Portal Development Guide

Introduction to Portals

What is a Portal?

What is the Portal Framework?

Portal Development and the Portal Life Cycle

Architecture

Development

Staging

Production

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Related Guides

Part I Architecture

Planning Your Portal

Production Operations (Propagation and Deployment)

Portal Development in a Distributed Portal Team

Federated Portals

Security

Content Management

Interaction Management

Performance

Part II Development

Understanding Portal Development

Portal Components

Portal Component Hierarchy

Portal Development Environment in Workshop for WebLogic

WebLogic Portal and Shared J2EE Libraries

File-Based Portals and Streaming Portals

Java Controls in Portals

JSP Tags in Portals

Backing Files

How Backing Files are Executed

Thread Safety and Backing Files

Scoping and Backing Files

Using the Session to Pass Data Between Life Cycle Methods

Backing File Guidelines

Adding a Backing File Using Workshop for WebLogic

Adding the Backing File by Editing the XML File

Page Flows in Portals

State/Session Management

Setting up Your Portal Development Environment

Roadmap for Environment Setup Tasks

WebLogic Domain Configuration Wizard

Portal EAR Project Wizard

New Portal EAR Project – Select Project Facets Dialog

Add and Remove Projects Dialog

Portal Web Project Wizard

New Portal Web Project – Portal Web Project

New Portal Web Project – Select Project Facets dialog

New Portal Web Project - Web Module Dialog

New Portal Web Project - WebLogic Web Module Dialog

Portal Datasync Project Wizard

Portal Datasync Project Wizard - Create New Datasync Project Dialog

Create New Datasync Project – EAR Projects

Using the Merged Projects View

Running a Project on the Server

Customizing a Perspective

Setting WebLogic Portal Preferences in Workshop for WebLogic

Preferences in the WebLogic Portal Section

WebLogic Portal Preferences in the General Section

Upgrading WebLogic Portal Projects to Version 9.2

Version 8.1 Features Not Supported in Version 9.2

Upgrade Considerations and Tips

Command-Based and Ant Task Upgrade Not Supported

Enabling Communities Features in Upgraded Visitor Tools

Upgrading Look & Feels

Upgrading Custom Controls that Have Custom Properties

Upgrading Tuned Thread Pools for Forked Portlets

Upgraded Applications Use Struts 1.1 and Related J2EE Libraries

Changes in Behavior Between Struts 1.1 and 1.2

Ampersand Entities in Portal URLs

Upgrading Individual application-config.xml Files Later

Correcting Duplicate Portlet Category Names Before Propagating an Upgraded Application

Integrating Applications into WebLogic Portal

Integrating an Existing Web Application into Workshop for WebLogic

Integrating Struts Applications

Preparing Your Struts Application for Integration

Refactor

Add Tags if Needed

Override Certain Behaviors of a RequestProcessor

Refactor any Existing Custom Action Servlet

Remove the <html:link> Tag

Integration Steps

Best Practices and Development Issues

Integrating Java Server Faces

JSF and the namingContainer JSP Tag

Integrating Page Flows

Adding Facets to an Existing Project

Other Methods of Integrating an External Web Application into a Portal

User Interface Development with Look & Feel Features

Introduction

Look & Feel File

Skins

Skeletons

Themes

Genes and Chromosomes

Shells

Layouts

Menus

Developing Look & Feels

Using Legacy Look & Feels

Creating a Look & Feel

Working with Skins

Best Practices

About Portlet Title Bar Icons

Working with Skeletons

Working with Themes

Working with Genes

Gene Example

Creating a Chromosome and Genes

Overriding Existing Look & Feels

Themes

Genes

Overriding Shared J2EE Library Look & Feel Resources

Using the Workshop Properties View

Troubleshooting Look & Feels

The Look & Feel Editor

Overview

Navigator View

Style Hierarchy View

Style Description Window

CSS Inheritance

Using the Inherited Styles List

View Area

Outline View

Properties View

Using the Look & Feel API

Working with Shells

Working with Layouts

Creating a Standard Layout

Creating a Custom Layout

The Layout File

Example of a Custom Layout

The Skeleton JSP

The html.txt File

Working with Navigation Menus

Using Images for Page Tabs

Building User Interfaces to Address Accessibility Guidelines

Accessibility Standards and the Internet

Accessibility Checkpoints

Industry Guidelines

Government Regulations and Standards

UNITED STATES

CANADA

UNITED KINGDON

Accessibility Evaluation and Testing Tools

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative

Bobby

Lynx Viewer

Developing Portals Using Workshop for WebLogic

Creating a Portal

Add a Page or Book to Your Portal

Creating a Standalone Book or Page

Adding a Book or Page Reference (Content)

Adding a Book or Page Reference from the Portal Editor

Adding a Book or Page Reference Using the Outline View

Rearranging Books and Pages

Portal Component Properties

Editing Portal Properties

Tips for Using the Properties View

Properties for All Portal Components

Copying J2EE Library Files into a Project

Viewing Files that Override Shared J2EE Library Files

Creating a Utility Project

Custom Controls in Page Flows

Adding a Portal Control to a Page Flow

Adding an Action to the Page Flow

Portal Control Security

Deploy and View a Portal

Working with URLs

Creating URLs to Portal Resources

URL Compression

Implementing URL Compression

URL Compression Special Considerations

URL Compression and AJAX

URL Compression and Off-Site URLs

URL Troubleshooting

URL Templates and Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP)

Ampersand Entities in Portal URLs

Optional Look & Feel URL Templates

Working with Encoding in HTTP Responses

Cache Management in Workshop for WebLogic

Changing Cache Settings in Workshop for WebLogic

Improving WebLogic Server Administration Console Performance on a Managed Server

Behavior of the “Return to Default Page” Attribute

Adding Commerce Services to an Existing Portal Web Project

Visitor Tools Configuration

About Visitor Tools

Enabling Visitor Tools in Workshop for WebLogic

Setting up a Desktop with Visitor Tools Using the Administration Console

Creating Portals for Multiple Device Types

Enabling Multichannel Features in a Portal Web Application

Roadmap for Multichannel Processing

Developing Portals for Use in a Multichannel Environment

Manage Portlet Client Classifications

Use the Client Attribute in JSP Tags

Develop Appropriate Look & Feels

Interaction Management Development

Designing Portals for Optimal Performance

Control Tree Design

How the Control Tree Works

How the Control Tree Affects Performance

Using Multiple Desktops

Why This is a Good Idea

Design Decisions for Using Multiple Desktops

Optimizing the Control Tree

Enabling Control Tree Optimization

Setting the Current Page

How Tree Optimization Works

Multi Level Menus and Control Tree Optimization

Limitations to Using Tree Optimization

Disabling Tree Optimization

Other Ways to Improve Performance

Use Entitlements Judiciously

How Entitlements Affect Performance

Recommendations for Using Entitlements

Limit User Customizations

Optimize Page Flow Session Footprint

Use File-Based Portals for Simple Applications

Why Use a File-based Portal?

Limitations to Using File-based Portals

Create a Production Domain in Development

Optimize Portlet Performance

Obtaining Debug Information

Introduction

Configuring and Enabling Debug

Using Debug in Your WLP Code

Turning Debug Output On and Off

Package-Level Debugging

Directing Output to a File

Reloading Debug Properties

Example debug.properties File

Public WLP Class Debug Reference

WLP Framework Classes with Debug Support

WLP Core Services Classes with Debug Support

WLP Virtual Content Repository Classes with Debug Support

WLP Administration Console Classes with Debug Support

Part III Staging

Managing Portal Desktops

Administration Console Overview

Administration Console Library of Resources

Starting and Logging In to the Administration Console

Opening the Administration Console

Logging In to the Administration Console

Overview of Library Administration

Overview of Portal Administration

Portal Management

Overview of the Library

Desktop Templates

Creating a Desktop Template

Communities

Portal Resources

Updating Portal Resources

Viewing Resources for a Portal Web Application (Update WebApp)

Deleting a Portal Resource

Localizing a Portal Resource

Portals

Creating a Portal

Modifying Portal Properties

Desktops

Creating a Desktop

Disassembling to the Library

Decoupling of Property Settings

Modifying Desktop Properties

Books

Creating a Book

Managing Book Content

Adding Portal Elements to a Book

Positioning or Removing Portal Elements on a Book

Modifying Library Book Properties and Contents

Modifying Desktop Book Properties

Portlets

Copying a Portlet in the Library

Deleting a Portlet

Modifying Library Portlet Properties

Modifying Desktop Portlet Properties

Portlet Preferences

Creating a Portlet Preference

Editing a Portlet Preference

Portlet Categories

Creating a Portlet Category

Adding Portlets to a Portlet Category

Modifying Portlet Category Properties

Look & Feels

Modifying Look & Feel Properties

Shells

Modifying Shell Properties

Themes

Modifying Theme Properties

Menus (Navigation)

Modifying Menu Properties

Layouts

Modifying Layout Properties

Deploying Portals to Production

Shared J2EE Libraries

Shared J2EE Library References in config.xml

Anatomy of a Shared J2EE Library

Overriding Shared J2EE Library Settings in the web.xml File

Servlet Mapping Overrides

Part IV Production

Managing Portals in Production

Pushing Changes from the Library into Production

Transferring Changes from Production Back to Development

Facet-to-Library Reference Tables

WebLogic Portal Facet-to-Library Reference Tables

API Upgrade Cross-Reference

Packages to J2EE Libraries - Cross Reference Table

JAR Files to J2EE Libraries - Cross Reference Table

J2EE Libraries to Packages - Cross Reference Table