How to develop a very basic JSR 286 Portlet Web Application

how to develop a very basic JSR 286 Portlet Web Application

Steps behind developing a very basic JSR 286 Portlet Web Application that can be deployed to and tested with WebSphere Portal Servers 8.0 and above.

Technologies used:

• Java EE 6
• Portlets 2.0 (JSR 286 Portlets)
• WebSphere Portlet Server 8.0 and above
• MyEclipse 2015 CI

Step 1: Create a Web Project in MyEclipse

• To do that, choose File > New > Web Project > Next > provide a name, choose Java EE 6 specification and finish the wizard. 

Step 2: Configure WebSphere Portal Server

• Right click inside Servers view > New > Server > WebSphere Portal Server 8.0 or 8.5 > Next >
• Provide Portal Server and AppServer installation directories > Next
• Provide the username and password for the server
• Finish the wizard and ensure the new Server is visible in the Servers view
• If you require additional information on WebSphere Portal Server setup in MyEclipse, please click here.

Step 3: Install JSR 286 Portlet Support

• Select the project and choose MyEclipse > Project Facets / Capabilities > Install JSR Portlets Facet > Next
• Choose JSR 2.0 version and select WebSphere Portal Server as the target runtime so the portlet implementation is handled by WebSphere. Then finish the wizard.

What this does:

> Installs Portlet Facet to the project.

> Adds the WebSphere Portal Server container to the project.

> Generates a portlet.xml inside WEB-INF folder.

The project is now ready for Portlet development.

Step 4: Create a new Portlet

• Create a new Java package
• Right click on the package > choose New > Other > Portlet > Next
• Provide a name for the portlet, say "MyFirstPortlet"
• Accept all other defaults and finish the wizard

What this does (screenshots below):

> Creates a new Portlet in the selected package with the doView method pointing to the newly created JSP.

> Creates a new JSP file inside WEB-INF/jsp with default content.

> Updates portlet.xml with the newly created portlet.

Step 5: Modify View

• Open the JSP file and replace the default content with a form that takes inputs from users, like below. Save and close the file.

• 
  

What this does:

> renderResponse.createRenderURL() renders the portlet.

> The form takes user input and upon pressing Submit, dispatches the information to the Portlet for processing.

Step 6: Modify the Portlet

• Let's modify the portlet to handle the form input from the JSP. Open the class and modify the doView method like below:

What this does:

> request.getParameter(..) fetches all the parameter values provided by the user in the JSP.

> The input is then processed to show a simple message back to the user.

> A Try Again link is then added to take the user back to the form to provide a different input and test the portlet again.

Step 7: Deploy and run the portlet

• Start the portal server by selecting the server in Servers view and then choosing Run.
• Once the server is started, right click on it and choose Add/Remove Deployments... > select our Portlet project > Add > Finish the wizard.

Step 8: Adding the Portlet to the Portal server

• To test our portlet, we first need to add our portlet to the WebSphere Portal Server. To do that, open a Web browser and enter http://localhost:<your port>/wps/myportal. Login with the username and password.
• Turn on Edit Mode from the top right section of the portal page.

• Press 'Create > Page' to create a new page to which our portlet will be added.
• Press 'Create > Application'. Then in the search text field, enter "MyFirstPortlet" and hit search. When the results are shown, press the '+' next to our portlet to add it to the page created earlier. 
• Our portlet should now be available for testing.