Packaging, deploying and compiling cooperative portlets

When packaging, deploying, and compiling cooperative portlets, refer to these considerations on aspects of the process such as creating deployment descriptors and packaging the WAR file.

Creating the deployment descriptors

A WAR must have a web.xml and a portlet.xml file in order to comply with J2EE specifications. For standard portlets only, web.xml only needs to contain servlet information, not portlet information. If the standard portlet does not contain servlets, web.xml must still be present, though the content of the file will be empty. However, in an IBM portlet web.xml must contain both servlet and portlet information. The web.xml and portlet.xml files must be modified to enable portlet cooperation. You must modify web.xml to refer to the property broker classes. For IBM only, the servlet class entry should specify the com.ibm.wps.pb.wrapper.PortletWrapper class in the property broker.

The portlet.xml file must specify the location of the WSDL file associated with each portlet. To achieve this, you must modify portlet.xml to add a configuration parameter to each concrete portlet that exposes actions to the property broker through the WSDL file. For the following IBM example portlet.xml file, the configuration parameter, c2a-action-descriptor, must specify a URL that points to the WSDL file that declares actions. The configuration parameter, c2a-nls-file, must specify the base name of an NLS resource file containing the translated text corresponding to the captions and descriptions of actions and properties. This file may be packaged in the same WAR file, so a relative path may be used.

Standard portlet examples

Sample web.xml file for standard portlet with empty content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" 
                         "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">
<web-app>
    <display-name>Shipping Portlets - Standard Version</display-name>
</web-app>

Sample standard portlet.xml file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<portlet-app 
   xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_1_0.xsd"
   version="1.0"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_1_0.xsd
                       http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_1_0.xsd">
    <portlet>
        <description xml:lang="en">
           Displays details for a particular order
        </description>
        <portlet-name>StandardOrderDetail</portlet-name>
        <display-name xml:lang="en">Standard Order Detail</display-name>
        <portlet-class>
           com.ibm.wps.portlets.shipping.OrderDetailPortlet
        </portlet-class>
        <expiration-cache>3600</expiration-cache>
        <supports>
            <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
        </supports>
        <supported-locale>en</supported-locale>
        <resource-bundle>nls.StandardOrderDetail</resource-bundle>
        <portlet-preferences>
            <preference>
                <name>
                   com.ibm.portal.propertybroker.wsdllocation
                </name>
                <value>/wsdl/OrderDetail.wsdl</value>
            </preference>
            <preference>
                <name>com.ibm.portal.context.enable</name>
                <value>true</value>
            </preference>
        </portlet-preferences>        
    </portlet>
	
	...
	
</portlet-app>

Notes:

For standard portlets, a special <preference> entry must be used to specify the application portlet class.

<portlet-preferences>
   <preference>
      <name>com.ibm.portal.propertybroker.wsdllocation</name>
      <value>/wsdl/OrderDetail.wsdl</value>
   </preference>
</portlet-preferences>

IBM portlet examples

Sample web.xml file for IBM portlet: .

     
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC 
          "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.2//EN" 
          "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2_2.dtd">
   <web-app id="ShippingPortletsC2ANew">
      <display-name>Shipping Portlets</display-name>
      <servlet id="OrderDetailC2A">
         <servlet-name>Order Detail</servlet-name>
         <servlet-class>
            com.ibm.wps.pb.wrapper.PortletWrapper
         </servlet-class>
	        <init-param>
            <param-name>
               c2a-application-portlet-class
            </param-name>
            <param-value>
               com.ibm.wps.portlets.shipping.OrderDetailPortlet
            </param-value>
	        </init-param>
         <load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
      </servlet>
      <servlet id="OrderMonthC2A">
         <servlet-name>Orders</servlet-name>
         <servlet-class>
            com.ibm.wps.pb.wrapper.PortletWrapper
         </servlet-class>
	        <init-param>
            <param-name>c2a-application-portlet-class</param-name>
            <param-value>
               com.ibm.wps.portlets.shipping.OrderMonthPortlet
            </param-value>
	        </init-param>
         <load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
      </servlet>

...

  	<servlet-mapping id="OrderDetailMapping">
	   <servlet-name>Order Detail</servlet-name>
	   <url-pattern>/OrderDetail/*</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>
	<servlet-mapping id="OrderMonthMapping">
         <servlet-name>Orders</servlet-name>
         <url-pattern>/Orders/*</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>

...

  </web-app>

Notes:

The portlet wrapper must be specified. For example, <servlet-class>com.ibm.wps.pb.wrapper.PortletWrapper</servlet-class>.

The <init-param> entry must be used to specify the application portlet class.

<init-param>
   <param-name>c2a-application-portlet-class</param-name>
   <param-value>
      com.ibm.wps.portlets.shipping.OrderDetailPortlet
   </param-value>
</init-param>

Sample IBM portlet.xml file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE portlet-app-def PUBLIC 
          "-//IBM//DTD Portlet Application 1.1//EN" "portlet_1.1.dtd">
<portlet-app-def>
   <portlet-app uid="com.ibm.wps.portlets.shippingc2anew">
      <portlet-app-name>Shipping Application</portlet-app-name>
      <portlet id="OrderDetailC2A" href="WEB-INF/web.xml#OrderDetailC2A">
         <portlet-name>Order Detail</portlet-name>
         <cache>
	          <expires>3600</expires>
		        <shared>YES</shared>
	        </cache>
	        <allows>
            <maximized/>
            <minimized/>
         </allows>
         <supports>
            <markup name="html">
                <view output="fragment"/>
            </markup>
         </supports>
      </portlet>
    ...

   <concrete-portlet-app 
      uid="concrete.com.ibm.wps.portlets.shippingc2anew">
      <portlet-app-name>Shipping Application</portlet-app-name>
      <concrete-portlet href="#OrderDetailC2A">
         <portlet-name>Order Detail</portlet-name>
         <default-locale>en</default-locale>
	     <language locale="en">
        <title>Order Detail</title>
        <title-short>OD</title-short>
        <description>
           Displays details for a particular order
        </description>
        <keywords>
           Property Broker, Click-to-Action, C2A, Cooperative Portlets
        </keywords>
      </language>

      <config-param>
         <param-name>c2a-action-descriptor</param-name>
         <param-value>/wsdl/OrderDetail.wsdl</param-value>
      </config-param>
      <config-param>
         <param-name>c2a-nls-file</param-name>
         <param-value>nls.shipping</param-value>
      </config-param>
    </concrete-portlet>
    ...

    </concrete-portlet-app>
</portlet-app-def>

Note: In order to support translation, portlets must provide resource bundles in the appropriate location in the WAR file. For IBM portlets, the resource file name to be used can be specified in the <config-param> parameter.

WAR file considerations

Once the code and deployment changes have been made for using the property broker, additional libraries and files must be packaged along with the application. After you package the WAR file, it is ready to be installed. Use the following table to package the files in the correct location.

Table 1. Files to package and their correct location
Portlet type	IBM portlet only	Standard and IBM
File name	`pbportlet.jar` Note: The version of `pbportlet.jar` must match the version of the product being used.	WSDL file
Path	`/WEB-INF/lib`	relative to the root of the WAR file or an absolute URL
Original location	`PortalServer_root/base/wp.propertybroker.legacy.impl/pb/lib`

Additional considerations for compiling

If you are using your own development environment, make sure to add the wp.propertybroker.standard.api.jar (for standard portlets) or wp.propertybroker.legacy.api.jar (for IBM portlets) file to your class path. These JAR files can be found in the PortalServer_root/base/wp.propertybroker.standard.api/shared/app and the PortalServer_root/base/wp.propertybroker.legacy.api/shared/app directories, respectively. For other JAR file requirements, see Creating a simple portlet.