Collaborative Services API

Collaborative Services defined

Collaborative Services are has a set of methods and JavaServer Page tags that allow developers who are writing portlets for WebSphere Portal or other appservers to add Lotus collaborative functionality to their portlets. The services may be used to develop new custom portlets, or to add collaborative functionality (for example, menus or person links indicating online status) to existing portlets.

Person tag

The Collaborative Services include a JavaServer Page tag language descriptor (TLD) for a person tag.

When added to the custom portlet, the person tag causes people's names to appear as hyperlinks, and the Click for Person Card option to display when the user moves the cursor over an active (underlined) person's name. Clicking this option displays the Person card. If WebSphere Portal cannot identify the person name, it displays the name as plain text and the Click for Person Card option is not available.

By default, the Person card includes the action Profile. The Send Mail action displays if the user has an email address. If Sametime is installed and enabled to work with the portal, the person tag adds an icon that indicates the person's online status and additional actions:

• Chat

• Add as Sametime Contact

The person tag provides only default actions, but we can add our own custom actions to the person menu in any portlet.

Configure the amount of time that the Person card displays by modifying the personTagTimeout custom property.

We can also customize the Person card so that only the business card fields display by default, letting users choose whether to expand the information shown.

The tag library for Collaborative Services that includes the person tag is installed on the portal server in the following locations:

Windows

PORTAL_HOME\people\people.impl\persontag\taglib\shared\app\WEB-INF\tld

UNIX

PORTAL_HOME/people/people.impl/persontag/taglib/shared/app/WEB-INF/tld

IBM i

PORTAL_HOME/people/people.impl/persontag/taglib/shared/app/WEB-INF/tld

z/OS

PORTAL_HOME/people/people.impl/persontag/taglib/shared/app/WEB-INF/tld

You do not need to copy or move the .tld file anywhere within the portal project; you need only refer to its location in the portal installation. You need a reference to it in the JSP file for every portlet that you deplon that uses the person tag.

• Integrate the Person card and online status in a custom portlet
  If IBM WebSphere Portal is configured to work with IBM Sametime, we can integrate the person card and online awareness in a custom portlet. Person names then appear with a dynamic status indicater. Users of the portlet can move the cursor over the name of an active person and then click Click for Person Card.
• Customize Person card actions through the theme
  We can use the theme to add items to the Person card's More actions menu in any portlet that uses the AJAX person tag.
• Set display duration for the Person card
  Configure the Person card to display longer than the default number of milliseconds by modifying the personTagTimeout custom property in the WAS admin console.
• Customize the look of the Person card
  We can change elements of the Click for Person Card option and the appearance of the Person card such as text color, font, background color, and so on, by modifying Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) definitions specified in the styles_people.jspf file located in the theme directory.
• Making business card fields expand and collapse
  Configure the Person card to display the business card fields for a selected name by letting users click a small control to expand the rest of the profile or hide it from view. You enable or disable this control by modifying the showExpandableSection custom property in the WAS admin console.
• Logging for Collaborative Services
  The Lotus Collaborative Services APIs use the WebSphere JRAS facility for logging error information to the WAS admin console or to log files.

Parent: Develop portlets
Related:
People awareness