Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit (PDK)
Installing the PDK-URL Services External Application Sample Portlets

Overview

Welcome to PDK-URL Services.  Now that you have successfully installed the PDK-Java Framework and samples, you may want to create URL-based portlets.

Note: PDK-URL Services enables you to expose content from external websites as portlets using a manual, XML file-based approach. However, if you are targeting your provider to be registered with OracleAS Portal 9.0.2 or later, the recommended approach to perform the same task is to use the Web Clipping Portlet. To find out about using Web Clipping or how to migrate your URL-based portlet to Web Clipping, go to the OmniPortlet and Web Clipping area of Portal Center.

This article describes how to install and configure the PDK-URL Services inline rendering and parameter passing sample.  There are four portlets in the PDK-URL Services inline rendering and parameter passing sample:

• Yahoo! Mobile (inline rendering sample)
• Yahoo! Maps (optional paramter passing sample)
• Dictionary.com (mandatory parameter passing sample)
• Search.com (customizable parameter passing sample)

The inline rendering and parameter passing sample provider is pre-configured within jpdk.ear, with a service ID of urn:urlparams.

Minimum Requirements

1. OracleAS Portal 3.0.8.9.8 or later.

Assumptions

1. You have already successfully installed the PDK-Java Framework and samples by following the Installing the PDK-Java Framework and Samples article. These samples use the PDK-Java Framework.

Configuring and Testing the Sample Provider

The PDK-URL Services inline rendering and parameter passing sample provider has been pre-configured within the jpdk.ear.  However, you may need to change the provider.xml file to specify the proxy server you use.  Open the provider.xml file for the sample (it should be located in the WEB-INF/providers/urlparams directory) and provide appropriate replacement values for the following tags:

<proxyInfo class="oracle.portal.provider.v2.ProxyInformation">
    <httpProxyHost>www-proxy.us.oracle.com</httpProxyHost>
    <httpProxyPort>80</httpProxyPort>
</proxyInfo>

Next, you can test that the sample is properly configured with OC4J.

1. Execute the inline rendering and parameter passing sample provider servlet from OC4J.

   For example:  http://myserver.mydomain.com:port/jpdk/providers/urlparams

2. Review the content of the test page displayed. If you did not receive the test page, verify that you can execute standard servlets using Oracle Application Server.

Registering Your Provider

You must now register the provider with OracleAS Portal.

1. On the Build tab of the Portal Design-Time Pages root page, click on Register a Portlet Provider within the portlet called Provider.
2. Enter Provider information for the Sample.
1. Name: URL_Parameter_sample
2. Display Name: PDK-URL Services Parameter sample
3. Timeout: 300
4. Timeout Message: PDK-URL Services Parameter sample Timed Out
5. Implementation Style: Web
6. URL: http://myhost.com:8888/jpdk/providers (if you're using OracleAS Portal 3.0.9, append the service id, urlparams, to the URL)
7. Service Id: urn:urlparams
8. Login Frequency: Never
3. Click Finish.

Adding Your Portlet to a Page

You can test each of the portlets as follows:

• Yahoo! Mobile (inline rendering) - Click on any of the links and they should render inline.
• Yahoo! Maps (optional parameter passing) - The normal Yahoo! Maps query page appears, unless you supply a "city, state, zip" parameter value in the provider.xml.
• Dictionary.com (mandatory parameter passing) - Enter a word to lookup and click submit.  Your word will get passed as a parameter to dictionary.com and the results page is returned within the portlet.
• Search.com (customizable parameter passing) - Customize the portlet and enter a term to search.  Your term will get passed as a parameter to search.com and the results page is returned within the portlet.

You have now successfully installed and setup the PDK-URL Services inline rendering and parameter passing sample portlets.