Portlet Factory, Version 6.1.2
Overview of IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory support for rich client platforms
In WebSphere Portlet Factory, many WebSphere Portlet Factory portlets can now run on rich client platforms, such as IBM® Lotus® Expeditor 6.1.1 and later, and IBM Lotus Notes® 8 Standard and later versions.
Rich client platforms use an Eclipse/OSGI (Open Service Gateway Initiative) based runtime environment that enables Java/SWT and WebSphere Portlet Factory based applications to run directly on client machines. As with all eclipse based platforms, you extend the platform using eclipse/OSGI plugins also called bundles. For SWT based components, extensions are provided using eclipse plugins, just as the Eclipse extensions that implement the WebSphere Portlet Factory Designer are provided with Eclipse plugins. For Portlets, the eclipse extension is provided using a Web Application Bundle (WAB). A WAB is similar to a Portlet WAR, but also includes a plugin.xml that describes the extension, and a manifest that describes OSGI bundle configuration information such as plugin dependencies and classloading settings.
A typical use might be a WebSphere Portlet Factory developer creating portlets, building a composite application in IBM WebSphere® Portal, possibly wiring portlets together for property broker events, and then provisioning that application and the portlet WAB for the project down to IBM Lotus Expeditor or Lotus Notes 8. For more information on creating portal composite applications, see the WebSphere Portal Information Center composite application documentation. For more information on configuring IBM Lotus Expeditor or Lotus Notes 8 against a WebSphere Portal server and provisioning applications from portal, see the IBM Lotus Expeditor and Lotus Notes documentation. Lotus Notes 8 also provides its own composite application editor, where developers can create a new composite application within Lotus Notes 8 standard, adding both Lotus Notes components (for example a Contacts view) and portlets from an update site, to an application page. See the Lotus Notes 8 Composite Application Editor documentation for more information on using CAE to create composite applications.
See the IBM DeveloperWorks and WebSphere Portlet Factory product documentation sites, and the WebSphere Portlet Factory devWorks forums for more information on using using WebSphere Portlet Factory with Lotus Expeditor Toolkit to build Plugins, Features and Update Sites for rich client platforms
You can use WebSphere Portlet Factory to generate a Web Application Bundle (WAB), an Eclipse Feature referencing that bundle, and an Eclipse Update Site where that feature and plugin can be installed from, from a WebSphere Portlet Factory project. More information on the process of building and deploying WebSphere Portlet Factory based WABs can be found in the Building and Deploying WebSphere Portlet Factory Rich Client Web Application Bundles help page.
This WebSphere Portlet Factory documentation describes WebSphere Portlet Factory-specific functionality related to building and deploying portlet WABs to the rich client platforms, but it is not a replacement for those platforms' own documentation on how to manage, extend and update those platforms. Refer to each platform's own documentation for more information on administration, updates and platform-specific features.
Parent topic: Working with WebSphere Portlet Factory
- About Building IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory-based Web Application Bundles (WAB) for Rich Client Platforms (RCP)
In WebSphere Portlet Factory many WebSphere Portlet Factory portlets can now run on rich client platforms such as IBM Lotus Expeditor 6.1.1 and later, and IBM Lotus Notes 8 Standard and later versions. Web Application Bundles (WAB) let you extend a portlet for use with Rich Client Platforms. This topic outlines how to build these bundles for Rich Client Platforms (RCP) using WebSphere Portlet Factory.
- Known Rich Client Platform limitations and differences
There are several known limitations between supported rich client platforms.
- Caveats on migrating applications from WebSphere Portal to IBM Lotus Expeditor/Lotus Notes 8
Not every portal based composite application or portlet is a good candidate for running locally on end user desktops using the rich client platform. At the minimum you should perform a thorough review of your application's security needs to determine the risks involved.
- IBM Lotus Expeditor and Lotus Notes 8 platform requirements and pre-requisites
IBM Lotus Expeditor 6.1.1 and Lotus Notes 8 added the capability to support dynamic translation of JSPs (previous versions only supported precompiled JSPs) which WebSphere Portlet Factory requires.
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