URL generation using the Navigational State SPI
Navigational state represents the view of the portal associated with a particular client. The client can request (query) different views by interacting with the web page, for example by going to a new page. This interaction does not change the state on the server but requests a new view from the server. It is therefore a "safe" operation in terms of HTTP 1.1 (See RFC 2616, Section 9.1.1). This interaction allows the client to go back and forward through its recent views, bookmark views, and go back to them by calling a browser bookmark. This behavior is achieved by encoding the navigational state of HCL WebSphere Portal into the URL. Different navigational states result in different URLs.
For details about the back button behavior and the support of bookmarks, see to the topic Back button behavior.
Use the Navigational State SPI to create URLs that carry navigational state. The SPI offers two services (obtainable through JNDI) to create such URLs:
- Portal State Manager Service
- A portal service used to realize use cases that go beyond what the portal tags provide. Use it to create URLs within portal artifacts such as themes and skins, custom JSP tags. We can also use it in artifacts that are removed from the request processing, such as Enterprise JavaBeans. However, the Portal State Manager Service is not meant to be used for portlets.
- Portlet State Manager Service
- The counterpart service that supports JSR168 and JSR286 compliant portlets. Use the Portlet State Manager Service to create URLs within portlets that cannot be created using the Standard Portlet APIs.
The com.ibm.portal.state package is the main package of the Navigational State SPI. It holds the service interfaces and the interfaces that make up the navigational state object model. For more information about all SPI interfaces, see the Javadoc.
Parent DevelopingRelated concepts:
Back button behavior