Demo - WebSphere Portal 7.0 FARM

Demo video about newly introduced FARM technology in WebSphere Portal 7.0.

IBM WebSphere Portal Performance Troubleshooting Guide

Click here to see the complete guide with the details about Portal Performance Troubleshooting instructions.

Hope this will play a major role for many, To troubleshoot their portal performance issues.

WebSphere Portal 7 Performance Tips: Changing the Heap Size & Verbose Garbage Collection

I have come across a nice article about performance tips in WebSphere Portal 7. Click here to read more about the same.

WPCollector Tool ( Good alternate for ISA Lite

WPCollector Tool - Automates the Collection of log files, configuration files.

Its one of the coolest feature IBM WebSphere Portal 7.0 provides than its older version.

Check here for more information about, how you can use WPCollector Tool.

Installation guide for WebSphere Portal 6.1.5 with WAS 7.0

DOJO and WebSphere Portal

The WebSphere Portal 6.1.X internally uses the Dojo Version 1.3.2 for its themes. Also, The WebSphere Portal 6.1.5 supports two versions of Dojo (i.e, V1.1.1 and V1.3.2). You need to consider the dojo version before you do the development of portal application which uses Dojo.

You can find the information about how to upgrade/downgrade portal themes from Dojo 1.1.1 to 1.3.2 & vice versa in the following url


Dojo and WebSphere Portal

Using and migrating Dojo versions with WebSphere Portal themes

What's new in WebSphere Portal 7

Click here to see the detailed information about what's new in WebSphere Portal 7.0.

Portlet Modes (WebSphere Portal 6.0 Onwards)

The below are the portlet modes and its use in WebSphere Portal.


View Mode - Default portlet mode, It will be used to display all end user functionalities.
Edit Mode (Personalize) - This is user specific personalize mode. What ever changes are made and stored into portlet preference, that will affect only that specific user.
Edit Defaults Mode (Edit Shared Settings) - This mode will be available only for portal admins. Also, this will be available for users with minimum page level access rights as Editor and Portlet access rights as Administrator. The changes into this preference value will affect all the users.
NOTE: This is only for the portlet occurence in that page.
Config Mode - This is configuration mode. What ever changes are made into this mode will affect all occurence on that portal.
Help Mode - Generally this will be used to give more details about that portlet functionality and its use.

Reading LTPA Cookie from Portlet & Servlet and passing the LTPA cookie into remote WebSphere Server using REST call.

Sample code which shows how you can get the LTPA cookie value from portlet and servlet.

######### Reading from Servlet Starts #############

String ltpaToken = null;
Cookie[] cookies = httpServletRequest.getCookies();

for (int i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++)
{
if (cookies[i].getName().equals("LtpaToken"))
{
ltpaToken = cookies[i].getValue(); break;
}
}
######### Reading from Servlet Ends #############

########## Reading from Portlet Starts #############

String myCookie = renderRequest.getProperty("cookie");
String ltpaToken = "";
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer (myCookie, "; ");
while(st.hasMoreTokens())
{
String key = st.nextToken();
if(key.indexOf("LtpaToken") > -1)
{
int equalSign = key.indexOf("=");
ltpaToken = key.substring(equalSign+1);
}
}

########## Reading from Portlet Ends#############
### Setting inside URLConnection object & sending to remote portal server ###
// After getting the ltpa token, setting into URL connection to pass the ltpa cookie to the external server url.
if (ltpaToken != null)
{
String cookie = "LtpaToken=" + ltpaToken.toString();
URL url = new URL("http://myportal:port/wps/myportal)
URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
conn.setRequestProperty("Cookie", cookie);
conn.connect();
}

How to set & get a value from Portlet Preference while developing a portlet using WebSphere Portlet Factory

Below is the sample code which will give a clear idea about how you can set/get a value from Portlet Preference while developing a portlet using WebSphere Portlet Factory.

Create a LJO(Linked Java Object) builder and copy the below code and replace MY_DEPARTMENT value into the value you want to set & get from Portlet Preference.


########################## Sample Code Starts #############################

public class PortletPreferenceWPFSample {
PortletRequest portletRequest = null;

private static final String MY_DEPARTMENT="myDepartment";
private static final String DEFAULT_MY_DEPARTMENT="";

public void setPreferences(WebAppAccess webAppAccess , String myDepartment)
{
try{
// Getting HttpServletRequest from WebAppAcces object.
HttpServletRequest request = webAppAccess.getHttpServletRequest();
// Type casting into Portlet Request.
portletRequest = (PortletRequest) request.getAttribute(com.bowstreet.adapters.Constants.PORTLET_REQUEST);
javax.portlet.PortletPreferences preferences = portletRequest.getPreferences();


//Storing the myDepartment in to portlet preferences Object.
preferences.setValue(MY_DEPARTMENT,myDepartment);

preferences.store();


}catch(Exception err)
{
err.printStackTrace();
}

}


public String getPreferences(WebAppAccess webAppAccess)
{
HttpServletRequest request = webAppAccess.getHttpServletRequest();
portletRequest = (PortletRequest) request.getAttribute(com.bowstreet.adapters.Constants.PORTLET_REQUEST);

javax.portlet.PortletPreferences preferences = portletRequest.getPreferences();

String myDepartment= preferences.getValue(MY_DEPARTMENT,DEFAULT_MY_DEPARTMENT);

return myDepartment;

}
}


##### Function call to above method from remote place such as method or other LJO class #####
// Calling setPreferences method to store folder path into it. Where PortletPreferenceWPFSample_LJO is the LJO builder name for PortletPreferenceWPFSample class.
webAppAccess.callMethod("PortletPreferenceWPFSample_LJO.setPreferences", myDepartment);

########################## Sample Code Ends #############################

Docs for learning WebSphere Portletfactory

I hope the following material will help people to get comfortable with IBM WebSphere PortletFactory.

Startup Tutorial

WPF e-Book

Other Links:

Best Practices for Creating Portlets with WebSphere PortletFactory

IBM Support Portal - WebSPhere PortletFactory

WebSphere Portlet Factory product documentation

WebSphere Portlet Factory Samples: Data Services

Steps to Increase WebSphere PortletFactory Application's Performance

The following link will help every one to increase the performance of WebSphere Portletfactory applications.


Click here to see.

Navigating to other page in Portal from any portlet

The following steps will be used to navigate control from any portlet to any page/ any portlet in other page. Also this can be used to pass parameter to other portlet.

1> Keep the wp[1].l2.urlhelper.jar file under WEB-INF/lib folder.
2> Add the following code in your JSP to achieve the same.

String homeURL = PortletURLHelper.generateUrl(PAGE_UNIQUE_NAME, Portlet Name, null, true, renderRequest, renderResponse);

Use the value of homeURL in href attribute.
3> Download the jar from the following location.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=688&context=SSHRKX&dc=DB520&uid=swg21265900&loc=en_US&cs=UTF-8&lang=en&rss=ct688websphere

New Innovative Business Portal Solutions: IBM Websphere Portal Strategy

IBM has introduced an exciting new set of WebSphere Portal offerings. Where Larry Bowden, VP of Portals and Web Interaction Services, will review IBM's portal strategy and how customers can augment their existing IT initiatives and investments with a new set of prepackaged portal solutions that address specific business needs. Learn how company can leverage these new offerings to help shorten implementation time and achieve return on investment (ROI) faster.

Click here to see his webcast event.

Using RAD V7 to create & deploy JSR 168 cooperative Portlets

Learn about the cooperative portlet tools available in IBM Rational Application Developer V7 while you create a simple cooperative application and deploy it onto an IBM WebSphere Portal 6.0 server. The focus is on JSR 168 JavaServer Faces portlets, but the authors also briefly discuss Basic and Struts portlets.

Click Here For More Info

Edit_Defaults Mode in Websphere Portal 6.0.

Its nice to post after long time with one interesting topic.which is nothing but edit_defaults mode in JSR 168.I think lots of portlet developers having idea about view, edit,help & config mode.But some more modes are avaialble in JSR 168.Among this one of the interesting mode is Edit_Defaults .I explored some basic things of Edit_Defaults in websphere portal 6.0 & Through this post i just want to share what ever i learn about Edit_Defaults mode.

At first let us see what is edit defaults mode ?

• Edit Defaults mode is one of the portlet mode available in JSR 168(Portlet API) .
• This mode is created to share some default preference values to all the users. (i.e., If admin set some preference values by using this edit defaults mode then this values will be a default preference values for all other users.)
• Any time admin can change others preference values by using this shared settings option.(i.e., if any body selected some theme if admin changes the theme by using this edit defaults mode then automatically it will reflect for all other users.)
• This mode will be applicable only for portal admin not for all users.

what are the things we need to do for getting this mode ?

• You need make the following entry in portlet.xml

<portlet-app>

<portlet>...<supports><mime-type>text/html</mime-type><portlet-mode>edit</portlet-mode><portlet-mode>edit_defaults</portlet-mode></supports>...</portlet>

<custom-portlet-mode><description xml:lang="en">edit_defaults mode</description><portlet-mode>edit_defaults</portlet-mode></custom-portlet-mode>

</portlet-app>

You need to override doDispatch() of Generic Portlet. Sample code

// Added for Edit_Default_Mode

private static final PortletMode EDIT_DEFAULT_MODE = new PortletMode("edit_defaults");

protected void doDispatch(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException {if( !WindowState.MINIMIZED.equals(request.getWindowState()) ){

PortletMode mode = request.getPortletMode();

if( EDIT_DEFAULT_MODE.equals(mode) ) {

// System.out.println("Inside edit default mode condition : Bala S Murugan ::: ); doCustomConfigure(request, response);return;}}super.doDispatch(request, response);

}

Well once you create your portlet with edit_defaults mode then after deploying in websphere portal 6.0.If you login as a portal admin then you will see a new link "EDIT SHARED SETTINGS" in your portlet title bar.Where This "EDIT SHARED SETTINGS" is nothing but Edit_Defaults in Websphere 6.0.