Portals and Portlets

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Portals and Portlets

• Overview for Phoenix Java User Group

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What is a Portal?

• Many Definitions

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Google Definition
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Is this a Portal?
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Java Portals

• Framework to run Portlets (portlet container)
• May include
• User Personalization
• Control Look and Feel
• Security
• More
• No Java Standard for Portal Framework

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Portlets

• Similar to Servlet Model
• Standardized API, JSR 168
• Additional Concepts
• Window State
• Mode
• Preferences
• Fragment of Screen

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Portal Screen Shot
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Window State

• Similar to Windows Applications
• States
• Normal
• Maximized
• Minimized
• Custom vendor extension point

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Portlet Mode

• View normal mode
• Help standard way to get to help
• Edit where user customizes portlet
• Custom vendor extension point in 168 Spec
• Results in different method call on Portlet

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Portlet Control
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Portlet vs. Servlet

• Similar lifecycle create, initialize, handle
  requests, destroy.
• Singleton model, one instance created to handle
  all requests.
• Portlet only fragment
• Cannot forward
• Cannot change content type
• PortletPreferences
• Two phase response, Action and Render

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Portlet vs. Servlet Objects

• PortletContext
• PortletConfig
• PortletSession
• PortletResponse
• Action/Render
• PortletRequest
• Action/Render

• ServletContext
• ServletConfig
• HttpSession
• HttpServletResponse
• HttpServletRequest

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Action and Render Phases

• Action
• Used when portlet is changing its backend state
  (Updating database, changing session data, etc).
• Only runs when an action url is clicked.
• Action phase is processed first, allowing backend
  changes to complete before rendering begins.
• Render
• Always called on portlet.
• Builds markup that will be returned by response.

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Hidden Screen shot
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Portlet Deployment

• Deployed as a war file
• Includes portlets, servlets, jsps, etc.
• Still has a web.xml
• Adds new portlet.xml
• Portlet specific configuration

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portlet.xml
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GenericPortlet

• Similar purpose as HttpServlet
• Usually extend GenericPortlet when creating a
  portlet
• Example methods

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Examples

• Time to look at real code and portlets

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Pros and Cons

• Pros
• Portal container provided services
• Consistent user interface
• Build in user customization
• Integrate different back end apps

• Cons
• Slight paradigm shift. Not a normal website
• Big and heavy
• Immature technology
• URL encoding