Reference: Portal administration portlets

  1. Introduction: Web modules, portlet applications, and portlets
  2. Overview of administration portlets
  3. Install portlets

  4. Managing portlet applications

  5. Managing portlets

 

Introduction: Web modules, portlet applications, and portlets

A Web module represents a Web application. It is used to assemble servlets and JSP files as well as static content, such as HTML pages, into a single deployable unit. Web modules are stored in Web ARchive (WAR) files, which are standard Java archive files. The standard file extension for WAR files is .war. A Web module can contain one or more portlet applications, servlets, JSP files, and other files.

A deployment descriptor, stored in an XML file, declares the contents of the modules, information about the structure and external dependencies, and a description of how the components are to be used at run-time.

Portlet applications are created implicitly when a WAR file is deployed. The portlet application holds one or more related portlets that come packaged in the same installation file. These portlets can share resources and send messages among themselves to communicate events. A portlet application may consist of a single portlet or multiple portlets. An example of a single portlet application is the WorldClock portlet application, which contains a single portlet named World Clock Portlet. An example of a portlet application with multiple portlets is Manage Web Modules, which contains Manage Web Modules, Manage Applications, and Manage Portlets.

You can add portlets to a running system at any time. After installation, the new portlets are immediately available to administrative users. They can assign the appropriate user roles to the desired groups and users so that these can access and use the portlets. Once available, the portlets can be selected for display on the portal pages of users and can be edited as appropriate. Identification information of WAR files is stored in a database for easy deployment in complex server environments with multiple portal servers. By allowing all files associated with a portlet to be packed into a single file, distribution and deployment of new portlets is made easier.

Portlets can be distributed in WAR file format through Web sites and other means.

 

Overview of administration portlets

WebSphere Portal has additional administration portlets that assist in managing portal resources. The following list of the administration portlets includes an overview of the tasks you can perform with each portlet as well as hints to additional resources.

In the portal the portlets are arranged under Administration in seven groups as follows:

Several administrative portlets have a table feature, which is used to list the available portal resources pertaining to the selected portlet. The layout of the table may vary, depending on the portlet. You can customize the table by clicking the configure icon in the portlet title bar. In configure mode, you can alter the total number of items that appear on the table and the number of rows that appear on each page of the table. Some portlets allow you to add optional columns to the table.

Updates made in the configure mode of a portlet change the default look for all users. Updates made in edit mode change the look only for that user.

The search feature allows you to search available resources within that portlet. Except for the User and Groups and User and Groups Permissions portlets, wild characters are not supported in this search feature, including the asterisk (*). Wild character searches for the User and Groups and User and Groups Permissions portlets are supported as long as the asterisk (*) is at the end or beginning of the search parameter. For example, the following searches are supported...

  • *user
  • user*
  • *user*

and this is not supported...

  • us*r

...for the User and Groups and User and Groups Permissions portlets only.

By default, all searches return resources that contain a subset of a search parameter. Below is a list of some search types. Their availability depends on the resource type being used.

Title starts with: Search on the beginning of a string in the title. This is the default setting, and the input is expected in string format.
Title contains: Search on a string in the title. The input is expected in string format.
Name starts with: Search on the beginning of a string in the name. The input is expected in string format.
Name contains: Search on a string in the name. The input is expected in string format.
Keyword starts with: Search on the beginning of a keyword. The input is expected in string format.
Keyword contains: Search on a keyword. The input is expected in string format.
Description starts with: Search on the beginning of a string in the description. The input is expected in string format.
Description contains: Search on a string in description. The input is expected in string format.
Unique Name start with: Search the beginning of a string in the unique name. The input is expected in string format.
Unique Name contains: Search on a string in the unique name. The input is expected in string format.
Markup starts with: Search the beginning of a string in the markup type. This returns a list of pages that support that markup. The input is expected in string format.
Markup contains: Search on a string in the markup type. This returns a list of pages that support that markup. The input is expected in string format.
Label: Search on a URL context label.
Attributes: Search on a user or group attribute.
Last modified: Search by items that have been modified on or since a specific date. The input is expected in YYYY MM DD format.
All available: Return a listing of all items. No input is required.

 

Portal User Interface

 

Manage Pages

The Manage Pages portlet allows you to export page configurations in XML, create, edit, activate, order, and delete pages as well as external Web pages and labels. Available tasks depend on which item is selected. Each page can contain multiple pages.

 

Themes and Skins

The Themes and Skins portlet allows you to install, edit, and delete themes as well as install and edit skins. You can also select a default theme and skin using this portlet.

 

Portlet management

 

Manage Web Modules

The Manage Web Modules portlet allows you to install new portlets from either a Web service or WAR file or to manage existing portlets, or view a list of portlet applications for a Web module. A Web module is a war file containing portlet applications.

 

Manage Applications

The Manage Applications portlet allows you to enable a portlet application as a Web service or to manage existing portlet applications.

 

Manage Portlets

The Manage Portlets portlet allows you to view or manage existing portlets, or enable portlets as Web services.

 

Web Service Configuration

The Web Service Configuration portlet allows you to set up your portal for consuming Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) and configure Web service Producers on the Consumer portal side.

You cannot use the Web Service Configuration portlet for the following:

To perform tasks related to providing or consuming Web services, use the other portlets for managing portlets.

 

Web clipping

The Web Clipping Editor allows you to identify and extract specific portions of a document for display in a portlet. You can choose to display an entire document by referencing a URL or tag only a key section.

 

Access

 

Users and Groups

The Users and Groups portlet allows you to search for, edit, and delete existing users and groups. You can also create new users and groups and modify group membership.

 

Resource Permissions

Resource Permissions allows you to set portal access roles. You can assign access roles to associate users and groups with resources to determine the level of interaction a user can have with a resource. Refer to Security concepts and Roles for more information about the access control roles or the Resource Permissions portlet help for detailed instructions on assigning access roles.

 

User and Group Permissions

The User and Group Permissions portlet allows you to assign roles to users and groups.

 

Credential Vault

Credential Vault allows you to perform tasks specific to vault management. You can add or manage vault segments and vault slots. Refer to Credential Vault and Credential Service for an overview, the Credential Vault portlet help for detailed instructions on working with vaults, or under Enable security and Security Concepts for supported credential types and developing secure portlets.

 

Portal Settings

 

Global Settings

Use the Global Settings portlet to define what the user sees in the portal, including the default language and the Find link. The default language specified in Global Settings applies to all users when the language preference specified in their browser is not supported by WebSphere Portal. For example, if WebSphere Portal supports English, German, and Spanish, with English as the default language in Global Settings, a user whose browser language preference is set to Italian would see English because Italian is not supported in this case. A user can also select a preferred language when registering with WebSphere Portal.

Global Settings also determines what users see when returning to the portal on subsequent visits. For example, you can choose to display the most recently visited page rather than a default page. You can allow users themselves to choose what they see when logging on to the portal, or if they see the default page or the most recently visited page. You can also determine a URL for the Find link.

 

URL Mapping

The URL Mapping portlet allows you to create user friendly URLs and map them to portal pages. You can define human readable names for them. These can be easily remembered and are therefore more user friendly. The self defined URLs can be published externally and thereby made available to portal users.

 

Custom Unique Names

The portal uses object IDs to identify portal resources unambiguously even between different portals. They consist of an extended alphanumeric string that may be difficult to remember. The Custom Unique Names portlet enables you to assign unique names, or human readable names, to portal resources. You can select names for them that are easy to remember. These custom unique names are easier to handle than the object IDs assigned by the portal. They make identification of portal resources easier, for example when porting resources from one portal to another.

 

Supported Markups

The Supported Markups portlet allows you to determine which markups the portal recognizes. You can add, edit, activate or deactivate, and delete a markup. The installation default is HTML.

Removing or changing the HTML markup will cause portal access problems. The XML configuration interface must be used to recover from this error.

 

Supported Clients

With Supported Clients you can determine what types of devices can access the portal. You can add, edit, order, or delete clients. To test a portlet with a device simulator you may need to add the user agent string of the device simulator to the WebSphere Portal client list. Consult the documentation included with the device simulator to determine the user agent strings the simulator supports and add these using the Supported Clients administration portlet.

 

Search Administration

WebSphere Portal has a number of portlets related to Search, several administrative portlets for administering search facilities, and two user search portlets. Searchable resources include various document types, for example HTML and text documents. For more information on configuring and administrating searches, refer to Search.

 

Import XML

The Import XML portlet allows you to import an XML file. For example, from a staging server you can export pages and portlets into XML using the XML export button on Manage Pages and then use the Import XML portlet to import the configuration to a productivity server.

 

Portal Analysis

 

Frequent Users

The Frequent Users portlet shows how many users have been logged in for the past 90 days.

 

Enable Tracing

The Enable Tracing portlet allows you to enable or disable the tracing logs.

 

Portal Content

 

Manage Document Libraries

Document libraries are used as the collection containers for Document Manager files, folders, and views. The Manage Document Libraries administrative portlet enables you to create and maintain document libraries within Document Manager. The Manage Document Libraries portlet is part of the WebSphere Portal standard installation. As an administrator, you can use the Manage Document Libraries portlet to configure the settings for document libraries, such as versioning, approvals workflow, and document locking. The settings you configure for a document library affect the way users can work in that particular library within Document Manager.

You can also use the Manage Document Libraries portlet to perform other library management tasks, such as searching, creating, editing, and deleting libraries, as well as copying libraries and importing multiple files. You can also assign user access to document libraries using the Management Document Libraries portlet.

Refer to the Document libraries topic for an overview of what you can do with the Manage Document Libraries portlet. Refer to the Set up document libraries topic for more information about configuring the Manage Document Libraries portlet.

 

Virtual Portal

The Manage Virtual Portals portlet allow you to administer create, list, modify, and delete virtual portals, and to fill them with content. When deleting a virtual portal, select Delete URL context if you want to delete the urlcontext associated with a virtual portal. Note: If you have created other subcontexts off the urlcontext created when the virtual portal that you are deleting was created, you may not want to select Delete URL context.

 

Install portlets

WebSphere Portal includes Manage Web Modules on the portal page of Portal Administration for easy installation of portlets and portlet applications. An administrator must have the Manager role on the portal to install portlets. If the Manager role on the portal exists, the administrator selects a WAR file that is made available to the running system after installation. Each WAR file includes descriptive information about the portlet, which is placed in a database that can be queried by other portal components. During installation, Application Server unpacks the WAR file and places the portlet classes and resources in a file system.

As Windows limits the maximum path length to 260 characters, the name of the WAR file must be 25 characters or less. Installing a WAR file with a name that is more than 25 characters will result in an error.

During the installation, the portlet state is set to active, and a new rule is automatically added to Access Control that defines the user who installed the portlet as the owner, granting management access for that portlet. The user must assign the appropriate user roles to the desired users and groups so that these can access and use that portlet.

You cannot install a portlet more than once. If you want two instances of a portlet application or portlet, use the copy command to create a second instance.

 

Managing portlet applications

The Manage Applications portlet in Portal Administration gives you complete control over portlet applications. Manage Applications displays a list of all Web modules and associated portlet applications installed on the portal. You can view and change portlet application settings from this portlet. Tasks include activating and deactivating, renaming, modifying configuration parameters, and deleting portlet applications.

For information about developing portlet applications, refer to Developing portlets section.

For information about Deploying J2EE resources with portlet application WAR files refer to that topic.

 

Activate and deactivating portlet applications

By default, portlet applications are set to an active state after installation. Pages also have an active and inactive state. You can deactivate a resource to prevent users from accessing it without changing their user roles. When a portlet application is in the active state, portal users with a user role to use this portlet can include it on their personal pages and customize it. You can toggle portlet application states to active or inactive from Manage Applications.

 

Copying portlet applications

With Manage Portlet Application, you can copy a portlet application. The copy should be given a new name. A copy of a portlet application includes some or all of the portlets from the original portlet application. If you want additional instances of a portlet application, make a copy.

When a portlet application is copied, the portlet data and the portlet application data are copied, but the copied portlet application uses the same resources as the original portlet application. When a copied portlet application is copied, the new portlet application also uses the same resources as the original portlet application. However, only portlets in the copied portlet application will be in the new portlet application. For instance, if the copied portlet application contains four portlets and the original contains five portlets, only the four portlets are copied to the new portlet application.

Copying can be useful when different portlet configuration parameters are required for different instances of a portlet. A copy of the portlet application can be used to configure the portlet instance for each portlet application. For example, the administrator might want to have multiple RSS portlet applications. Each copied application would have a different URL, accessing a different content channel, configured for its RSSPortlet.

 

Updating portlet applications

Manage Applications can also update Web modules. The newer version of the resource in the WAR file updates the existing portlet application, without breaking the links between user data and the resource. User-specific settings for portlets within the updated resource remain unchanged.

Before a selected Web module is updated, WebSphere Portal checks for an identical resource name in the selected WAR file. If the name of the selected object and the object name in the deployment descriptor of the WAR file do not match, the update is not performed, and a message is displayed.

When a Web module is updated, WebSphere Application Server removes the existing files and installs the updated application in the same directory. Updating the configuration parameters from the portlet deployment descriptor is controlled by the setting of update.portlet.preserves.config.settings in DeploymentService.properties. New parameters that are introduced by the updated Web module are always added to the Web module. However, changed parameters are updated only if the following value is set: 

update.portlet.preserves.config.settings=false

By default, this setting is true, preventing configuration parameters in the updated portlet deployment descriptor from updating existing parameters.

 

Configure portlet applications

Many portlet applications have associated configuration parameters that must be changed after deployment. Manage Applications allows you to modify configuration parameters. The original configuration is determined by settings in the portlet.xml deployment descriptor file. Configuration changes apply to each specific instance. WebSphere Portal does not validate configuration modification to portlet applications. Writing portlets contains additional information on portlet configuration.

 

Delete or uninstalling portlet applications

Web modules and portlet applications can also be uninstalled or deleted from WebSphere Portal using the Manage Applications portlet. After selecting an object for deletion, the system waits until all outstanding requests for the portlet have been completed and then removes all related files and resources from the portal server. Before removing a portlet application, first delete all of its copied portlet applications. If you have the portlet WAR file, you may reinstall the portlet components after deleting it from the system.

 

Managing portlets

Manage Portlets gives you complete control over portlets. Manage Portlets displays a list of all portlets installed on the portal. Manage Portlets allows you to view and change portlet settings, including activating and deactivating, renaming, modifying configuration parameters, and deleting.

 

Activating and deactivating portlets

By default, new portlets are set to an active state. Pages also have an active and inactive state. You can deactivate a resource to prevent users from accessing it without changing their user roles. When a portlet is in the active state, portal users with the appropriate user roles to use this portlet can include it on their personal pages and customize it. Users that have active references to those inactive portlets on a portal page will see a message stating that the portlet is temporarily disabled. If you begin working on a portlet, WebSphere Portal automatically changes the state to deactivated. After completing work on the resource, remember to activate it so that others with appropriate permissions can use it.

 

Copying portlets

With Manage Portlets, you can copy a portlet. You should give the copy a new name.

If a portlet is copied or a remote portlet is integrated, a new portlet application is created by the portal that holds the new portlet. The user must have an Administrator, Manager, or Editor role for public pages and an Administrator, or Privilege User role for private pages for both portlets and portlet applications.

When a portlet is copied, the portlet data is copied, but the copied portlet uses the same resources as the original portlet. When a copied portlet is copied, the new portlet also uses the same resources as the original portlet.

 

Configure portlets

Many portlets have associated configuration parameters that must be changed after deployment. Manage Portlets allows you to modify configuration parameters. The original configuration is determined by settings in the portlet.xml deployment descriptor file. Configuration changes apply to each specific instance. WebSphere Portal does not validate configuration modifications to portlets. Writing portlets contains additional information on portlet configuration.

 

Delete portlets

You can also use the Manage Portlets portlet to delete portlets from WebSphere Portal. After you select an object for deletion, the portal waits until all outstanding requests for the portlet have been completed. The portal then removes all related files and resources from the portal installation. If you have the portlet WAR file, you can reinstall the portlet components after deleting it from the system. You do this by updating the portlet application. If you do not want to do it this way, be sure that all portlet applications installed in the portlet WAR file have been removed and that the WAR file has been uninstalled. Only after that you can reinstall the deleted portlet.

Do not delete any administrative portlets.

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