How to access page parameters from a Portal Theme

Agenda : How to access the custom page parameters from IBM Theme.

When editing a portal page, you can add custom page parameters (metadata) to the page. The value of a custom page parameter can then be retrieved from your WPS theme code. This explains how.

First, you must add a custom parameter to one or more portal pages. This is done in the Edit Page view > Advanced options > I want to set parameters.

You can then access the named parameters in your theme code.

Take the following parameter name for example:

Name     : com.acme.page.hidden

Value      :true

Following is an example where this technique is used to determine whether or not a tab for a portal page should be rendered in the UI. This is taken from a theme file called topNav.jspf.


////////////////////////////////////////////////
<portal-navigation:navigationLoop>
     <%

    boolean isPageHidden = false;

    ContentNodeType nodeType = wpsNavNode.getContentNode().getContentNodeType();

    if (wpsNavNode instanceof com.ibm.portal.MetaDataProvider) {
            com.ibm.portal.MetaData iMetaData = ((com.ibm.portal.MetaDataProvider) wpsNavNode).getMetaData();              
            Object hiddenValue = iMetaData.getValue("com.acme.page.hidden");
            if (hiddenValue != null && hiddenValue.toString().equalsIgnoreCase("true") ){
                    isPageHidden = true;
            }
    }
    if (!isPageHidden) {
     %>

        ... OTHER JSP CODE GOES HERE...

    <% } // end isPageHidden %>
</portal-navigation:navigationLoop>

//////////////////////////////////

Note: To access the custom unique name for the page, try this using the same wpsNavNode object
that is shown as available within the portal-navigation loop above:

<%= wpsNavNode.getContentNode().getObjectID().getUniqueName() %>

Steps to enable new WCM features in WCM 7

Agenda : This article is to explain the steps required to enable new features of IBM WCM 7.
You may need to update your old web content to take advantage of the new Web Content Management features.

Web content configuration changes

          You no longer use the WCMConfigService.properties file to update configuration settings for Web Content Management. Instead, you now use the WCM WCMConfigService service to update configuration settings using the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server administration console.

Web content tag format changes

           Web content management tags now use square brackets. This means web content tags can now be entered directly into rich text fields.

For example, in previous versions the component tag was written as:

<component name="componentname" />

The component tag now uses square brackets:

 [component name="componentname" ]

Note:

• All web content tags are converted to the new format during migration.
• After migration, if a user enters a web content tag using the old format, it will be converted to the new format when saved.

New web content property tag

          The IDCmpnt, HistoryCmpnt, ProfileCmpnt, WorkflowCmpnt, and SecurityCmpnt tags have been deprecated. All deprecated tag features have been retained and consolidated into a new property tag.

[Property field=" " context=" " type=" " name=" " key=" " format=" " 

link=" " separator=" " htmlencode=" " awareness=" " ifEmpty=" " include=" "

restrict=" " resolve=" " start=" " end=" " ]

Note:

• These tags are converted to the new property tag during migration.
• After migration, if a user enters one of the deprecated tags, it will be converted to the new property tag when saved.

Autofill parameter in web content tags

         The behavior of the autofill parameter used in some web content tags has been updated so that if used in an item where autofill is not applicable, the tag will instead use the context of the current item.

         If you do not want this behavior to be used, you can set the renderAutoFillTagsAsCurrent to "false" in the WCM WCMConfigService service using the IBM WebSphere Application Server administration console.

Federated content component and element

         The federated content component and element have been deprecated in version 7.0. You can instead use features such as the new ECM dialog, the Web Content Integrator or the federated document feature of Personalization to reference federated content in your website.

          Federated content components and elements are migrated from previous versions and will be visible in the authoring portlet and can still be rendered in web pages, but you cannot create new federated content components or elements unless you enable this functionality.

          You can enable federated content components and elements in your 7.0 system to maintain legacy systems by adding the following property in the WCM WCMConfigService service using the IBM WebSphere Application Server administration console:

federatedcontent.enabled=true

Local rendering portlet

           The local rendering portlet has been deprecated and replaced with the new JSR 286 web content viewer portlet. If required, you can enable the IBM API local rendering portlet by running the deploy-wcm-legacy-localrender-portlet task from the wp_profile_root/ConfigEngine directory of your new system.

Windows

ConfigEngine.bat deploy-wcm-legacy-localrender-portlet -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

Linux

./ConfigEngine.sh deploy-wcm-legacy-localrender-portlet -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

iSeries

ConfigEngine.sh deploy-wcm-legacy-localrender-portlet -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

To add the legacy local rendering portlet to a page:

• Go to the Edit Layout view of a page and click Add portlets.
• Search for "Web Content Viewer".
• Select the portlet and click OK.

Inserting links to remote content

           Web Content Management enables you to include links to remote content in other repositories, such as IBM Lotus® Quickr, IBM DB2 Content Manager, or IBM FileNet Content Manager through the use of rich text fields.

            The rich text editors in version 6.1.5 (standard and extended rich text editor) and in version 7.0 (default and advanced rich text editor) support this function with the Insert Link to Remote Content button, and, in the case of the extended or the advanced rich text editor, with an additional Insert Link to Remote Content menu item.

            In version 7.0 the availability of the button and the menu item depend on capabilities of the portal theme. In particular, the theme applied to a page containing the authoring portlet must support Dojo 1.4.x and must include the theme.capability.dojo property in its metadata.properties file (for example, theme.capability.dojo=1.4.3).

            To enable the Insert Link to Remote Content function after migration, ensure that the Page Builder theme is available on the migrated portal. In addition, you must apply the Page Builder theme to any portal page that contains the authoring portlet.

Note: The web content page containing the reserved authoring portlet for inline editing is hidden from the portal navigation. You can locate the portlet using the Manage Pages portlet by searching for the page with the unique name com.ibm.wps.hiddenpage.wcm.Authoring_Portlet. For inline editing, in addition to setting the Page Builder theme for that hidden authoring page, you must also apply the Page Builder - No Skin skin to the reserved authoring portlet instance on that page.

WCM Tag List and it's detailed description

A wiki version of the information found here in the IBM Infocenter

Element's are fields (and there corresponding values) that you created when you defined an authoring template or added an element to a site or site area. The Element tag is reference an element within a presentation template or element design.

<Element type=" " context=" " name=" " key=" " format=" " link=" " separator=" " htmlencode=" " awareness=" " start=" " end=" " />

<Element	Opens the tag.
type=" "	This determines where the element is being referenced from. Either "content", "sitearea" or "site".
context=" "	This determines which content item or site area is being referenced. Selected Refers to a particular item as specified in the name attribute below. Current This will reference the element from the current site, site area or content item that is being browsed by the user. AutoFill The element being referenced will be determined by the search parameters of a menu, navigator or taxonomy component.
name=" "	Enter the name and library of the item the element is being referenced from. For example, name="library/item". To use the library specified in the URL of the current page, use name="./item". Note: If a content item with the same name is used in more than one site, you can also specify name="library/site/sitearea/item" to select the appropriate content item. If you specify name="./item", the library name will not appear in your presentation template or element design. The actual path will not be resolved until the item is rendered.The "name" parameter is not used if context=current or context=autofill.
key=" "	This is the name of this element being referenced.
format=" "	This parameter is optional and can only be used with some component types: When referencing an image component: Use format="url" to only render the URL of an image component. Use format="alt" to only render the contents of the alt tag of an image component. Use format="tag" to render a complete image tag. The image will be displayed on the rendered page. This is used by default if no format is specified. When referencing a file resource component: Use format="HTML" If your file resource is a file type that can be converted to HTML you can instead convert the file to HTML and render the converted HTML directly. Examples of supported file types include: word processing documents (.doc, *.odt) spreadsheets (.xls) HTML files (.htm, .html) Text files (.txt) Other file types may also work but you will need to test them first. Note: Maximum Cache SizeIf the converted HTML is larger than the default cache size defined by the resourceserver.maxCacheObjectSizeproperty in the WCM ConfigService.properties file, each request that contains this file will be converted dynamically instead of using the cached copy. This will impact performance. You may need to increase the size of the resourceserver.maxCacheObjectSizeproperty to support large file conversions. Before doing this your should ensure that your system has enough memory installed to cope with the increase in cache size. You could also break up the file into separate files that can be converted separately instead of increasing the cache size.  When referencing file resource and image components: Use format="mimetype" to render the mime type of a file or image. If no valid mime type can be determined then "www/unknown" will be rendered. Use format="filename" to render the name of a file or image. Use format="size" to render the size of a file or image using the most appropriate unit. If the resource is smaller then 1K then the size in bytes will be rendered. If the size of the resource is less then 1MB then the size in kilobytes will be rendered. If the size is greater than or equal to 1MB then the size will be rendered in megabytes. Use format="size_bytes" to render the size of a file or image in bytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. Use format="size_KB" to render the size of a file or image in kilobytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. Use format="size_MB" to render the size of a file or image in megabytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. When referencing a link component: Use format="url" to render the full URL of a link component. For example:/wps/wcm/myconnect/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content Use format="path" to only render the site path of a link component. For example:/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content Use format="tag" to render a complete link tag. This is used by default if no format is specified. For example:<a href="/wps/wcm/myconnect/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content"></a> Note: The URL generated by the link component will be fully qualified when viewed through a portal. If you want to generate a URL that isn't fully qualified use the "noprefix" option instead: format="noprefixurl" format="noprefixpath" format="noprefixtag" When referencing number or date elements:In this case, the format is used to specify the display format of dates and numbers. The following formats can be defined when displaying dates: format="DATE_SHORT" format="DATE_MEDIUM" format="DATE_LONG" format="DATE_FULL" format="DATE_TIME_SHORT" format="DATE_TIME_MEDIUM" format="DATE_TIME_LONG" format="DATE_TIME_FULL" format="TIME_SHORT" format="TIME_MEDIUM" format="TIME_LONG" format="TIME_FULL" format="relative" (The relative date will be displayed as either "today", "yesterday" or the number of days ago.) You can also set user-defined formats for both dates and numbers. When referencing user details: When formatting user details, the format parameter is used to define which LDAP parameter to use when displaying user details. For example: format="cn" is used to display the common name. format="dn" is used to display the distinguished name. Maximum character length: You can also specify a maximum number of characters to display by using this format: format="length:number_of_characters" For example, to display a maximum of ten characters you would specify the following parameter: format="length:10"
link=" "	The link parameter is used to define the type of link created by the element tag:link="default"A standard link to an element is created. link="path"Contextual path linking will be used when rendering this element. link="contextual"Contextual content linking will be used when rendering this element. If not applicable, then contextual path linking is used. Note: Contextual linking:*Contextual linking is used so that when content is linked from another site, the link will be rendered relative to the current site if possible. It can only be used if *context=current or context=autofill.
separator=" "	This only used when referencing an option selection or user selection element. It is used to define what text or code will be rendered between each selection displayed in an option selection or user selection element. For example, to add a line break between each selection, you would use separator="<br>" . If not defined, a comma will be placed between each selection when rendered.
htmlencode=" "	If htmlencode="true" the reserved HTML characters in text, short text and option selection elements will be converted into character entities. For example, '<' will be converted to '<'. This is useful if you would like to prevent users adding malicious code, or if you want to prevent users changing the look and feel of their text using HTML.If not specified, the default setting specified in the WCMConfigService.properties file located in the was_profile_root/PortalServer/wcm/config/ directory is used. By default, this is set to "true":cmpnt.htmlEncodeDefault=true
awareness=" "	If awareness="true" then user names are displayed using the people awareness features. These features displays user names as hyperlinks that allow users to contact people with whom they might want to work. Wherever person links appear, users can click the link to display a menu of actions for collaborating (contacting and working) with the person named by the link. If you, as administrator, have also configured an IBM® Lotus® Sametime® server to work with WebSphere Portal, person links indicate whether a person is active, away, offline, or in a Do Not Disturb state.People awareness will only work in content rendered using either a local or remote rendering portlet. If not specified, then awareness="false" and people awareness is not used.
start=" "end=" "	The start and end attributes are used to wrap the data returned by a tag within other tags, such as HTML. These attributes are not mandatory.
/>	This closes the tag.

WCM Component Tags

The Component tag is used to reference the content of a component within a presentation template or element design.

<Component name=" " context="autofill" format=" " separator=" " compute=" " htmlencode=" " awareness=" " start=" " end=" " />

<Component	Opens a library component tag.
name=" "	Enter the name and library of the component being referenced. For example, name="library/item". To use the library specified in the URL of the current page, use name="./item".Note: If you specify name="./item", the library name will not appear in your presentation template or element design. The actual path will not be resolved until the item is rendered.The "name" parameter is not used if context="autofill".
context="autofill"	This parameter is only used when referencing a Component tag within a Personalization element design to display the results of a Personalization rule that searches for components.
start=" "end=" "	The start and end attributes are used to wrap the data returned by a tag within other tags, such as HTML. These attributes are not mandatory.
format=" "	This parameter is optional and can only be used with some component types: When referencing an image component: Use format="url" to only render the URL of an image component. Use format="tag" to render a complete image tag. The image will be displayed on the rendered page. This is used by default if no format is specified. When referencing a file resource component: Use format="HTML" If your file resource is a file type that can be converted to HTML you can instead convert the file to HTML and render the converted HTML directly. Examples of supported file types include: word processing documents (.doc, *.odt) spreadsheets (.xls) HTML files (.htm, .html) Text files (.txt) Other file types may also work but you will need to test them first. Note: Maximum Cache SizeIf the converted HTML is larger than the default cache size defined by the resourceserver.maxCacheObjectSizeproperty in the WCM ConfigService.properties file, each request that contains this file will be converted dynamically instead of using the cached copy. This will impact performance. You may need to increase the size of the resourceserver.maxCacheObjectSizeproperty to support large file conversions. Before doing this your should ensure that your system has enough memory installed to cope with the increase in cache size. You could also break up the file into separate files that can be converted separately instead of increasing the cache size.  When referencing file resource and image components: Use format="mimetype" to render the mime type of a file or image. If no valid mime type can be determined then "www/unknown" will be rendered. Use format="filename" to render the name of a file or image. Use format="size" to render the size of a file or image using the most appropriate unit. If the resource is smaller then 1K then the size in bytes will be rendered. If the size of the resource is less then 1MB then the size in kilobytes will be rendered. If the size is greater than or equal to 1MB then the size will be rendered in megabytes. Use format="size_bytes" to render the size of a file or image in bytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. Use format="size_KB" to render the size of a file or image in kilobytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. Use format="size_MB" to render the size of a file or image in megabytes. Only the numeric value is displayed. When referencing a link component: Use format="url" to render the full URL of a link component. For example:/wps/wcm/myconnect/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content Use format="path" to only render the site path of a link component. For example:/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content Use format="tag" to render a complete link tag. This is used by default if no format is specified. For example:<a href="/wps/wcm/myconnect/Library/Site/SiteArea/Content"></a> Note: The URL generated by the link component will be fully qualified when viewed through a portal. If you want to generate a URL that isn't fully qualified use the "noprefix" option instead: format="noprefixurl" format="noprefixpath" format="noprefixtag" When referencing number or date elements:In this case, the format is used to specify the display format of dates and numbers. The following formats can be defined when displaying dates: format="DATE_SHORT" format="DATE_MEDIUM" format="DATE_LONG" format="DATE_FULL" format="DATE_TIME_SHORT" format="DATE_TIME_MEDIUM" format="DATE_TIME_LONG" format="DATE_TIME_FULL" format="TIME_SHORT" format="TIME_MEDIUM" format="TIME_LONG" format="TIME_FULL" format="relative" (The relative date will be displayed as either "today", "yesterday" or the number of days ago.) You can also set user-defined formats for both dates and numbers. When referencing user details: When formatting user details, the format parameter is used to define which LDAP parameter to use when displaying user details. For example: format="cn" is used to display the common name. format="dn" is used to display the distinguished name. Maximum character length: You can also specify a maximum number of characters to display by using this format: format="length:number_of_characters" For example, to display a maximum of ten characters you would specify the following parameter: format="length:10"
compute=" "	This is only applicable to menu, navigator and taxonomy components. You specify compute="always" when you reference some JSP code within a component design, and you want that code to be run separately on each result returned by a menu, navigator and taxonomy component.For example, if a menu referenced JSP code that used the public DocumentId getCurrentResultId(); method, you would use compute="always" to make the JSP code run separately in every result returned by the menu. If not specified, then compute="once" is used which is the default method for delivering the results of menu, navigator and taxonomy components.
htmlencode=" "	If htmlencode="true" the reserved HTML characters in text and short text components will be converted into character entities. For example, '<' will be converted to '<'. This is useful if you would like to prevent users adding malicious code, or if you want to prevent users changing the look and feel of their text using HTML.If not specified, the default setting specified in the WCMConfigService.properties file. By default, this is set to "true":cmpnt.htmlEncodeDefault=true
awareness=" "	If awareness="true" then user names are displayed using the people awareness features. These features displays user names as hyperlinks that allow users to contact people with whom they might want to work. Wherever person links appear, users can click the link to display a menu of actions for collaborating (contacting and working) with the person named by the link. If you, as administrator, have also configured an IBM® Lotus® Sametime® server to work with WebSphere Portal, person links indicate whether a person is active, away, offline, or in a Do Not Disturb state.People awareness will only work in content rendered using either a local or remote rendering portlet. If not specified, then awareness="false" and people awareness is not used.
separator=" "	This only used when referencing a user selection component. It is used to define what text or code will be rendered between each selection. For example, to add a line break between each selection, you would use separator="<br>" . If not defined, a comma will be placed between each selection when rendered.
/>	This closes the tag.

WCM Placeholder tags

You use a placeholder tag to display metadata of an item. This is different from the

<placeholder tag=" " htmlencode=" " start=" " end=" " />

<placeholder	Opens a Placeholder Tag.
tag=" "	Determines which placeholder is being referenced: Name Title dn Href noprefixhref Namelink noprefixnamelink Titlelink noprefixtitlelink Sitepath Idnum Listnum Treenum Paddedtreenum Depth
htmlencode=" "	If htmlencode="true" the reserved HTML characters in the source will be converted into character entities. For example, '<' will be converted to '<'. This is useful if you would like to prevent users adding malicious code, or if you want to prevent users changing the look and feel of their text using HTML.If not specified, the default setting specified in the WCMConfigService.properties file located in the was_profile_root/PortalServer/wcm/config/ directory is used. By default, this is set to "true":cmpnt.htmlEncodeDefault=true
start=" "end=" "	The start and end attributes are used to wrap the data returned by a tag within other tags, such as HTML. These attributes are not mandatory.
/>	This closes the tag.

Placeholder types

Name	This is used to display the name of the site area or content being retrieved in a menu or navigator. This can also be used when you create a user name component, where you can add a placeholder tag in the design and specify tag="name" to render the name of the user.
Title	This is used to display the title of the site area or content being retrieved in a menu or navigator.
dn	This is for when you create a user name component. You can add a placeholder tag in the design and specify tag="dn" to render the distinguished name of the user.
HREF	This inserts a link to the page of the site area or content being retrieved in a menu or navigator.
noprefixhref	The URLs generated by "HREF" parameter will be fully qualified when viewed through a portal. To generate URLs with no prefix, use the "noprefixhref" parameter instead of the "HREF" parameter.
NameLink	This is a combination of the name and HREF tags. It assembles a complete link based on the name of the item being returned.
noprefixnameLink	The URLs generated by "nameLink" parameter will be fully qualified when viewed through a portal. To generate URLs with no prefix, use the "noprefixnameLink" parameter instead of the "nameLink" parameter.
TitleLink	This is a combination of the title and HREF tags. It assembles a complete link based on the title of the item being returned.
noprefixtitleLink	The URLs generated by "titleLink" parameter will be fully qualified when viewed through a portal. To generate URLs with no prefix, use the "noprefixtitleLink" parameter instead of the "titleLink" parameter.
Note: Using a URLCmpnt tag.*The *URLCmpnt tag is used to generate a URL to a site, site area or content item and can be used as an alternative to a placeholder when generating a URL. This is particularly useful when creating links to Web content displayed within rendering portlets.
sitepath	This is similar to the HREF placeholder except that it only display the site path of an items URL.For example, an HREF placeholder tag displaying a content item may give you: /ILWWCM/connect/metaorg/intranet/press+releasesWhereas the site path will give you: /metaorg/intranet/press+releasesFor example, an HREF placeholder tag displaying a site area may give you: /ILWWCM/connect/metaorg/intranet/Whereas the site path will give you: /metaorg/intranet Note that the final / slash is not included when the site path is displayed for sites and site areas.
Idnum	This returns the hexadecimal id value of an item. This can be used when creating static URLs in menus and navigators. You could hard-code the site/site area path in a menu or navigator element design and use the Idnum for each content item being displayed. This would allow you to display content with a different presentation template (for example, a printer friendly presentation template) or use different security settings.
Listnum	Displays a single column list of numbered links: First Second Third
Treenum	Displays a hierarchical numbered list:1.0 1.1 1.2 2.0 2.1 2.2
Paddedtreenum	Similar to Treenum, but the numbers are padded:0001 00010001 00010002 000100020001 000100020002
Depth	Displays the depth of the currently processed node (in a navigator or menu) as a number. A top-level node has a depth of 1.

Steps required to export WCM Library

IBM Workplace Web Content Management (WCM) 6 provides a way that you can export and import data from libraries. This can be useful as a way to backup data for safety - especially in the early days of development.
For example, before more robust data backup and restore procedures can be trusted, you might leverage this mechanism. It is also a way that you can get data from one server to another such as from a team DEV server to your local DEV server.

(Note that Syndication, not data export/import is the proper way to keep WCM content synchronized between servers on a regular basis. This describes a backup or data move procedure, not syndication for data synchronization.)

This procedure assumes that you have already configured the data export options in the WCM data export configuration file. This is intended to simply document a quick checklist style procedure for executing new data exports on a regular basis.

• Use PuTTY to login to the server (on SSH connection if necessary)
• Change directory: cd /usr/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/wcm/config
  • If you list the contents of this directory (ls -la), you should see a file called wcm60_conf.xml. This is the file where the WCM data export options are configured. We will need to modify this file, so let's make a backup for safety first.
• Backup the config file by making a dated copy. For example:
  • cp wcm60_conf.xml wcm60_conf_2009_09_24.xml
• Use VI to open the file:
  • vi wcm60_conf.xml
• The first thing we want to do is change the date in the name of the export directory (first config line in the file). We will change the following line, for example from:
  • <property name="ExportDir" value="/usr/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/wcm/config/22Sept2009export"/>
  • to...
  • <property name="ExportDir" value="/usr/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/wcm/config/24Sept2009export"/>
• Note that there is also a line in the file that defines the libary to export. It looks like this:
  • <property name="WebLib" value="Content"/>
• We can leave that alone for now and export the Content library first. But to export other libraries, we will need to change the library name and run the export command again.
• In VI, use [ESCAPE] to exit edit mode, then :wq (write, quit). If necessary, you can skip making changes to the file with :q! (quit, but ignore changes).
• Now that we've saved the file, we can execute the export command.
• cd /usr/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/ConfigEngine
• ./ConfigEngine.sh export-wcm-data
• The data will begin to export and you will get a lot of information on the console. Hopefully, the console messages will end with a BUILD SUCCESSFUL message. You will then have all the data exported from the library in the directory you specified and you can later import that data if necessary.
• Now you can cd back to the directory containing the config file, use VI to change the library name to export, and repeat the process for each library you wish to export.

Some Quick Tips for using the VI editor:
k = up
j = down
w = right or forward one word
b = left or back one word
l = right 1 char
h = left 1 char
x = delete 1 char
u = undo
i = insert
[ESCAPE] = get out of edit mode
:wq = write and quit
:q! = quite ignoring changes (do not write).

Hope this article will be useful...

List of Useful Blogs on WCM and Portal

IBM Forums
1. IBM WCM Forum
2. IBM Portal Forum


External Forum
1. WCM Blog
2. Extreme Portal
3. Sunil Patil Blog
4. http://vivekagarwal.wordpress.com/

Extending Portal Personlaization to external data source

This article to explain how to create a simple Plain Old Java Object (POJO) to use external data source in implementing your custom pzn rule in WebSphere Portal 6.x/7.x.

Steps to be followed.
1. Create simple Java project in RAD 7.x

2. Configure the build path to include the following jar file which are required to buld.
- pznauthor.jar
- pzncommon.jar
- pznquery.jar
- pznresources.jar
- pznruntime.jar

Note: the jar files can be found in in the location
v6.x - [portal-root-dir]/pzn/v6.0/lib and
v7.x - [portal-root-dir]/pzn/prereq.pzn/lib

3. Your POJO class should implement the following interface
- com.ibm.websphere.personalization.applicationObjects. SelfInitializingApplicationObject
& Serializable.

Example :

package com.ibm.websphere.personalization.examples;

import java.util.Date;

import com.ibm.websphere.personalization.RequestContext;
import com.ibm.websphere.personalization.applicationObjects.SelfInitializingApplicationObject;
import java.io.Serializable;

public class MySampleObject implements SelfInitializingApplicationObject,
Serializable {

private String userName;
public void init(RequestContext context) {
userName = context.getRequestUsername();
context.setSessionAttribute("mysampleobject", this);
}

public String getMySampleString() {
return "Hello " + userName;
}

public int getMySampleInt() {
return 1;
}

public Date getMySampleDate() {
return new Date();
}
}

4. Export this java project as jar file and copy into the following locations

v6.x - [portal-root-dir]/pzn/v6.0/collections
v7.x - [portal-root-dir]/pzn/prereq.pzn/collections

5. Please don't forget to restart your portal server to take effect.

Configure the application object in Portal Personalization

1. Login to the portal server.

2. Navigate to the Personalization Business Rules page. With the default theme, this page is accessible by clicking Launch => Personalization => Business Rules.

3. Create a folder to contain your work by choosing New => Folder from the menu; name the folder Application Objects and click Save. Using a folder here is optional. Because export, import, access control, and versioning operate on folders, it is a good idea to give some thought to the folder structure you use. Moving some objects in Personalization after their creation will break references to those objects.

4. With the Application Object folder open in the Personalization Navigator, choose New => Application Object from the menu.

5. Enter My First Application Object in the name field. This name will display in the rule editor; it can be anything you choose.

6. Enter mysampleobject for the Session Key. This name should match the key you used in the code in step 5c. Keeping these values the same insures that the rules engine will pick up the object from the session.

7. Complete the Class Name field with the name of our Application Object Java class, com.ibm.websphere.personalization.examples.MySampleObject.

If you have not put the MySampleObject class in the classpath by copying the JAR into the collections folder, or if you have not restarted the server, you might see a message: The application object class 'com.ibm.websphere.personalization.examples.MySampleObject' could not be located. Specify a valid class for this application object.

If you see this message, check the location of the JAR, and restart the portal server.

8. Click Save to store the definition of the application object in Personalization.

Finally you can add this rule to any portlet/page/label to suit your own needs with business logic implemented in POJO class.

Please do remember you can use DB layer approach fetch any data from the external data source to wrap your business rule.

Hope this tutorial will be useful to everyone.

Detailed Information on modifying Config parameters for WebSphere Portal Sevrer 7

All Techies,

The following link will be useful when you are configuring WebSphere Portal 7 and it explains you that various config. parameters which are required during running configuration task.

Hope you will find it very useful :-)

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Configuration_properties_reference_wp7