Best Practices Guide

This document includes best practices information on BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1.

This document covers the following topics:

Development Strategies, introduces some concepts for developers and architects building portal Web applications.
Configuration and Administration, includes instructions for content management, deployment and configuration of WebLogic Portal 8.1.
Performance, includes information on caching and threading in WebLogic Portal 8.1 applications.

This document is intended for new or existing BEA customers interested in WebLogic Portal 8.1.

BEA product documentation, along with other information about BEA software, is available from the BEA dev2dev Web site:

http://dev2dev.bea.com

To view the documentation for a particular product, select that product from the list on the dev2dev page; the home page for the specified product is displayed. From the menu on the left side of the screen, select Documentation for the appropriate release. The home page for the complete documentation set for the product and release you have selected is displayed.

Readers of this document may find the following documentation and resources especially useful:

For helpful information about programming with the Studio client, see the following books in the WebLogic Integration document set:

Using the WebLogic Integration Studio
BEA WebLogic Integration Javadoc

For general information about Java applications, go to the Sun Microsystems, Inc. Java Web site at http://java.sun.com.
For general information about XML, go to the O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. XML.com Web site at http://www.xml.com.

Your feedback on the BEA WebLogic Portal documentation is important to us. Send us e-mail at docsupport@bea.com if you have questions or comments. Your comments will be reviewed directly by the BEA professionals who create and update the WebLogic Portal documentation.

In your e-mail message, please indicate that you are using the documentation for BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1.

If you have any questions about this version of BEA WebLogic Portal, or if you have problems installing and running BEA WebLogic Portal, contact BEA Customer Support at http://support.bea.com. You can also contact Customer Support by using the contact information provided on the quick reference sheet titled "BEA Customer Support," which is included in the product package.

When contacting Customer Support, be prepared to provide the following information:

Your name, e-mail address, phone number, and fax number
Your company name and company address
Your machine type and authorization codes
The name and version of the product you are using
A description of the problem and the content of pertinent error messages

The following documentation conventions are used throughout this document.

Convention	Item
Ctrl+Tab	Indicates that you must press two or more keys simultaneously.
italics	Indicates emphasis or book titles.
`monospace text`	Indicates user input, as shown in the following examples: Filenames: `config.xml` Pathnames: `BEAHOME/config/examples` Commands: `java -Dbea.home=BEA_HOME` Code: `public TextMsg createTextMsg(`
`monospace text`	Indicates computer output, such as error messages, as shown in the following example: `Exception occurred during event dispatching:java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: No such child: 0`
`monospace boldface text`	Identifies significant words in code. Example: `void` `commit` `( )`
`monospace italic text`	Identifies variables in code. Example: `String` `expr`
`{ }`	Indicates a set of choices in a syntax line. The braces themselves should never be typed.
`[ ]`	Indicates optional items in a syntax line. The brackets themselves should never be typed. Example: `java utils.MulticastTest -n` `name` `[-p` `portnumber]`
`\|`	Separates mutually exclusive choices in a syntax line. The symbol itself should never be typed. Example: java weblogic.deploy [list\|deploy\|update]
`...`	Indicates one of the following in a command line: That an argument can be repeated several times in a command line That the statement omits additional optional arguments That you can enter additional parameters, values, or other information The ellipsis itself should never be typed. Example: `buildobjclient [-v] [-o` `name] [-f "file1.cpp file2.cpp file3.cpp . . ."`
`. . .`	Indicates the omission of items from a code example or from a syntax line. The vertical ellipsis itself should never be typed.