Chapter 1. JBoss Portal Basics
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## Chapter 1. JBoss Portal Basics

### Roy Russo

`<roy@jboss.org>`

## 1.1. Portal Concepts - Illustrated

This section will introduce the reader to some basic portal concepts and terms, used within JBoss Portal and this document.

### 1.1.1. Portal Instances

JBoss Portal supports mutliple portal instances running within one container. A portal instance can be viewed as a 'bucket', containing portal objects such as, Portal Pages, Themes, Layouts, and Portlet Windows. It also manages the relationship between the user and the portal itself. The hierarchy of portal objects is depicted as follows:

A portal instance is reachable by the url format http://[domain]/[context]/portal/[portal_name] . In a default/local install, the default portal instance can be reach by http://localhost:8080/portal/portal/default .

### Note

Consult your portal administrator for information on the available portal instances - some of which may have restricted logins, not found in others.

### 1.1.2. Portal Pages

A Portal Page is an aggregator of Portlet Windows. It is generated by the portal, during the reponse phase. During this phase, the portal aggregates all of the HTML markup created the individual portlets, decorates them with window controls, and presents them to the user as a consolidated page.

A portal page is reachable by the url format http://[domain]/[context]/portal/[portal_name]/[page_name] . In a default/local install, the default page can be reach by http://localhost:8080/portal/portal/default/default . Likewise, the News Page in a default install can be reached by http://localhost:8080/portal/portal/default/News .

More, on navigating the portal pages and what they contain can be found in, Section 1.2, “The Portal Pages”

### 1.1.3. Portlet Windows

Portlet Windows are found on Portal Pages and contain the HTML markup for a specific portlet instance.

The diagram above, shows the default JBoss Portal page with certain window-related items highlited (in red). Lets look at these items:

- Window Title Defines the content and purpose of the individual portlet window.

- Window Fragment The generated HTML markup produced by the portlet on the server-side.

- Window Controls Window controls are divided in to two categories: Window State and Portlet Mode .

  - Window State:

    - (Normal) - Normal window state, is what you see in the illustration above. All portlet windows take up a similar amount of space on the page.

    - (Minimized) - The portlet window renders, minimal-to-no markup.

    - (Maximized) - The portlet window takes up a maximum amount of real estate on the page.

  - Portlet Mode:

    - (View) - In View mode, the portlet renders markup reflecting the current window state of the portlet. The diagram above has all portlet windows in View mode.

    - (Edit) - Allows a user to customize the portlet's behaviour.

    - (Help) - A portlet should provide help information to the user.

## 1.2. The Portal Pages

### 1.2.1. Navigating the Portal Pages

Navigating the portal pages is normally performed either by typing in a specific URL ( Section 1.1.2, “Portal Pages” ), or using the Navigation Tabs at the top of the page.

Each page, in the default installation of JBoss Portal is explained in the following sections, along with the portlets found within them.

### 1.2.2. Default Page

The default page contains the following portlets:

- Section 1.2.2.1, “Greetings Portlet”
- Section 1.2.2.2, “User Portlet”
- Section 1.2.2.3, “Page Portlet”
- Section 1.2.2.4, “CMS Portlet”
- Section 1.2.2.5, “Navigation Portlet”

#### 1.2.2.1. Greetings Portlet

Displays hard-coded links to downloading JBoss Portal, downloading portlets from PortletSwap.com, and the live online JBoss Portal demo. It also contains default authentication information on using the UserPortlet to login.

#### 1.2.2.2. User Portlet

### Note

Administrators should view, Section 4.1, “Managing Users” , for managing the portal Userbase. Only user operations are covered in this section...

The User Portlet allows a user to:

- Login to the Portal

  Login using the credentials (by clicking the Standard Login link):

                                 Username: user
                                 Password: user

  or

                                 Username: admin
                                 Password: admin

  Once successfully logged in, the user will have additional functionality at his disposal, that is covered in the following sections.

- Create a new account

  Create a new account by clicking on the Create link in the portlet. A User can then fill in the necessary information to create an account on the system:

- Edit personal information.

  A user has the ability to edit his personal information at any time by clicking on the Edit Info link.

#### 1.2.2.3. Page Portlet

Allows a user to navigate to different Portal Pages, by clicking on the page names. Similar to the Navigation Tabs at the top of the page.

#### 1.2.2.4. CMS Portlet

Renders data from the Content Management System embedded with the Portal. Users are able to navigate the content, view images, binary files, etc.. via this portlet.

Displaying content is done by the portal using a path mapper. For example, if we wanted to display a zip file, located in /default/foo/bar.zip , we would type in the URL http://localhost:8080/content/default/foo/bar.zip . Notice how the path to the content, is prefixed with the '/content' term. Although in this example we are describing binary content retrieval, the same is to be said for text/html files. Keep in mind, however, that binary files are displayed outside of the portal pages, but text/html are displayed inside the CMSPortlet Window.

Serving Logic: The CMS Portlet now serves content based on the user's locale setting. For example: if a user's locale is set to Spanish in his browser, and he requests URL: default/index.html , the CMSPortlet will first try and retrieve the Spanish version of that file. If a Spanish version is not found, it will then try and retrieve the default language version set for the CMSPortlet (set to English, by default).

### Note

Administrators should view, Chapter 3, Administration - Content Management System , for managing the data in the CMS.

#### 1.2.2.5. Navigation Portlet

### 1.2.3. News Page

The News Page contains customizable weather and news displays from common internet feeds. An open internet connection on the server-side is therefore required for them to operate. ;-)

This page contains the following portlets:

- Section 1.2.3.1, “Weather Portlet”
- Section 1.2.3.2, “News Portlet”

#### 1.2.3.1. Weather Portlet

The Weather Portlet retrieves an RSS weather feed, based on a key (commonly a US Postal Code), and displays it as HTML to the user.

Additionally, a user is able to modify his preference in location by going in to the Portlet's Edit Mode (click ). Any valid US Postal Code can be inputted here. Once the form is submitted, this property will be saved in the user's preference, so he will always see the same weather data for his location, when logged in.

Not in the United States? Follow these steps to configure the Weather portlet to display information for your area.

1. Go to http://weather.yahoo.com/

2. Enter your city name in the location field, found on the page:

3. Find your location on the list under the form and click on it (In this case, its Marseille, France ):

4. Copy the location digits from the address bar in your browser (In this case, its FRXX0059 ):

5. Paste these numbers in to the weather portlet edit form (In this case, its FRXX0059 ):

   Hit submit ...

#### 1.2.3.2. News Portlet

The News Portlet retrieves an RSS news feed, based on a url, and displays it as HTML to the user.

Additionally, a user is able to modify his preference in RSS feed source by going in to the Portlet's Edit Mode (click ). Once the form is submitted, this property will be saved in the user's preference, so he will always see the same news source, when logged in.

### Note

This portlet is capable of handling most RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0 feeds.

### 1.2.4. Test Page

Items in this test page change frequently. They are used mainly by the JBoss Portal Development team to debug and test new functionality. For that reason, these items are not covered in this document. It is recommended that Portal Administrators remove this page for that reason.

### 1.2.5. Admin Page

### Note

You must be logged in as an administrator, or have proper priviledges to see this page.

The Admin Page's purpose is to allow an administrator to manage all aspects of the portal (Follow the links for in-depth reviews of these functions):

- Users/Roles (See: Section 4.1, “Managing Users” , Section 4.2, “Managing Roles” )

- Content Management System (See: Chapter 3, Administration - Content Management System )

- Portal Objects (themes, layouts, portal instances, pages, windows, security, and deployed portlets) (See: Chapter 2, Administration - Portal Object Management (Dynamicity) )

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