1. How Do You Implement Them?
What are Portlets
and
How Do You Implement Them?
Rima Patel Sriganesh
Technology Evangelist
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

2. Obectives Introduce Portlet components
Provide information on various Portlet standards efforts
Provide a basic how-to understanding about implementing Portlet components

3. Agenda Introduction to Portals and Portlets Portlet Standards
JSR 168
Portlet Specification
WSRP
Web Services for Remote Portals
Sample implemenation of a HelloWorld Portlet
Resources

4. Agenda Introduction to Portals and Portlets Portlet Standards
JSR 168
Portlet Specification
WSRP
Web Services for Remote Portals
Sample implemenation of a HelloWorld Portlet
Resources

5. Portals Portals are becoming a platform for
Integration
Aggregation
Delivery of applications and content through different channels and devices
Portals are common entry point for accessing applications and content

6. Portal Functions Typical portal functions
Authentication and Authorization
Personalization
Customization
Searching
User relationship management
Registration, Profile management, etc.
Single sign-on
Etc.

7. Portal example

8. Portlets Portals comprises of components called Portlets
Alike web components such as Servlets with special properties
Each Portlet produces a markup fragment
that is combined with markup generated by other portlets, all within a portal page markup
Designed to be aggregatable in larger context of a portal page

9. Portlet Context Managed by host Portal
Provides information pertaining to
User profile
Individual portlet instance data
Portlet settings
UI related
Portlet Window State (Min, Max, etc.)
Portlet Modes (View, edit, configuration, help, etc.)
Portlet Events (actions)

10. Portlet example
If clicked on Edit, Portlet would generate appropriate EVENT and Perform appropriate ACTION
UI related settings
* Portlet is currently in View mode
* Many such portlet components are invoked in a single request for a Portal page

11. Positioning of Portlet
An important Service Delivery architectural component
Other Service Delivery architectural components
Java Server Pages (JSPTM)
Application Frameworks
Iplanet JATO/JSF (JSR 127)
Struts, etc.

12. Agenda Introduction to Portals and Portlets Portlet Standards
JSR 168
Portlet Specification
WSRP
Web Services for Remote Portals
Sample implemenation of a HelloWorld Portlet
Resources

13. JSR 168 Portlet Specification
Aims towards
Enabling interoperability between Portals and Portlets
Defining a set of APIs for addressing different areas of Portal computing
Aggregation
Personalization
Presentation
Security
Based on JavaTM Servlet API

14. JSR 168 Portlet Invocation Model
Portal
Page
Servlet
EJBs
Action
Local Portlet
Connectors
Local Portlet
J2EE APIs
Web Services
Local Portlet
Servlet API
Portlet API
Portlet Container
Portlet Context
Registries, Directories, Security and Content Management
Infrastructure

15. Specification Areas JSR 168 will provide lifecycle and semantics for
Portlets
Deployment Descriptor
Developer APIs
Vendor Extension APIs for security, user customization and layout management

16. States defined
JSR 168 defines a minimum set of possible states for a portlet
Normal
Minimized
Maximized

17. Design Goals JSR 168 will try to achieve following design goals
Client agnostic
Support for multiple types of clients (multi- device)
Simple Portlet API
Support for Localization and Internationalization

18. Design Goals (Contd.)
Hot deployment and re-deployment of Portal applications
Declarative security (similar to that of Servlet and EJBTM)
Architected to support remote execution of Portlets

19. Support for Portlet Context
JSR 168 would provide APIs so that Portlets can perform contextual tasks
Accessing user profile information for the current user
Participation in portal window and action event model
Accessing web client information
Sharing information with other Portlets
Storing/retrieving per-user/per-instance Portlet data persistently

20. URL Rewriting Support
JSR 168 will support URL Rewriting mechanism so that
Links within a Portlet would be able to trigger actions
without requiring knowledge of how URLs are structured in a particular web application

21. Portlet Deployment Portlets would be grouped in a Portal application
by bundling them in a single WAR
with a Portlet deployment descriptor
Portlet API will provide means for sharing data among portlets of the same Portal application

22. Support for Remote Portlets
JSR 168 would allow support for remote Portlet execution
Will not address transport protocol for remote execution of Portlets leaving specifics to Portal implementations
For e.g. A static Portlet proxy could be used to invoke a remote Portlet
OR can rely on WSRP mechanisms for invoking remote Portlets

23. Goals for consideration
JSR 167 Expert Group will decide whether to support specialized Portlet implementations for
Syndication (based on RSS)
Web Services access
Credential mapping service (somewhat akin to SSO)

24. Schedule and other information
Release of 1.0 specification expected in in December, 2002
Proposed package namespace javax.servlet.portlet
An extension to J2EETM 1.4 platform

25. Agenda Introduction to Portals and Portlets Portlet Standards
JSR 168
Portlet Specification
WSRP
Web Services for Remote Portals
Sample implemenation of a HelloWorld Portlet
Resources

26. WSRP Aimed towards defining a protocol for
Enabling interactive, user-facing web services to be easily plugged into standards compliant portals
Making internet a marketplace of visual web services, ready to be integrated into portals
Effort began in January 2002
WSRP Specification 1.0 and compliance Test Kit in December 2002

27. Portal Architecture and WSRP
Portal Server
Clients
Local Portlets
HTML WML VoiceXML...
HTTP
Portlet API
Generic Portlet Proxies
Other Portals
WSRP
Remote Portlets
WSRP
Pubish/Find Web Services (SOAP)
UDDI Registry

28. WSRP Service Lifecycle
UDDI Registry
WSRP Services
Register
Bind
Find
Portal
Client
Request

29. WSRP Plug-n-Play

30. Scope
WSRP will define
A WSDL interface description for invocation of WSRP services
Ways to Publish, Find and Bind WSRP services and their metadata
Markup fragment rules for markup emitted by WSRP services
Applicable Security mechanisms, Billing mechanisms, etc.

31. Business Scenarios supported
Content/Application Provider providing WSRP Service
Portal publishing Portlets as WSRP Services
Provision of syndicated Content/Billing/Mobility services via WSRP
Multimedia portals
Enterprise Application services

32. Scenario Content/Application provider providing WSRP service
Client
Portals can aggregate presentation from many WSRP services
WSRP Services can be portal context aware
User profile from portal
Desired locale and markup- type
User's device constraints UI
WSRP Consumer
Portal
Mark-up fragment transferred via SOAP
WSRP Producer

33. Scenario Portals publishing Portlets as WSRP Service
Multiple clients
WSRP Consumer
WSRP Producer
WSRP Wrapper
Server Portal
Portlet
Portal
Portlet
Portlet
Intermediary Portal
Publishing Portal
Admin of Publishing portal publishes portlet as WSRP service to a UDDI registry
Admin of Intermediary portal finds WSRP service through a UDDI browser and binds to it
Clients of Intermediary portal select remote portlets like any local portlet to put on their page

34. Interaction between Portal and WSRP
User
WSRP Consumer
WSRP Producer
Allocate new Instance
Adds Portlet
Create Portlet Instance I
Generate Markup
Views Portlet
Get Portlet Markup I I S A
Action Handling
Clicks Portlet
Perform Portlet Action A S I I S A
Destroy Instance
Removes Portlet
Destroy Portlet Instance I I

35. WSRP/WSIA Common Interfaces
Share common interfaces for
Basic life-cycle operations
Basic operations for processing actions and getting markup

36. WSRP Interfaces Define interfaces for Advanced life-cycle operations
Advanced operations for processing actions/getting markup pertaining to
User profile information contained in requests
Device information contained in requests
Locale information contained in requests

37. WSRP Protocol
Defines protocol of interaction between portal and services
Caching considerations
Contract for handling instances and sessions
Order in which to invoke operations

38. WSRP Publish / Find / Bind / Metadata
Defines method used to publish/find services to and from UDDI
Defines metadata to be provided when publishing service
Name, Titles, Descriptions
Supported Markups/Locales
Caching hints

39. WSRP Markup Fragment Rules/Styles
Define valid markup fragments for
XHTML/HTML
WML/cHTML/VoiceXML (Second prirority)
Define URL Rewriting

40. WSRP and Security, Identity, Single Sign-On (SSO)
Define how security mechanisms can be employed with WSRP
Define how identity is to be provided by consumers to producers
Define how SSO via a consumer to multiple producers may be achieved

41. Agenda Introduction to Portals and Portlets Portlet Standards
JSR 168
Portlet Specification
WSRP
Web Services for Remote Portals
Sample implemenation of a HelloWorld Portlet
Resources

42. HelloWorldPortlet Example Sample Implementation uses JetSpeed
Import org.apache.jetspeed.portal.portlets.AbstractPortlet; ...
public class HelloWorldPortlet extends AbstractPortlet { public ConcreteElement getContent (RunData objRunData) { return (new StringElement ("Hello World!!") } }
* ConcreteElement is an Apache ECS (Element Construction Set, an object based markup generator) class
* RunData -> Turbine Class. Would be used later.
Source:

43. HelloWorldPortlet Registration To JetSpeed Portlets Registry
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <registry> <portlet-entry name="HelloWorld" hidden="false" type="instance" application="false"> <meta-info> <title>HelloWorld</title> <description> Portlet How To Example 1 – Hello World </description> </meta-info> <classname>HelloWorldPortlet</classname> <media-type ref="html"/> </portlet-entry> </registry>
Source:

44. Customize portal page to add HelloWorldPortlet
Source:

45. Personalizing Hello!
public class HelloWorldPortlet extends AbstractPortlet { public ConcreteElement getContent (RunData objRunData) { StringBuffer objStringBuffer = new StringBuffer(); objStringBuffer.append("Hello "); String sName = objRunData.getUser(). getFirstName(); objStringBuffer.append (sName + "!"); return (new StringElement (objStringBuffer.toString()); } }
Source:

46. Soft-coding Personalized Hello!
public class NewsPortlet extends AbstractPortlet { public ConcreteElement getContent (RunData objRunData) { objStringBuffer.append(getPortletConfig(). getInitParameter ("greeting")); } }
Configure parameters for this Portlet in Jetspeed Configuration file (jetspeed-config.jcfg)
<portlet-entry ....> <classname>HelloWorldPortlet</classname> <parameter name="greeting" value = "Hello, " /> </portlet-entry>
Source:

47. RunData and User RunData object provides access to
Servlet Request object
Other session context information
Security, Turbine Actions, Cookies, Servlet Parameters (parsed), Current user (via getUser() as shown), etc.
User object is used to access typical user information
Name, contact information, password, login information, etc.

48. Resources JSR 168 http://www.jcp.org/jsr/detail/168.jsp
SunTM ONE Portal Server tml
WSRP and OASIS
WSRP and XML Cover Pages

49. code/articles/links/chats/resources
In pursuit of the best software in the universe
All presentations
Audiocasts
Codecamp materials
Technology briefings
code/articles/links/chats/resources

50. Rima Patel Sriganesh