WA1311 WebSphere Portal 5 Overview for Managers Training and Courseware Course Outline
I. Introduction to WebSphere Portal Server
  • Benefits of portal applications
  • Description of WebSphere Portal and various editions
  • Key features and definitions - framework, Portlets, Pervasive computing support, security
II. Out of the box Portlets
  • Document manager
  • Search portlet
  • Web clipping
  • Lotus collaboration portlets
III. Portal Programming Introduction
  • Portal API with respect to the Servlet API
  • Deployment descriptors
    • web.xml
    • portlet.xml
  • Relationship between the two
  • Portlet modes and states
  • Portal toolkit – the development environment
  • Creating a new portlet
  • Testing and debugging
  • Development API options
    • IBM API
    • JSR 168
    • Struts
    • JSF
IV. Customizing Look and Feel
  • Hierarchy of pages, labels and URLs.
  • Creating a new page.
  • Adding portlets to a page.
  • Configure the layout of a page.
  • Overview of Themes, skins and screens.
V. Basic Administration
  • Structure of a portlet application
  • Deployment descriptor
  • Different types of portlet instances
  • Structure of a WAR file.
  • Installing a portlet application
  • Updating a portlet application
  • Portlet application and portlet settings
VI. Cooperative portlets
  • Cooperative portlets
  • Two ways of cooperation
    • Messaging
    • Click to action
  • How does click to action work
  • Wiring and scattering