OracleAS Portal 10g R2: Build Portlets with Java

OracleAS Portal (10.1.4.1) provides an environment for creating enterprise portals, which are corporate gateways to information access and management. Students learn to create, deploy, and test Java-based portlets, the building blocks of a portal page. The course covers two application programming interfaces (APIs): the standard Java portlet API, which supports JSR 168, and the OracleAS Portal Developer Kit Java API, which is Oracle's proprietary portlet API. The course examines the similarities and differences between the two APIs and discusses the benefits and limitations of each approach.

Students learn to integrate J2EE applications with OracleAS Portal. They also learn to make portlets customizable to enable end user personalization, to build multi-lingual portlets, to secure portlets, and to enhance portlet performance by implementing caching. Two parallel sets of practices provide students with a choice of which API to use.

Learn To:

• Develop Java-based portlets by using Java classes, JSPs, and JavaBeans
• Support end-user personalization of portlets
• Make portlets capable of tracking subsequent user requests through session handling
• Control access to portlets
• Enable portlets to communicate with each other
• Build portlets that render their content in the user’s preferred language

Audience

• Application Developers
• J2EE Developer
• Java Developer
• Portal Developer

Course Topics Understanding OracleAS Portal

• Identifying Features of OracleAS Portal
• Differences Between Items and Portlets on a Portal Page
• When to Choose to Write a Coded Portlet
• Describing the Flow of a Portal Page Request
• The Role of OC4J in Portlet Development

Understanding Portlet Technologies

• Common Characteristics of Java Portlets
• Benefits and Limitations of Standards-Based Portlets
• The Portlet Life Cycle
• Importance of MVC in Developing Portlets
• Differences Between Standards-Based Portlets and PDK-Java Portlets

Developing Simple Java-Based Portlets

• Using JDeveloper to Speed Up the Development Cycle
• Creating Simple Portlets Using a Java Portlet Wizard
• The Files That Comprise a Simple Portlet

Deploying and Consuming Java-Based Portlets

• Deploying a Portlet to a Standalone OC4J
• Testing Deployment in a Browser
• Registering a WSRP Producer with OracleAS Portal
• Registering a Web Provider with OracleAS Portal
• Displaying a Custom-Developed Portlet on a Portal Page
• Redeploying a Portlet from JDeveloper

Extending Portlet Functionality: Modes, States, and Style

• Standard Portlet Modes
• How Portlet Window State Impacts Portal Real Estate
• Ensuring that Portlets Conform to the Portal Page Look-and-Feel Standards
• The Purpose of a Resource Proxy

Debugging Java Portlets

• Configuring a JDeveloper Project for Remote Debugging
• Using JDevelpper Debugger to Connect to a Portlet Running on a Remote OC4J
• Identifying Malfunctioning Portlet Code by Using JDeveloper

Handling Transient Data

• Passing and Reading Parameters in a Portlet
• Generating a Portlet URL That Includes a Parameter
• Using Session Attributes to Store and Retrieve Session Data

Implement Portlet Customization

• Portlet Personalization and the Preference Store
• Creating a Form to Enable User Personalization
• Building Logic to Store and Retrieve Portlet Personalization Data

Setting Up Interportlet Communication

• Sharing Data Between Two JSR 168 Portlets Using the PortletSession
• Sharing Data Between Two PDK-Java Portlets Using Public Parameters
• Building PDK-Java Portlets That Support Page Parameters and Events

Building Complex, Multipage Portlets

• Building Portlets Consisting of Multiple JSPs
• Ways to Handle Navigation in a Multipage Portlet
• Controlling Page Flow Across Multiple Portlet View Pages

Implementing Portlet Security

• Fully Securing Your Portlets
• Using Programmatic Security to Control Portlet Access
• Accessing User Information from Oracle Internet Directory (OID)c
• In PDK-Java Portlets, Dynamically Hiding and Showing Portlets by Applying Security Managers
• Building Custom Security Managers in PDK-Java Portlets

Enhancing Portlet Performance by Using Caching

• Concepts of Portlet Caching
• Benefits of Expiry, Validation, and Invalidation-Based Caching
• Evaluating Portlet Caching Options
• Adding Caching Capabilities to Portlets

Writing Multilingual Portlets

• Creating Translation Strings for the Supported Languages Using Resource Bundles
• Accessing Portal User's Language Preference
• Building Portlets That Render Their Content in the User's Preferred Language
• Creating Translations for Portlet Attributes

Enabling Portlet Logging

• Concepts of Portlet Logging
• The Architecture of PDK-Java Portlet Logging
• Adding Logging Capabilities to Portlets

Applying Best Practices in Portlet Development

• Customizing Your JDeveloper Preferences
• Implementing the Portlet Renderer
• HTML Guidelines for Rendering Portlets
• Cascading Style Sheets
• Complying with Accessibility Guidelines
• Guidelines for Personalization
• Applying Portlet Design Principles
• Packaging Your Portlets

Course Objectives

• Develop Java-based portlets by using Java classes, JSPs, and JavaBeans
• Deploy, register, and consume Java portlets
• Enable portlets to communication with each other
• Build portlets that render content in the user's preferred language
• Control access to portlets
• Use session handling to track subsequent user requests
• Control page flow in a multipage portlet
• Support end-user personalization of portlets
• Apply best practices to Java portlet development
• Enhance portlet performance through portlet caching
• Improve portlet supportability by performing logging
• Identify the differences between standards-based portlets and PDK-Java portlets
• Identify the key features of OracleAS portal
• Define the OracleAS Portal remote producer architecture