Oracle WebCenter Services Sample Portlets - Discussions

Note: The portlets are samples released for test, evaluation, and educational purposes.  They are not supported through formal Oracle Support mechanisms.  We are, however, very interested in receiving your feedback on these portlets.  Please post any suggestions, questions, or issues to the Oracle WebCenter Suite Services discussion forum, and we will respond as quickly as possible. 

Date: July, 2009

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Software Prerequisites

The sample portlets require the following services:

They also require one of the following portlet containers:

They are able to be consumed by the following portals:

If you do not have the above software available, please visit the Oracle WebCenter Suite Home Page to obtain it.

Knowledge Prerequisites

This sample portlet will be deployed and configured on the selected portlet container. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with these processes on the selected container; if not please consult the product-specific documentation.

Technologies used by this sample include Java Portlets (JSR 168), JSP 2.0, JSTL, Web services, CSS, and JavaScript. For more information on these technologies, please refer to the Additional References.

Application Overview

Discussions forums support the creation and capture of knowledge via threads that are organized into forums and categories. Oracle WebCenter Discussions 10g Release 3 provides a comprehensive discussion forum platform for use in your Enterprise 2.0 applications. This sample portlet demonstrates the use of many of these capabilities within Oracle's portal solutions.

The discussions sample portlet is designed to allow the user to easily connect to a discussions server in order to view and/or edit pages. Once connected the portlet provides the user with options to navigate and create forums, navigate and create threads, and navigate, create, edit, and reply to messages. All of the state is stored as portlet preferences, allowing the user to maintain their navigation and settings.

Sample Files 

The sample portlet is packaged as a Java Web Archive (WAR) file that contains all of the files necessary to deploy the application. The following list of files may be used as a reference when deploying, configuring, modifying, and otherwise using the sample.

Java Source and Property Files

Directory File Description
/WEB-INF/src/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions DiscussionsPortlet.java The JSR 168 Portlet source file
/WEB-INF/src/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions DiscussionsPortlet.properties Properties file for messages and choices
/WEB-INF/src/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions ForumPerms.java Utility class for forum permissions

Java Archive (JAR) Files

Directory File Description
/WEB-INF/lib axis.jar Apache Axis Web Services
/WEB-INF/lib commons-discovery.jar Apache Commons Discovery
/WEB-INF/lib forums-ws-client.jar Jive Software Web Services Client
/WEB-INF/lib wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar Java APIs for WSDL (JWSDL)
/WEB-INF/lib wss4j.jar Apache WSS4J (WS-Security)
/WEB-INF/lib xmlsec-1.4.1.jar Common classes for XML cryptography

JavaServer Pages (JSP)

Directory File Description
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions edit.jsp Edit mode JSP
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions help.jsp Help mode JSP
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions view.jsp View mode JSP
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/views forums.jspx Use for viewing the forums
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/views init.jspx Initializes the JSP and JavaScript variables
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/views main.jspx Renders the main user interface
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/views page.jspx Used for viewing messages within a thread
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/views threads.jspx Used for viewing threads within a forum

Image, JavaScript, and Style Sheet Files

Directory File Description
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/css default.css Default style sheet
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/css plain.css Plain style sheet
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images configure.png Configure settings icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images delete.png Delete icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images edit_message.png Edit message icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images edit.png Edit icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images forum.png Forum icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images help.png Help icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images message.png Message icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images new_forum.png New forum icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images new_message.png New message icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images new_thread.png New thread icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images new.png New icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images reply_message.png Reply message icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images reply_quoted.png Reply quoted icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images reply.png Reply icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images rss.png RSS feed link icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images search.png Search icon
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images/default banner.png Banner image for the default template
/samples/webcenter/portlets/discussions/images/emoticons <various>.png Various emoticons

Portlet Definition Files

Directory File Description
/WEB-INF portlet.xml JSR 168 Portlet Definitions

Deployment

Deployment of the sample portlet will vary somewhat depending on the portlet container being used. Please consult the relevant documentation for the portlet container for more specific instructions, some of which may be found in the Additional References.

For many portlet containers the Java Web Archive (WAR) file may be deployed directly using various development and administration tools and utilities. If you are planning on exploring and modifying the sample code you should deploy this as an "exploded" archive on the file system. This may be done via an import utility, as in an IDE, or via a standard JAR or Zip utility.

When using the portlet via Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP), please consult the product-specific instructions for creating the consumer and/or producers for the portlets. The portlet has been designed and tested with WSRP in mind, but there may be additional configuration and/or modifications to the code necessary depending on the way the server is configured.

The sample portlet does not provide container-specific security hooks and uses a simple user name based system for accessing the remote services. It assumes that the user exists on both the local and remote systems, and that the authentication is handled by the portal container. Additional security via common security realms, SSO, credential vaults, and the like will require configuration and possible code modifications.

Configuration

Once the portlet has been deployed on the server it must be added to a portal, page, etc. to be used. The portlet has been designed to be usable by an anonymous (non-authenticated) user, although any customizations made will only be available for the life of the session. When the user authenticates the portlet state will be stored in the portlet preferences, with little need for further manual configuration.

The portlet has been designed to be "bootstrapped" when initially accessed by the user. It will display the configuration screen, allowing the user to enter or select from a list of available options. The table below contains the name of the preferences and the expected values.

Portlet Properties

Name Value(s) Description
URL http://<hostname>:<port> The host where the server is deployed
Category ID Unique number (or leave blank) The ID of the category to display
ForumID Unique number (or leave blank) The ID of the forum to display
Thread ID Unique number (or leave blank) The ID of the thread to display
Message ID Unique number (or leave blank) The ID of the message to display
Page Size Number The number of items to show per page
View Mode Forums, Threads, or Messages The type of forum item to show
Template default or plain The display template to use

Additional References