Querying data about your environment

You can use the AdminPortletModel interface to find out more information about your portal installation, things like what all Web applications are installed on your portal, the PortletDefintions means all the portlets installed on your portal. I built this sample portlet to demonstrate that

package com.wpcertification.spi;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.Locale;

import javax.naming.InitialContext;
import javax.naming.NamingException;
import javax.portlet.GenericPortlet;
import javax.portlet.PortletException;
import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;
import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import com.ibm.portal.ModelException;
import com.ibm.portal.model.PortletModelHome;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.PortletDefinition;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.WebApplication;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.admin.AdminPortletModel;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.admin.PortletDefinitionList;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.admin.WebApplicationList;

public class PortletDeflistPortlet extends GenericPortlet{

 PortletModelHome portletModelHome;
 
 public void init() throws PortletException {
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.init()");
  try {
   InitialContext context = new InitialContext();
   portletModelHome =(PortletModelHome) context.lookup("portal:service/model/PortletModel");
   System.out.println("PortletModelHome " + portletModelHome);
  } catch (NamingException e) {
   e.printStackTrace(System.out);
  }
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.init()");
 }

 protected void doView(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response)
   throws PortletException, IOException {
  response.setContentType("text/html");
  response.getWriter().println("**************** Portlet Web Applications ************
");
  printPortletApplicationList(request,response);
  response.getWriter().println("**************** Portlet Definitions ************
");
  
  printPortletDefinitionList(request,response);
  response.getWriter().println("**********************************************************************
");
 }

 public void printPortletApplicationList(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response){
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
  try {
   AdminPortletModel  adminModel = portletModelHome.getPortletModelProvider().getAdminPortletModel((HttpServletRequest)request, (HttpServletResponse)response);
   WebApplicationList webApplicationList = adminModel.getWebApplicationList();
   
   Iterator webAppIt = webApplicationList.iterator();
   while(webAppIt.hasNext()){
    WebApplication webApplication = (WebApplication)webAppIt.next();
    response.getWriter().println(webApplication.getObjectID() +" " +webApplication.getContextRoot() +"
");
   }
  }  catch (ModelException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  } catch (IOException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  System.out.println("Exiting PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
 }

 public void printPortletDefinitionList(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response){
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
  try {
   AdminPortletModel  adminModel = portletModelHome.getPortletModelProvider().getAdminPortletModel((HttpServletRequest)request, (HttpServletResponse)response);
   PortletDefinitionList portletDefinitionList = adminModel.getPortletDefinitionList();
   
   Iterator portletDefinitionIt = portletDefinitionList.iterator();
   while(portletDefinitionIt.hasNext()){
    PortletDefinition portletDefinition = portletDefinitionIt.next();
    response.getWriter().println(portletDefinition.getObjectID().toString() +" " + portletDefinition.getObjectID().getUniqueName() +" " + portletDefinition.getTitle(new Locale("en","US"))+" " + portletDefinition.getDescription(new Locale("en","US")) +"
");
   }
  }  catch (ModelException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  } catch (IOException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  System.out.println("Exiting PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
 }
 
}

Finding uniqueName from ObjectId of the portlet and other way round

When your working with Portal Model then you might need a way to figure out unique name of the portlet from its ObjectId and other way. I built this POC to do that. In

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Iterator;

import javax.naming.InitialContext;
import javax.naming.NamingException;
import javax.portlet.GenericPortlet;
import javax.portlet.PortletException;
import javax.portlet.PortletRequest;
import javax.portlet.PortletResponse;
import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;
import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import com.ibm.portal.ModelException;
import com.ibm.portal.ObjectID;
import com.ibm.portal.model.PortletModelHome;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.PortletDefinition;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.admin.AdminPortletModel;
import com.ibm.portal.portletmodel.admin.PortletDefinitionList;

public class PortletUniqueNamePortlet extends GenericPortlet{
 PortletModelHome portletModelHome;
 
 public void init() throws PortletException {
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.init()");
  try {
   InitialContext context = new InitialContext();
   portletModelHome =(PortletModelHome) context.lookup("portal:service/model/PortletModel");
   System.out.println("PortletModelHome " + portletModelHome);
  } catch (NamingException e) {
   e.printStackTrace(System.out);
  }
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.init()");
 }

 protected void doView(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response)
   throws PortletException, IOException {
  response.setContentType("text/html");
  response.getWriter().println("Object Id of the sitemap portlet " + getObjectIdOfPortlet(request, response, "wps.p.Sitemap"));
  response.getWriter().println("
Unique Name of the sitemap portlet " + getUniqueNameOfPortlet(request, response, getObjectIDStr(getObjectIdOfPortlet(request, response, "wps.p.Sitemap"))));
  
 }
 
 public static String getObjectIDStr(ObjectID objectID){
  String temp = objectID.toString();
  int firstInd = temp.indexOf("'");
  String result = temp.substring(firstInd+1, temp.indexOf("'", firstInd+1 ));
  return result;
 }
 
 public ObjectID getObjectIdOfPortlet(PortletRequest request, PortletResponse response, String portletUniqueName){
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
  try {
   AdminPortletModel  adminModel = portletModelHome.getPortletModelProvider().getAdminPortletModel((HttpServletRequest)request, (HttpServletResponse)response);
   PortletDefinition portletDef = adminModel.getPortletDefinitionList().getLocator().findByUniqueName(portletUniqueName);
   return portletDef.getObjectID();
  }  catch (ModelException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  System.out.println("Exiting PortalPOCPortlet.getObjectIdOfPortlet()");
  return null;
 }
 
 public String getUniqueNameOfPortlet(PortletRequest request, PortletResponse response, String portletObjectId){
  System.out.println("Entering PortalPOCPortlet.getUniqueNameOfPortlet()");
  try {
   AdminPortletModel  adminModel = portletModelHome.getPortletModelProvider().getAdminPortletModel((HttpServletRequest)request, (HttpServletResponse)response);
   PortletDefinitionList portletDefinitionList = adminModel.getPortletDefinitionList();
   Iterator portletDefinitionIterator = portletDefinitionList.iterator();
   while(portletDefinitionIterator.hasNext()){
    PortletDefinition portletDefinition = portletDefinitionIterator.next();
    String currentObjectIdStr = getObjectIDStr(portletDefinition.getObjectID()); 
    if(currentObjectIdStr.equals(portletObjectId)){
     return portletDefinition.getObjectID().getUniqueName(); 
    }
   }
  }  catch (ModelException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  System.out.println("Not able to find portlet for given portletObjectId");
  return null;
 }
}

Redirecting user on login

One of the reader posted a comment, asking how do i redirect user as soon as they login based on some condition, so i changed my SampleExplicitLoginFilter like this

public class SampleExplicitLoginFilter implements ExplicitLoginFilter{

 public void login(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response,
   String userId, char[] password, FilterChainContext portalLoginContext, Subject subject,
   String realm, ExplicitLoginFilterChain chain) throws LoginException,
   WSSecurityException, PasswordInvalidException,
   UserIDInvalidException, AuthenticationFailedException,
   AuthenticationException, SystemLoginException,
   com.ibm.portal.auth.exceptions.LoginException {
  System.out.println("Entering SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()");
  
  System.out.println("User Id " + userId);
  System.out.println("Password " + String.valueOf(password));
  System.out.println("Realm" + realm);

  chain.login(request, response, userId, password, portalLoginContext, subject, realm);
  if(request.getRemoteUser().equals("wasadmin"))
   portalLoginContext.setRedirectURL("/wps/myportal/Administration");
  System.out.println("Exiting SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()");
 }
 public void destroy() {
 }
 public void init(SecurityFilterConfig arg0)
   throws SecurityFilterInitException {
 }

}

I am checking if the remote user is wasdmin if yes i am redirecting him to /wps/myportal/Administration page.

Creating loginfilter for WebSphere Portal

The portal authentication filters are a set of plug-in points. You can use them to intercept or extend the portal login, logout, session timeout, and request processing by custom code, for example to redirect users to a specific URL.

The New Security API in WebSphere Portal talks about various ways to extend the login process. I wanted to play with the LoginFilters so i followed simple steps to build this solution

First i did create SampleExplicityLoginFilter java class like this

public class SampleExplicitLoginFilter implements ExplicitLoginFilter{

 public void login(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response,
   String userId, char[] password, FilterChainContext portalLoginContext, Subject subject,
   String realm, ExplicitLoginFilterChain chain) throws LoginException,
   WSSecurityException, PasswordInvalidException,
   UserIDInvalidException, AuthenticationFailedException,
   AuthenticationException, SystemLoginException,
   com.ibm.portal.auth.exceptions.LoginException {
  System.out.println("Entering SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()");
  
  System.out.println("User Id " + userId);
  System.out.println("Password " + String.valueOf(password));
  System.out.println("Realm" + realm);

  chain.login(request, response, userId, password, portalLoginContext, subject, realm);
  System.out.println("Exiting SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()");
 }
 public void destroy() {
 }
 public void init(SecurityFilterConfig arg0)
   throws SecurityFilterInitException {
 }

}

This class only reads the userId and password and prints it in the System.out and lets control go to next step.

Similarly i did create a Sample Filter for each of the other interfaces and you can download the sample application from here

Then i built that project and copied it into the PortalServer/shared/app directory. I went to WAS Admin Console and configured all my sample login filters like this.



After that i had to restart my server but after restart when i tried login into portal i could see that i was able to get control in the LoginFilter and write userId and password used by user while login in to System.out like this

[12/17/09 10:52:51:198 PST] 0000002e SystemOut     O Entering SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()
[12/17/09 10:52:51:198 PST] 0000002e SystemOut     O User Id wasadmin
[12/17/09 10:52:51:198 PST] 0000002e SystemOut     O Password password
[12/17/09 10:52:51:198 PST] 0000002e SystemOut     O Realmnull
[12/17/09 10:52:51:245 PST] 0000002e SystemOut     O Exiting SamplExplicitLoginFilter.login()

WebSphere Portal 6.1.5 ships with Dojo 1.3.2

Starting from version 6.1.5 WebSphere Portal ships with Dojo 1.3.2 in addition to Dojo version 1.1.1. Starting from portal 6.1 dojo version 1.1.1 is shiped as part of the wps.ear, to be precise it is in wp_profile\installedApps\sunpa\wps.ear\wps.war\themes\dojo\portal_dojo folder, IBM kept it as it is.

In order to include Dojo 1.3.2 they create a Dojo_Resources.ear file which has 1.3.2 version of the dojo



The Dojo_Resources.ear has new version of dojo and few additional dojo classes created by IBM, these classes implement some of the IBM's client side logic. This enterprise application does not have any java classes so its used only for making dojo resources accessible.



As you can see the Dojo_Resources.war is available at /portal_dojo path. The dojo client side theme loads dojo from this path



As you can see the value of baseUrl property in the djConfig is /portal_dojo/dojo/, that means dojo is loaded from this location. You can see that even the tundra.css or other dijit related resources are loaded from Dojo_Resources.war.



You can verify the dojo version by looking at dojo.version properties. As you can see we are using 1.3.2 version

Implementation of GenericPortlet

My first impression of specification document is that it will be very complicated and only very few people or someone who is developing portlet engine will be able to understand it but surprisingly both Portlet Specification 2.0 and Portlet Specification 1.0 are very well written document.

What i like to do is download the portlet specification, which has a .pdf document describing specification and a src.zip file. This file has source code for javax.portlet files, or the Java classes/interfaces defined by the specification. Reading through these documents gives us a very good understanding of the specification.

Take a look at GenericPortlet.java that is part of src.zip which give us very good understanding of default portal implementation, Ex. doDispatch(), how the resource serving or action processing work

package javax.portlet;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
public abstract class GenericPortlet implements Portlet, PortletConfig, EventPortlet, ResourceServingPortlet {

 private transient PortletConfig config;

 private transient Map processActionHandlingMethodsMap = new HashMap();
 private transient Map processEventHandlingMethodsMap = new HashMap();
 private transient Map renderModeHandlingMethodsMap = new HashMap();
 public GenericPortlet() {
 }
 public void init(PortletConfig config) throws PortletException {
  this.config = config;
  cacheAnnotatedMethods();
  this.init();
 }
 public void init() throws PortletException {
 }

 public void processAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response) throws PortletException,
   java.io.IOException {
  String action = request.getParameter(ActionRequest.ACTION_NAME);

  try {
   // check if action is cached
   Method actionMethod = processActionHandlingMethodsMap.get(action);
   if (actionMethod != null) {
    actionMethod.invoke(this, request, response);
    return;
   }
  } catch (Exception e) {
   throw new PortletException(e);
  }

  // if no action processing method was found throw exc
  throw new PortletException("processAction method not implemented");
 }
 public void render(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, java.io.IOException {
  Object renderPartAttrValue = request.getAttribute(RenderRequest.RENDER_PART);
  if (renderPartAttrValue != null) {
   // streaming portal calling
   if (renderPartAttrValue.equals(RenderRequest.RENDER_HEADERS)) {
    doHeaders(request, response);
    Collection nextModes = getNextPossiblePortletModes(request);
    if (nextModes != null)
     response.setNextPossiblePortletModes(nextModes);
    response.setTitle(getTitle(request));
   } else if (renderPartAttrValue.equals(RenderRequest.RENDER_MARKUP)) {
    doDispatch(request, response);
   } else {
    throw new PortletException("Unknown value of the 'javax.portlet.render_part' request attribute");
   }
  } else {
   // buffered portal calling
   doHeaders(request, response);
   Collection nextModes = getNextPossiblePortletModes(request);
   if (nextModes != null)
    response.setNextPossiblePortletModes(nextModes);
   response.setTitle(getTitle(request));
   doDispatch(request, response);
  }
 }

 protected java.lang.String getTitle(RenderRequest request) {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getResourceBundle(request.getLocale()).getString("javax.portlet.title");
 }

 
 protected void doDispatch(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException,
   java.io.IOException {
  WindowState state = request.getWindowState();

  if (!state.equals(WindowState.MINIMIZED)) {
   PortletMode mode = request.getPortletMode();
   // first look if there are methods annotated for
   // handling the rendering of this mode
   try {
    // check if mode is cached
    Method renderMethod = renderModeHandlingMethodsMap.get(mode.toString());
    if (renderMethod != null) {
     renderMethod.invoke(this, request, response);
     return;
    }
   } catch (Exception e) {
    throw new PortletException(e);
   }

   // if not, try the default doXYZ methods
   if (mode.equals(PortletMode.VIEW)) {
    doView(request, response);
   } else if (mode.equals(PortletMode.EDIT)) {
    doEdit(request, response);
   } else if (mode.equals(PortletMode.HELP)) {
    doHelp(request, response);
   } else {
    throw new PortletException("unknown portlet mode: " + mode);
   }
  }
 }


 protected void doView(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, java.io.IOException {
  throw new PortletException("doView method not implemented");
 }


 protected void doEdit(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, java.io.IOException {
  throw new PortletException("doEdit method not implemented");
 }


 protected void doHelp(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, java.io.IOException {
  throw new PortletException("doHelp method not implemented");
 }


 public PortletConfig getPortletConfig() {
  return config;
 }

 public void destroy() {
  // do nothing
 }
 public String getPortletName() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getPortletName();
 }
 public PortletContext getPortletContext() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getPortletContext();
 }

 public java.util.ResourceBundle getResourceBundle(java.util.Locale locale) {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getResourceBundle(locale);
 }


 public String getInitParameter(java.lang.String name) {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getInitParameter(name);
 }


 public java.util.Enumeration getInitParameterNames() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getInitParameterNames();
 }

 public Enumeration getProcessingEventQNames() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getProcessingEventQNames();
 }

 public Enumeration getPublishingEventQNames() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getPublishingEventQNames();
 }

 public Enumeration getSupportedLocales() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getSupportedLocales();
 }
 public Map getContainerRuntimeOptions() {
  return config.getContainerRuntimeOptions();
 }

 public void serveResource(ResourceRequest request, ResourceResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException {
  if (request.getResourceID() != null) {
   PortletRequestDispatcher rd = getPortletConfig().getPortletContext().getRequestDispatcher(
     request.getResourceID());
   if (rd != null)
    rd.forward(request, response);
  }
 }

 public void processEvent(EventRequest request, EventResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException {
  String eventName = request.getEvent().getQName().toString();

  try {
   // check for exact match
   Method eventMethod = processEventHandlingMethodsMap.get(eventName);
   if (eventMethod != null) {
    eventMethod.invoke(this, request, response);
    return;
   } else {
    // Search for the longest possible matching wildcard annotation
    int endPos = eventName.indexOf('}');
    int dotPos = eventName.lastIndexOf('.');
    while (dotPos > endPos) {
     String wildcardLookup = eventName.substring(0, dotPos + 1);
     eventMethod = processEventHandlingMethodsMap.get(wildcardLookup);
     if (eventMethod != null) {
      eventMethod.invoke(this, request, response);
      return;
     }
     if (dotPos == 0) {
      break;
     }
     dotPos = eventName.lastIndexOf('.', dotPos - 1);
    }
   }
  } catch (Exception e) {
   throw new PortletException(e);
  }

  // if no event processing method was found just keep render params
  response.setRenderParameters(request);
 }

 protected void doHeaders(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) {
  return;
 }


 protected java.util.Collection getNextPossiblePortletModes(RenderRequest request) {
  return null;
 }

 public Enumeration getPublicRenderParameterNames() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getPublicRenderParameterNames();
 }


 public String getDefaultNamespace() {
  if (config == null)
   throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
     "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

  return config.getDefaultNamespace();
 }

 private void cacheAnnotatedMethods() {
  // cache all annotated and visible public methods
  for (Method method : this.getClass().getMethods()) {
   Annotation[] annotations = method.getAnnotations();
   if (annotations != null) {
    for (Annotation annotation : annotations) {
     Class annotationType = annotation.annotationType();
     if (ProcessAction.class.equals(annotationType)) {
      String name = ((ProcessAction) annotation).name();
      if (name != null && name.length() > 0)
       processActionHandlingMethodsMap.put(name, method);
     } else if (ProcessEvent.class.equals(annotationType)) {
      String qname = ((ProcessEvent) annotation).qname();
      if (qname == null || qname.length() <= 0) {
       if (config == null)
        throw new java.lang.IllegalStateException(
          "Config is null, please ensure that your init(config) method calls super.init(config)");

       String name = ((ProcessEvent) annotation).name();
       if (name != null && name.length() > 0) {
        qname = new QName(config.getDefaultNamespace(), name).toString();
        processEventHandlingMethodsMap.put(qname, method);
       }
      } else
       processEventHandlingMethodsMap.put(qname, method);
     } else if (RenderMode.class.equals(annotationType)) {
      String name = ((RenderMode) annotation).name();
      if (name != null && name.length() > 0)
       renderModeHandlingMethodsMap.put(name.toLowerCase(), method);
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}

Spring Web Application, loading classes from classpath

Recently i had to break my big Spring Portlet Application into smaller pieces and move some of the code to shared library so that it can be used by multiple web application. Actually in my case Portlet Skin, which is part of wps.war needed access to same beans as that of my portlet.

What i did to solve this problem is i created a new Java Project and moved my DAO classes along with the Spring configuration for DAO classes to that java project, the jar file built by that java project would go in shared lib. Since the spring configuration files were copied to root of the shared library my Skin could load those classes by using ClassPathXmlApplicationContext like this


new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(new String[]{"dao.xml","dao1.xml","dao2.xml"})


But how do i include the dao.xmls while creating WebApplicationContext. In Spring Portlet MVC framework the org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener is used for reading value of contextConfigLocation Web Application Context parameter and then reads all those Spring configuration files into Web Application COntext. Normally WebApplication Context looks for the configuration files in WEB-INF directory. In my case dao.xml is not part of web application so it was throwing file not found error.

I was able to solve that problem by appending classpath: instead of file name. When i do that the Spring framework starts using ClasspathResourceLoader instead of WebApplicationResourceLoader for loading configuration file. And ClasspathResourceLoader is capable of reading files from the classpath, which is shared lib

<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>classpath:dao.xml,classpath:dao1.xml,classpath:dao2.xml</param-value>
</context-param>


Sharing ApplicationContext in Spring MVC and Non Spring MVC Portlet

In my project i had this interesting problem that i have one Portlet Application, which has 4 portlets now 3 of the portlets are using Spring MVC framework but the fourth portlet does not use Spring Portlet MVC framework instead it extends GenericPortlet. All my 4 portlets use same DAO and other classes and i am using Spring for wiring my DAOs

Problem was that how do i obtain ApplicationContext for the portlet that is not Spring Portlet MVC or how do i get access to ApplicationContext object.


PortletApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(getPortletContext())


You can use PortletApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext() method, which is static method anywhere in your web application code to get access to ApplicationContext created by the ContextLoaderListener in your class.

Improved version of enable-develop-mode-startup-performance

WebSphere Portal has concept of Development mode for some time, basic idea is to improve the startup time of portal by delaying the startup of application. The application should be started when it is accessed for first time instead of starting it at the server startup time. As per Marshal Lamb there are close to 75 portlets for administrating portal and some of the companies dont use Portal Admin Console in certain environments such as Production.

When working in Portlet developer role i dont use Portal Admin Console as much, most of my work revolves around updating the portlet application which i can do easily using RAD and RAD makes use of xmlaccess and wsadmin script so i dont need any of the Admin portlets.

WebSphere Portal provides enable-develop-mode-startup-performance to enable development mode and disable-develop-mode-startup-performance task to disable development mode. This part is same as that of WPS 6.1, what has changed is that now this task works more gracefully, before it use to disable Portal Help, Portlet palette, Personalization. As part of WPS 6.1.5, IBM did test this feature to make sure that everything works properly.

I tried using development mode on WPS 6.1.5 and now it works really well. I havent run into any problems so far.

Assiging UniqueName to Skin

I had this business requirement in which i had to assign a unique name to my skin. In order to do that i followed these steps

1. First copy the skin folder say Test Folder into your wp_profile\installedApps\sunpa\wps.ear\wps.war\skins\html folder.


2. Next define the Skin using Themes and Skins Admin portlet


3. Export full portal and find out the Skin element for test, you will notice that portal has assigned a objectid to skin. Copy that element in separate file and add uniqueName attribute to it and import it into portal using xmlaccess
   
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" build="wp6103_201_01" type="update" version="6.1.0.3" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_6.1.0.2.xsd">
<portal action="locate">
<skin action="update" active="true" default="false" domain="rel" objectid="K_8000CB1A08N4C0IKUIQTT60000" resourceroot="Test" type="default" uniquename="wps.skin.TestSkin">
<localedata locale="en">
<title>Test</title>
</localedata>
</skin>
</portal>
</request>

   

Jar Class finder Eclipse Plugin

The Jar Class Finder is a must have eclipse plug-in for all the WebSphere developer. Every now and then we run into NoClassDefFound error, the JAR class finder utility helps in those scenarios in finding the class.

First download and install the JAR class finder eclipse plug-in in your IDE by following the instructions on the download page.

Once it is installed icon of eye will appear in your Eclipse IDE toolbar, click on that icon to get Jar Class finder dialog box. Enter name of the class and the classpath where you want to find it like this


Click on Find it will take few minutes to find the JAR file that contains the class that your looking for and list out all the .jar files that contain the class like this

Accessing Database using Eclipse/ Rational Application Developer

If your someone like me who is using Eclipse/ RAD for most of the development work and want to connect to database then you might want to consider using Database development perspective in Eclipe/RAD. The database perspective allows you to work with any database using JDBC. It is almost same in both Eclipse and RAD. I took these screen shots in Eclipse Galileo but the basics remain same in RAD.

In my case i am using Apache Derby database and i wanted to work with it. Before i do that i will have to configure the Derby driver. These are the steps that you can follow to configure and use your database

1. In your IDE click on Windows -< Preferences and it will open preferences window. In the preferences window click on Data -< Connectivity -< Driver definitions.
   
   
   


2. Click on Add and it will open New Driver Definition dialog box like this. Since i want to connect to Network version of Apache Derby 10.2, i will select it like this
   
   


3. As you can see when we select the Derby Client JDBC Driver, it is giving an error message "Unable to locate JAR/zip in file system as specified by the driver definition: derbyclient.jar.", that is because Eclipse is not able to find the .jar file containing the database driver for Apache Derby.
   
4. Switch to the Jar list tab like this, on this tab you will notice that derbyclient.jar is already added but it is not pointing to actual file on your machine so remove empty derbyclient.jar and add the derbyclient.jar on your machine like this
   
   


5. Save your changes and it will take you back to the Driver definitions list, Since i configured only Apache Derby so far, it is listed here. If you want to connect to additional databases configure them over here.
   
   

Now once the Database driver is configured, next step is to configure Database connection follow these steps for that.

1. Switch to Database development perspective and in the Datasource Explorer view click on New Connection Profile to get Connection Profile dialog like this
   
   


2. On the next page configure your database connection properties such as DB Name, user id password, same properties as you will use to connect to that database using JDBC.
   
   


3. After setting properties, click on Test Connection button to verify that your actually able to connect to database. If everything works fine click on Finish


4. Once the connection is open you should be will get a view like this, you can use the SQL scrapbook to write one or more query and execute them against the database or you can use database explorer view to explore the database structure.
   
   
   

Whats new in Websphere Portal 615

Today morning i did attend the Whats new in WebSphere Portal 6.1.5 call. It was bit early for west coast time zone (7.00 AM) but it was really good.

Marshal Lamb, who is Senior technical staff member was the main speaker in this call, He talked about how IBM WebSphere Portal is used by lots of user facing internet site (Search for /wps/portal in Google and you will find quite few sites) and IBM is planning to make it easier for them to build internet facing sites using WebSphere Portal.

It seems that IBM has made lot of investment in improving IBM's Worplace web content management solution from the perspective of end user, content authors and also for companies by providing lot of pre-built templates. They added social computing by giving support for Blogs and Wikis built on top of IBM' WWCM. The integration in WWCM and portal is much more tighter now. They are also investing on newer technologies such as widgets now widgets are primary citizens in the WebSphere portal world.

In all it seems that WPS 6.1.5 is really cool and seems to have lot of features that we were waiting for. Marshal also indicated that there might be a new version of portal sometime in 2010.

I did install WPS 615 on my machine yesterday and now i am planning to try out some of the newer features

The Client side aggreagation theme works in IE 8 and Firefox 3.5

One of the major problem with the WPS 6.1 was that it ships with Dojo 1.1 and since Dojo 1.1 does not work with Internet Explorer 8 or Mozilla's Firefox 3.5, If you tried using the client side aggregation (CSA) theme it use to throw the this browser is not supported error and it use to automatically switch the theme to Server side aggregation (SSA) theme.

Starting with WPS 6.1.5 the Portal ships Dojo 1.3.2 version and as a result the CSA theme works in both Internet Explorer 8.0 and Mozilla Firefox 3.5




As you can see i am using Firefox 3.5.5 (3.6 beta) and you can see that i am using a CSA theme and portal is making call ATOM service to get parts of the theme.



This is my screen shot of Client side aggregation theme being used in Internet Explorer 8 and as you can see i dont have to switch to the compatibility mode (IE 8 has concept of compatibility mode, if the website that your accessing is not compatible with IE 8 then you can switch into compatibility mode and IE 8 will behave like IE7)

Describe the purpose for log files created during installation, maintenance, and operation of the portal

The installation logs are located in the /log directory:

• wpinstalllog.txt
• installmessages.txt
• LocalizeTrace.archive[1..5].log

The configuration logs are located in the /ConfigEngine/log directory:

• ConfigTrace.log
• ConfigMessages.log

The runtime logs are located in the /logs/WebSphere_Portal:

• SystemOut.log
• SystemErr.log

Configure Login / Logout / Session Filter

In Portal 6.1, you can customize the behavior of the Portal in specific authentication situations, through the Authentication Filters. The Authentication Filters use the same pattern as defined by the J2EE servlet filter facility, and make use of filter chains

The following authentication filter chains are available for the developer:

Explicit login: This is a login by user name and password as represented by the interfacecom.ibm.portal.auth.ExplicitLoginFilter. For example, this can be a login by using the login portlet or the login URL.

Implicit login: For example, this can be when a user is already authenticated by WAS, but not yet to Portal. This is represented by the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ImplicitLoginFilter.

Explicit logout: This means that the user triggers a logout action directly, for example by clicking the Logout button in the user interface, interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ExplicitLogoutFilter.

Implicit logout: For example, this can be after a session timeout, or if an authenticated user accesses a public page, or if the user navigates to a virtual portal without being member of the associated user realm. This is represented by the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ImplicitLogoutFilter.

Session Timeout: This is called immediately after an idle timeout of the user session occurred. This is represented by the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.SessionTimeoutFilter.

Session Validation: This is called for every request before actions are triggered and the page is rendered. This is represented by the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.SessionValidationFilter.

You can configure them through the Portal configuration services. You can no longer set these properties by simply changing the property value in the properties file and restarting the portal. The configuration for each service is stored in and accessible through the IBM WebSphere Application Server administrative console.

Use the following properties to define the custom filters in the various authentication filter chains in the portal. Each of these properties takes a comma-separated list of the fully qualified class names of the custom filter implementations.

login.explicit.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered for an explicit login by user name and password. The classes listed in this property must implement the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ExplicitLoginFilter.

login.implicit.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered for an implicit login, that is if the user is already authenticated to WebSphere Application Server but has no portal session yet. The classes listed in this property must implement the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ImplicitLoginFilter.

logout.explicit.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered for an explicit logout. The classes listed in this property must implement the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ExplicitLogoutFilter.

logout.implicit.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered for an implicit logout, that is if the user got a session timeout. The classes listed in this property must implement the interface com.ibm.portal.auth.ImplicitLogoutFilter.

sessiontimeout.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered directly after an idle timeout of the session occurred. The classes listed in this property must implement the interfacecom.ibm.portal.auth.SessionTimeoutFilter.

sessionvalidation.filterchain =

Use this property to specify the custom filters for the filter chain that is triggered for every request before the action handling and rendering is processed. The classes listed in this property must implement the interfacecom.ibm.portal.auth.SessionValidationFilter.

filterchain.properties.. =

Use an arbitrary set of properties according to the above pattern to specify properties for any of your custom filters. The property value is then available to the specified filter class in the SecurityFilterConfig object passed to its init method.

WebSphere Portal 6.1.5

New version of WebSphere Portal 6.1.5 was released before thanks giving. It seems that it has quite few nice features such as Integrated Site analysis support, Mashup Integration Support, Page builder, New version of dojo.

This is the link to the Info center of 6.1.5

IBM also release 6.1.0.3 along with 6.1.5

Dojo and WebSphere portal 6.1.5

One of the most common questions about WebSphere Portal is, which version of Dojo does IBM WebSphere Portal use and what should i do if i want to use newer version of Dojo.

WebSphere Portal 6.1 is using Dojo Version 1.1.1 and replacing dojo version is not supported by IBM (i.e. if you change it then your own your own). The CSA theme depends heavily on the Dojo in fact almost all of the client side functionality is built using Dojo so even if your using Server side aggregation theme, features like client side wires or setting Preferneces, reading PUMA properties might break

Starting with WebSphere Portal 6.5, IBM is shipping two versions of Dojos

• Dojo V 1.3.2. This is packaged in its own Web application named Dojo_Resources. You can manage it in the WebSphere Application Server administration console. By default it is deployed at the context root /portal_dojo . The path for the Dojo V 1.3.2 files is wp_profile_root/installedApps/node_name/Dojo_Resources.ear/dojo.war .


• Dojo V 1.1.1. This is packaged in the directory wp_profile_root/installedApps/node_name/wps.ear/wps.war/themes/dojo/portal_dojo.

The Portal and PortalWeb2 themes use version 1.3.2 by default in WebSphere Portal Version 6.1.5. The Page Builder features and widgets are currently supported on Dojo 1.3.2 only.

IBM Support policy remains same that the version of dojo that is shipped with portal might be replaced entirely

Understand how to leverage feeds using WebSphere Portal

There is a very nice portlet in the Business Catalog called Syndicated Feed Portlet, sometimes called Feed Reader Portlet after its previous version. It's a sweet AJAX-enabled configuration interface where users themselves can add RSS or ATOM feeds at their leisure, create categories of feeds, and drag and drop feeds between these categories.

Here are a few screenshots:

The key to know here is that the easiest way to deploy is just to give the users permission to configure their own version of the portlet (Privileged User), adding and removing feeds as they please.