • For information about developing and deploying custom pagelets, see the "Creating Pagelets with Pagelet Producer" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

  • For information on configuring the Pagelet Producer and registering producers, see the "Managing Pagelet Producer" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Permissions:

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you must be a portal moderator or member with Manage All or Manage Configuration permission in the portal.

Any user who accesses administration settings for a portal and does not have Manage permission (for example, a user with Participant role, granted permission to edit a page in the portal) will see only the settings available to their role and permissions.

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

27.1 About Pagelet Producer

Oracle WebCenter Portal's Pagelet Producer (previously called Oracle WebCenter Ensemble) provides a collection of useful tools that facilitate dynamic pagelet development and deployment. The Pagelet Producer proxy provides users with external access to internal resources including internal applications and secured content. Using Pagelet Producer, you can expose WSRP and Oracle JPDK portlets and OpenSocial gadgets as pagelets for use in any Web page or application.

The following key concepts are useful when working with the Pagelet Producer:

  • The Pagelet Producer Console is a browser-based administration tool used to create and manage the various objects in your Pagelet Producer deployment. From the Console you can register web applications as resources and create pagelets, manage proxy and transformation settings, and more.

    You can access the Pagelet Producer Console by either:

    • From WebCenter Portal, navigating to Administration > Shared Assets > Pagelets and then clicking Create. This opens the Pagelet Producer Console. When you're ready to return to WebCenter Portal click Cancel.

    • Navigating to the following URL:

      http://host_name:port_number/pagelets/admin.

    Any user with the 'Admin' role on the host application server can access the Pagelet Producer Console. To grant administrative access to the Pagelet Producer Console to users without administrative access to the application server, use the 'EnsembleAdmin' role.

    The Pagelet Producer Console can also be launched in accessibility mode at:

    http://host:port/pagelets/admin/accessible

    For details on using the Console to configure the Pagelet Producer and create objects, see the "Creating Pagelets with Pagelet Producer" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper. For information on using the Console to register producers and migrate pagelet data, see the "Managing Pagelet Producer" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

  • Resources are core objects used to register applications within the Pagelet Producer, including stand-alone web applications, Portlet Producers and OpenSocial containers. Creating a resource allows the proxy to map internal applications to external URLs, manage authentication, and transform applications. Registering a web application as a Pagelet Producer resource lets you do the following:

    • Proxy internal web applications to external addresses.

    • Manage authentication, both at the proxy level and at the resource level.

    • Transform proxied web applications, including URL rewriting.

  • Pagelets are sub-components of a web page accessed through the Pagelet Producer that can be injected into any proxied application. Any application on a Pagelet Producer resource that returns markup can be registered as a pagelet, which can then be displayed in WebCenter Portal, or any web application.

    A pagelet is a reusable user interface component similar to a portlet. While portlets were designed specifically for portals, pagelets are designed to run on any web page. Any HTML fragment can be a pagelet. Pagelet developers can create pagelets that are parameterized and configurable, dynamically interact with other pagelets, and respond to user input using Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX) patterns.

    For details on pagelet development, see "Creating Pagelets with Pagelet Producer" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

    Using the Pagelet Producer, you can expose WSRP and Oracle JPDK portlets and OpenSocial gadgets as pagelets for use in any web page or application. For details, see the "Managing Pagelet Producer" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

27.2 Exporting and Importing Pagelet Producer Resources

Pagelet Producer resources can be exported and imported from the Pagelet Producer Console as described in "Exporting and Importing Pagelet Producer Resources" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal. Note that you cannot export or import pagelets directly from the Shared Assets page in WebCenter Portal.