[JBoss-user] [JBoss Portal] - Doc/Info on HOW JPortal is Implemented?

[IceWolf20 <do-...@jb...>]

Alrighty, time to swallow some pride.  I've been working in a portlet environment for some time now, using the Jetspeed 1.x portlet container.  I'm attempting to make the switch from Jetspeed to JPortal to make things easier for our AS managers, but making the coding switch from Jetspeed to JPortal is proving to be more...complex than origionally thought.  Basically, what I'm looking for is a "how to" for JPortal insomuch as the portal to portlet building is concerned.

I've refreshed myself with the Portlet specification, and in doing so realized that JPortal is more closely tied to the specification than Jetspeed was (missing quite a few layers of middleware [Torque/Turbine]).  If I can be pointed to a general implementation doc and save people the trouble of doing a point-by-piont, it would be appreciated.  I've hammered the docs and the examples, but yet I cannot get a grip on how JPortal would implement something as Jetspeed does:

1.  I'd like to use JSP's to create the portlets, but I cannot find a mechanism for binding a JSP to a portlet class.  The examples only show two ways that I've found--directly building the page in a writer on the reponse object, or referencing a JSP directly in the doView through the requestDispatcher.  Is there a way in JPortal to directly map a JSP to a class as there is in Jetspeed with the MyPortlet.xreg (register and binds all Action classes to JSP's).

2.  Jetspeed relied heavily on the request and session parameters comming from the portlet/portal.  The methods of the JBossPortlet do make use of request variables that have attributes.  Does JPortal use the request variable to pass parameters BACK to the JSP for building the page?  For example, if I have a portlet that I want to display (for the sake of argument) a list of all the records in a table.  I'd have the doView() method call a back end hibernate method to query the database and return a list of records.  I would then set a request variable, giving it the value of the returned list, and then on the JSP use a <c:forEach> tag to print out the values as specified by the Value Object of that class.  Can this same methodology be applied to a JPortal portlet?  Can I use request variables of lists from the database to build a JSP?

3.  When processing an action from the portlet, be it from a hyperlink or a button, how do I get the Action class to execute a specific method?  In jetspeed, if I wanted a "doSomeaction()" method to be executed in the Action class bound to the JSP, I'd have to give the name of the button (or hidden parameter) a name like "eventSubmit_doSomeaction", and that method would be executed on form submission/button click.  How can I get JPortal to execute a specific method inside the Action class without having to parse through the expected parameters from the portlet inside the processAction class (if at all)?

I apologize for the lengthy questions and examples, but I really need to get a better grasp on how JPortal functions and get my mind off of Jetspeed and around a much better solution.  Thanks in advance for any help and direction.

View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3956740#3956740

Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&p=3956740