[Jboss-dev-forums] [Design of JBoss Portal] - some ideas on Portlet 2 Portlet communication

[mholzner <nu...@jb...>]

As initiated by Julien today via chat, here are some thoughts about how this could be done (credit for the good parts goes to Julien; my ideas are the wacky ones ;)

any portlet can specify a dependency to another portlet via its descriptor (jboss-portal.xml), like so: 


  | <portlet> 
  |    ....
  |    <portlet-link>
  |       <link-name>INeedYou</link-name>
  |       <portlet-name>Name of the portlet that is linked to as it appears in the portlet.xml</portlet-name>
  |       <link-type>render|action|event</link-type>
  |     </portlet-link>
  | </portlet>
  | 

The portlet itself would contain code like: 


  |  Context ctx = new PageContext(); // other contexts or scopes possible here ...?
  | try{
  |  PortletLink link = ctx.lookup("java:comp/portlet/INeedYou");
  |  link.setParameter("blah", "blahblah");
  |  html.append(link.toString());
  |  // and for event links ; only in processAction of the initiating portlet
  |  if (link instanceof EventLink){
  |    ((EventLink)link).fire();
  |  }
  | }catch(UnsatisfiedLinkException e){
  |    // link was not provided, recover somehow 
  |    // provide base functionality without the links and events
  | }
  |  

For this to work, the portal needs to provide a mechanism that 'encourages' the user /admin to provide the resolution for the link when the portlet is being assigned to a page. What seems to make sense is that the tool would list all portlets on the page that this portlet is in the process of being assigned to , and let the user choose which one to link to. A type check would be possible based on the portlet name in the link definition.


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