About Portal Applications

This chapter provides an introduction to exteNd Director portal applications. It contains the following sections:

For more information about exteNd Director projects in general, see the chapters that cover working with projects in Developing exteNd Director Applications.

About the Portal subsystem

exteNd Director applications often include a portal Web site. The portal is the presentation layer for an application, providing the interface through which users access and interact with Web content generated by portlets.

To implement this functionality, exteNd Director provides a Portal subsystem that allows you to:

Design and run Java Portlet 1.0-compliant portlets
Create, maintain, and manage portal pages
Manage access to portal content

The Portal subsystem also provides complete integration with the Directory, Security, and User subsystems, which handle authentication, authorization, and user profiling.

Portal components are deprecated exteNd Director provides runtime support for portal components created in earlier versions of the product. However, you should use portlet technology for all new development.

Web presentation services

The Portal subsystem implements the following Web presentation services:

Portal service	Description
Portal Aggregator	Renders a response to a portal request by: Displaying the content of a portlet directly in a Web client Aggregating the content of one or more portlets on a portal page
Page Manager	Manages page information and page categories for PID pages
Portal Personalizer	Provides a graphical interface for creating personal pages and applying themes portal-wide For more information, see the chapter on personalizing your portal.
Portal Administration tool	Provides a graphical interface for portal administrators to create container and shared pages, assign permissions for page access, and manage the Portal For more information, see the chapter on administering portal pages.

Portal APIs

The Portal subsystem provides APIs for:

Developing Java Portlet 1.0-compliant portlets that generate content in portal pages—or dispatch content generation to JSP pages or servlets
Working with page layouts, as described in the section on working with the layout API.
Implementing portlet-level decorators and decorator services, as described in the chapter on working with portal decorators.
Working with portal options, as described in the section on working with the portal option API.
Working with portal themes, as described in the section on working with the theme API.
Working with portal categories, as described in the chapter on working with page categories

Anatomy of a portal application

This section describes the key functional elements of exteNd Director portal applications.

Portal aggregation servlet

Each exteNd Director portal application includes a base servlet called EboPortalAggregationServlet that controls all portal and portlet requests.

This servlet listens on the key portal in the request URL, as specified by the PortalPathEntryPointKey descriptor in web.xml:

  <context-param>
  	 <param-name>PortalPathEntryPointKey</param-name>
  	 <param-value>portal</param-value>
  </context-param>

Application requests

This servlet responds to the following kinds of application requests:

Type of Request	Request URL
Run a portlet directly in a browser	Syntax servlet_url/portlet_path/name of portlet servlet_url http://host/context/portal portlet_path portlet Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/portlet/WelcomeMessagePortlet
Run a component directly in a browser	Syntax servlet_url/comp_path/name of component servlet_url http://host/context/portal comp_path comp Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/comp/MyComponent
Run a component directly in a browser with decoration	Syntax servlet_url/component_path/name of component servlet_url http://host/context/portal component_path component Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/component/MyComponent
Run the Portal Personalizer	Syntax servlet_url/portlet_path/Personalize servlet_url http://host/context/portal portlet_path portlet Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/portlet/Personalize
Run the Portal Administrator	Syntax servlet_url/portlet_path/PortalPageAdmin servlet_url http://host/context/portal portlet_path portlet Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/portlet/PortalPageAdmin
Display a container page that displays the content of a specified shared page	Syntax servlet_url/cn/container page name/name of shared page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/cn/MyContainerPage/OurSharedPage
Display a container page that displays the content of a specified personal page	Syntax servlet_url/cn/container page name/up_name of personal page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/cn/MyContainerPage/up_MyPersonalPage
Display a container page that displays the content of its default shared page	Syntax servlet_url/cn/name of container page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/cn/MyContainerPage
Display a shared page	Syntax servlet_url/pg/name of shared page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/pg/OurSharedPage
Display a shared page surrounded by the user's default container page	Syntax servlet_url/pgcn/name of shared page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/pgcn/OurSharedPage
Display a personal page	Syntax servlet_url/pg/up_name of personal page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/pg/up_MyPersonalPage
Display a personal page surrounded by the user's default container page	Syntax servlet_url/pgcn/up_name of personal page servlet_url http://host/context/portal Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/pgcn/up_MyPersonalPage
Display a PID page	Syntax servlet_url/page_path/`name of PID page` servlet_url http://host/context/portal page_path pages Example: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/pages/MyPID.html

Resource servlet

Each exteNd Director portal application also includes a servlet called resource. This servlet can serve up any resource in the resource set associated with the portal application. The portal resource path is defined in web.xml as follows:

  <context-param>
  	 <param-name>PortalResourcePath</param-name>
  	 <param-value>$CONTEXT_URL$/resource</param-value>
  	 <description>
  	 	 Path at which resource set resources are served up from the controller.
  	 </description>
  </context-param>

For example, the following URL could be used to access an image file MyImage.jpg in the resource set for an exteNd Director WAR project called MyWAR running on the server localhost:

  http://localhost/MyWAR/resource/images/MyImage.jpg

Portal Web tier

Portal applications can include the Portal Web tier, which provides the functionality that allows end-users and portal administrators to interact with the portal. The Portal Web tier includes tools for logging in, customizing portal pages, and creating new users. It can be the springboard for your own applications.

exteNd Director ships with a portal application called Express Portal which includes a Portal Web tier.

IMPORTANT: exteNd Director provides a set of accessory portlets. The exteNd Director Portal uses some of these portlets on its default portal pages. If you want to use these default pages as shipped, be sure to include accessory portlets in the portal application projects you create in exteNd Director. If you do not want to include accessory portlets in exteNd Director projects, your portal administrator should modify default portal pages accordingly.

For more information about Express Portal, see About the Express Portal.

For more information To learn how end-users can work with the Portal Web tier, see the chapter on personalizing your portal.

For more information To learn how portal administrators can use the Portal Web tier, see the chapter on administering the portal.

Resource set

Portal applications can include an exteNd Director resource set, which organizes resources used by exteNd Director subsystems, including:

Descriptors for portlets, pages, pageflows, workflows, forms, and rules
Images
WSDL files
XSL style sheets
HTML pages

A key feature of the resource set is that it enables dynamic loading of these resources during development, obviating the need for frequent redeployments and speeding the testing cycle.

For more information To learn more about resource sets, see the sections on managing application resources in Developing exteNd Director Applications.

Shared libraries

Portal applications can use shared libraries, which contain JAR files and classes that encapsulate exteNd Director services. In a shared library environment, these JARs and classes are installed on your application server so they can be shared across all Web applications deployed on that server. It is important to note, however, that only one portal application can be deployed to the application server in a shared library environment.

For more information about shared libraries, see the section about shared library configurations in Developing exteNd Director Applications.

Portal application resources

An exteNd Director portal application can contain a combination of standard J2EE resources along with value-added resources that extend functionality.

J2EE resources The J2EE resources include:

Servlets
JavaServer Pages (JSP pages)
Java utility classes
Custom tag libraries

Value-added resources The exteNd Director value-added resources include:

Resource	Description
Portlets	Java classes that generate dynamic content on portal pages and PID pages. Portlets are governed by the Java Portlet 1.0 specification. When a page is requested at runtime, the Portal Aggregator aggregates and renders the content of all portlets on the page.
Portal pages	Customizable pages whose content is generated by portlets. exteNd Director provides graphical design tools that allow portal administrators and end users to create portal pages. Portal applications can include three types of portal pages: Personal pages Shared pages Container pages NOTE: Unlike the other resources listed in this table, portal pages are not defined at design time within the exteNd Director development environment. Instead, they are created at runtime within a running Portal application. For more information on portal pages, see the chapter on working with portal pages.
PID pages	HTML or XML pages that contain exteNd Director portlets and components (defined by s3-component tags) and therefore require processing by the Portal Aggregator.
Static pages	HTML pages that contain static content.
Style sheets (XSL)	Style sheets that transform XML pages into HTML (or another output format). XSL is reusable for any page that uses the same XML elements.
Themes	Visual characteristics that apply globally to an entire exteNd Director portal application. These settings can potentially change the appearance of portal pages, PID pages, JSP pages, and portlets. Themes provide a simple way to ensure a consistent appearance throughout a portal application.
Layouts	Templates that define how a set of selected portlets should appear on a page. Each personal page, shared page, or container page in an exteNd Director portal application uses a portal layout to specify how the selected portlets and components should be arranged on the page.
Decorators	Java classes that decorate the dynamic content generated by a portlet. The decorator controls the appearance of the title bar, body, and footer for the portlet. The portlet data (the dynamic content) is inserted in the body of the portlet.
Portal options	Images or text links that appear in the title bar of a portlet. Users interact with these controls to change portlet behavior at runtime. exteNd Director ships with several predefined portal options: Reload Pageflow Help Edit Minimize Maximize Restore Remove You can also add your own custom options.
Media	Images, sounds, and other media files required for the application.

Creating a portal application project

To create a project that includes a portal, see the chapter on creating exteNd Director projects in Developing exteNd Director Applications.