Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows

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Cooperative portlet reference

• JSP tags used by source portlets

• WSDL reference for cooperative portlets

  • Extensions to the <binding> element

  • WSDL Extension Schema

 

JSP tags used by source portlets

The following tags are used by source portlet JSPs.

<c2a:encodeProperty/>

Uses source data and type information to insert markup that displays the Click-to-Action icon, generating a pop-up menu. The type, namespace, and value attributes are required. The tag can optionally pass the source information to an enclosing <c2a:encodeProperties/> tag to generate the markup. The latter tag would typically be used to support the scattering of several sources to multiple actions at once.

Usually, any property which may be described using an XML type, following the type restrictions, is a candidate for being tagged as a C2A source. Refer to the Programming guidelines for which sources are appropriate to tag.

Currently only delivering to a single target page for any cross page action is supported. The Click-to-Action icon will only be displayed if there is a suitable target on the same page as the source.

It is usually appropriate to locate this tag close to a visual representation of the source data, if such is present on the page. The following are attributes of encodeProperty.

Attribute	Value
type	The type of data sent by the source portlet. Required. The data type is defined in the WSDL. The Click-to-Action runtime uses type and namespace attributes to match source data to actions on targets.
name	The unique name of the source property. Although not required, this parameter must be provided to allow wires to be created between cooperative portlets.
namespace	The namespace for the type. Required. This attribute is used to group related types in a single domain.
value	The data to be sent by the source portlet. Required. The Click-to-Action runtime sends the value of the user's selections to the target actions. In the sample below, value is the order detail retrieved from the OrderDetailBean. This can only be a string format. To pass more general formats, use the appropriate java API call, either generateActionTriggerControl() or getActionTriggerMarkup().
broadcast	Indicates whether the source data can be broadcast to all target portlets with matching actions. False is the default setting. Optional. If the value is true, the generated menu displays an additional item to broadcast the source to all matching targets.
generateMarkupWhenNested	Indicates that this tag should generate markup even when nested within the <c2a:encodeProperties/> tag. This attribute is optional; the default is false. If this tag is not nested, the attribute is ignored.
matchOnSelf	Optional. Specifies if matching actions on the source portlet in which the tag occurs should also be displayed in the menu. Default value is "true" (i.e., source actions will be displayed). To only display actions from targets other than the current portlet, specify "false".

<c2a:encodeProperties/>

Used to enclose normal HTML markup and one or more encodeProperty tags with the markup.

This tag is provided to support the scatter scenario, where a user can optionally send more than one unit of data to target portlets. This may be used to enclose several <c2a:encodeProperty/> tags, each of which is used to contribute a single source data object for the scatter. Each enclosed encodeProperties tag must specify a different value for the type attribute. At the point where the encodeProperties tag is closed, an icon is placed, which, when clicked, displays a menu within a single item. When the item is selected, each action that matches any of the encoded property values is simultaneously invoked.

This tag takes the following attributes:

Attribute	Value
caption	Displays a caption on the generated menu. Required. A caption should be a short description of the action or actions resulting when a user selects that option from the menu. A default caption is used if none is provided. If internationalization is to be used, replace spaces in the caption text with periods.
description	An attribute of the encodeProperties tag. Optional. Not currently used. This tag provides a longer description of an action or actions. This option aides the user in deciding whether to invoke an action or not. If internationalization is to be used, replace spaces in the caption text with periods.

 

WSDL reference for cooperative portlets

WSDL is often used in the context of Web Services, in order to define interfaces implemented by a Web Service. Usually, a SOAP binding is used to specify the concrete realization of the interface by a Web Service which supports the SOAP protocol. The following shows how Click-to-Action uses some of the elements in the WSDL document. The extensions to the <binding> element are described and the complete schema for WSDL Extensions is provided.

• <types>

  For cooperative portlets, this declares the data type of the data to be transferred. The data type is declared using XML Schema Datatypes (XSD, see the XSD specification). There may be multiple types defined in the document.

  The following shows a declaration for the TrackingIDType:

      <types>
        <xsd:simpleType name="TrackingIDType">
          <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
          </xsd:restriction>
        </xsd:simpleType>
      </types>
     

• <message>

  Input messages can contain only one part.

• <operation>

  Provides an abstract definition of a Click-to-Action operation. Note the restriction on input messages above.

• <portType>

  Defines an abstract collection of operations. The operations must be defined in the document. One operation corresponds to each action on the Click-to-Action enabled portlet. Only actions that are to be enabled for Click-to-Action should be declared.

• <binding>

  The binding element is extended to associate portlet actions with operations. For each operation, the portlet action name must be provided. The portlet action name may be specified using the name attribute of the action tag in the binding section of the WSDL file. If it is omitted, the name attribute from the operation tag is used as the portlet action name.

  For each operation parameter, the action parameter name must be provided. The portlet parameter name may be specified using the name attribute of the param tag in the binding section of the WSDL file. If it is omitted, the name attribute of the part tag associated with the param tag is used as the portlet parameter name.

  Further, the boundTo attribute may be used to specify where the parameter will be bound. Choices are request-parameter, request-attribute, session-attribute, or action-attribute.

  The <binding> element includes cooperative portlet extensions, which are described in Extensions to the <binding> element. For more information on the <binding> element in WSDL, see the "Enabling portlets for cooperation" document.

If you are familiar with WSDL, you might notice that the service section (enclosed by the <service> element in WSDL) is not used in the C2A action declaration file. This is because the file is associated with a specific portlet implementing the operations defined in the file through external means (an entry in the portlet.xml file associated with the portlet).

 

Extensions to the <binding> element

The <binding> element has been extended to support cooperative portlets. Each extension element is prefixed with "portlet:", which refers to the C2A namespace, http://www.ibm.com/wps/c2a. The "portlet:" prefix is used to identify the extension elements in this section, but a different name may be used for the prefix as long as it refers to the C2A namespace. The elements are described below. See WSDL Extension Schema

• <portlet:binding>

  This must be the first child element of the WSDL <binding> element. Its presence identifies the section as a C2A binding extension for portlet action invocation. The element has the following attribute.

  • style

    Deprecated. Specifying style="struts" indicates that Struts actions are being declared. Instead, you should use type=struts on the <portlet:action> element for this purpose.

• <portlet:action> This must be the first child element of any WSDL <operation> element in the binding section. It contains the following attributes:

  • name

    the portlet action name. If this is omitted, the name of the associated operation element is used as the portlet action name.

  • caption

    a short string about the action suitable for displaying in the portlet user interface. For translated captions, indicate in dotted format the name of the key in the resource bundles from which the caption is to be obtained. See Internationalization support for more information.

  • type Indicates one of the following values:

    • default indicates a DefaultPortletAction object is used. This object is deprecated but still supported for migration purposes.

    • simple indicates a simple portlet action String is used.

    • struts indicates a Struts action is used. See Struts integration with cooperative portlets for more information.

    • standard indicates a standard (JSR) portlet action is used.

    • standard-struts indicates a struts action is used with a standard (JSR) portlet.

  • actionNameParameter

    (Standard only) The name of the request parameter which will be used to supply the action name.

  • description

    a text description of the action. For translated descriptions, indicate in dotted format the name of the key in the resource bundles from which the description is to be obtained. See Internationalization support for more information.

  • activeOnStartup

    Indicate either "true" or "false". If false, the action must be programmatically activated in each session. If true (default), the action is active as soon as the portlet is initialized.

  • selectOnMultipleMatch

    In the case that multiple actions match based on the data type for the portlet, this attribute can be used to indicate which action to trigger. Multiple matching actions can occur when a user broadcasts an action on a source. If not specified, the default is false. In the case where no single action is set to true, the data is not delivered to the target.

    In the following example from TrackingC2A.wsdl, There are two actions declared: trackingDetails and routingDetails. selectOnMultipleMatch is used to indicate that the trackingDetails should be used in the case of a multiple match.

    <binding name="TrackingBinding" type="tns:Tracking_Service">
       <portlet:binding/>
       <operation name="trackingDetails">
          <portlet:action caption="Tracking Details"
                   description="Get tracking details for specified tracking id"
                   selectOnMultipleMatch="true"/>
          <input>
              <portlet:param name="trackingId" partname="trackingId"/>
          </input>
          <output>
              <portlet:param name="customerName" partname="custName" 
                             boundTo="session"/>
          </output>
       </operation>
       <operation name="routingDetails">
          <portlet:action caption="Routing Details"
                   description="Get routing details for specified tracking id"/>
          <input>
              <portlet:param name="trackingId" partname="trackingId"/>
          </input>
       </operation>
    </binding>
    
       

• <constant:param> This is used to set the value returned by the getConstantParameters method of the action. Each constant parameter will be bound as a request parameter with the specified name and value when the action is invoked. More than one constant parameter can be specified.

  • name

    the name of the parameter.

  • value

    specifies the parameter value.

  The following shows an example for using the constant parameter.

  	  <portlet:constant-params>
          <portlet:constant-param name="defaultMonth" value="January"/>
        </portlet:constant-params> 

• <portlet:param>

  This must appear as a child element in the <input> or <output> subelements of the <operation> element in the binding. It specifies the parameters consumed (if enclosed in the <input> element) or produced (if enclosed in the <output> element) by the portlet action. At present, we restrict the number of parameters consumed to at most one. The number of parameters produced can be any number. It has the following attributes:

  • name

    the name of the parameter. If omitted, the name attribute value of the part element is used as the parameter name.

  • partname

    refers to a part element of the input or output for the operation. It may be omitted if the input or output has a single part.

  • boundTo specifies where the parameter value is bound. Currently, this attribute can specify one of the following values only:

    • request-parameter : This specifies that the value is bound as a parameter in the PortletRequest object. This is the default value if the boundTo attribute is omitted. Note that for output parameters, a different value should usually be specified as the default PortletRequest implementation provided by WebSphere Portal does not allow parameters to be set during action processing.

    • request-attribute : This specifies that the value is bound as an attribute in the PortletRequest object.

    • session : This specifies that the value is bound to the PortletSession object.

    • action : This specifies that the value is bound to a portlet action.

    • render-parameter: (JSR only) This specifies that the value is bound as a render parameter in the ActionResponse (output parameters only).

  • presentIfNullValue

    specifies is null values for the parameter are significant for the purposes of wired action invocation. Value can be either "true" or "false", with "false" being the default. If "true", the presence of the parameter will cause the wired action to be invoked even if the value of the parameter is null. If "false", the presence of the parameter will cause the wired action to be invoked only if the parameter value is not null. Can be specified for either input or output parameters (i.e, the treatment of null parameter values can be controlled at either the source or the target).

 

WSDL Extension Schema

The following is the schema for the extensibility elements introduced for the portlet action invocation using Click-to-Action. Lines have been broken to allow viewing on the printed page.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
               xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
               targetNamespace="http://www.ibm.com/wps/c2a"
               xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" 
               xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
               xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/ 
                                   http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/ 
                                   http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema 
                                   http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema.xsd" 
               xmlns:portlet="http://www.ibm.com/wps/c2a">
   <!-- The binding  element indicates that the binding section 
       contains custom extensions describing a mapping of operations to 
       portlet actions. This must be placed within a WSDL 
       binding element. -->
<element name="binding" type="portlet:bindingType"/>
<complexType name="bindingType">
   <!-- DEPRECATED, retained for compatibility with version 4. Use the    type attribute with the action element instead. Set value to be 
   "struts" for a portlet implemented using the struts framework. -->
   <attribute name="style" type="string" use="optional"/>
</complexType>
<!-- The action element is used to provide all the information 
  about the portlet action necessary for the property broker to   invoke it. This must be placed within an wsdl:operation element 
  in the wsdl:binding section. -->
<element name="action" type="portlet:actionType"/>
<complexType name="actionType">
    <sequence>
        <!-- The constant-params element is used to provide constant              parameters associated with the action. These are bound              as request parameters when the action is invoked -->
        <element name="constant-params" type="portlet:constantParamsType"
             minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1"/>
        </sequence>
         <!-- The name of the action. 
              Will be set as the portlet action name.  
              If omitted, the name of the corresponding operation 
              element will be used as the action name. -->
        <attribute name="name" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- The type of the action. Currently recognized values              are default, simple, struts, and standard, 
             with default being the default. 
             The values specify whether the legacy DefaultPortletAction,              legacy simple portlet action, legacy portlet              struts action, or standard (JSR-168) portlet 
             action mechanism is used to invoke the portlet action. 
             The use of DefaultPortletAction is 
             deprecated, and the default is set to this 
             value for backwards compatibility.-->
        <attribute name="type" type="string" use="optional" 
           default="default"/>
        <!-- A short name for  the action which is displayed to the 
          end-user.If a message resource file is 
          provided for the portlet,           the value is used as a key to retrieve a translated string -->
        <attribute name="caption" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- A description for  the action which is              displayed to the end-user. 
             If a message resource file is provided for the portlet, the              value is used as a key to retrieve a translated string -->
        <attribute name="description" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- If more than one portlet action can simultaneously process 
             a property value, only those with the 
             invokeOnMultipleMatch attribute              set to true will be invoked -->
        <attribute name="selectOnMultipleMatch" type="boolean" 
           use="optional" default="false"/>
        <!-- If the activeOnStartup attribute is true, 
             the action may be selected for invocation 
             at any time unless  programmatically              deactivated on a per-session basis. 
             If the activeOnStartup is false, the action may not be 
             selected for invocation, unless              programmatically activated on a per-session basis -->
        <attribute name="activeOnStartup" type="boolean" 
           use="optional" default="true"/>
        <!-- The actionNameParameter attribute is used to specify              the name of a request parameter whose value will carry              the action name. IBM recommends that all actions of              a portlet use the same value of this parameter. This is              used to identify the specific action which is being executed              on the portlet, as the processAction method in JSR 168
             does not explicitly pass any information identifying the              action. If this attribute is omitted, the              actionNameParameter value defaults to 
             com.ibm.portal.propertybroker.action -->
        <attribute name="actionNameParameter" type="string" 
           use="optional" 
           default="com.ibm.portal.propertybroker.action"/>
    </complexType>
    <complexType name="constantParamsType">
        <!-- The constant-params element is used to provide constant              parameters associated with the action. These are bound              as request parameters when the action is invoked -->
        <sequence>
        <!-- The constant-param element is used to provide a name              and a value which will be bound as a request parameter              when the portlet's action is invoked -->
        <element name="constant-param" type="portlet:constantParamType" 
         minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
        </sequence>
    </complexType>
    <complexType name="constantParamType">
        <!-- The constant-param element is used to provide a name              and a value which will be bound as a request parameter              when the portlet's action is invoked -->
        <!-- The name of the constant-parameter -->
        <attribute name="name" type="string" use="required"/>
        <!-- The value of the constant-parameter -->
        <attribute name="value" type="string" use="required"/>
    </complexType>
    <!-- The param element is used to indicate information 
             about the input or output property associated with the 
             action and the mechanism for passing parameters to or from              the action. It must be placed within a              wsdl:input or wsdl:output element. -->
    <element name="param" type="portlet:paramType"/>
    <complexType name="paramType">
    <!-- The param element indicates how the parameter is to be 
         delivered to the portlet action or retrieved from 
         it once the action has executed -->
        <!-- The name of the parameter which will be used on 
         action invocation. If omitted, the partname is used. 
         This name will also be set as the name of the 
         corresponding property. -->
        <attribute name="name" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- The name of the corresponding part. May be omitted only if 
             there is a single parameter for the action, 
             in which case it will be inferred from              the associated operation definition -->
        <attribute name="partname" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- Where to place the parameter prior to invoking the action 
             (in case of in parameters), or where to look for it 
             after invoking the action (in case of out parameters).
             request-attribute, request-parameter, session are              allowed for both standard and legacy portlets. A value of              action is allowed for legacy portlets only, and a value              of render-parameter is allowed for standard portlets only 
        -->
        <attribute name="boundTo" type="string" 
         default="request-parameter"/>
        <!-- If the parameter is found but its value is null, this attribute         determines if the parameter is deemed to be present for brokered         communication purposes. If the value is set to true, the parameter         is deemed to be present and the null value will be propagated. The         default is false. 
        -->
        <attribute name="presentIfNullValue" type="string" 
         default="false" use="optional"/>
        <!-- The java class for the parameter. 
             The default is java.lang.String. 
             If a non-default value is provided, it will be              used in conjunction with type and namespace to 
             restrict matches         -->
        <attribute name="class" type="string" 
         default="java.lang.String"/>
        <!-- A short name for the parameter which is displayed 
             to the end-user. If a message resource file is 
             provided for the portlet,              the value is used as a key to retrieve a 
             translated string -->
        <attribute name="caption" type="string" use="optional"/>
        <!-- A description for  the parameter which is displayed to the 
             end-user. If a message resource file is provided for the 
             portlet, the value is used as a key to retrieve a 
             translated string -->
        <attribute name="description" type="string" use="optional"/>
    </complexType>
</xsd:schema>

 

Related information

• Struts Portlet Framework

• WSDL Specification

• XSD specification

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