Creating and configuring portlet groups

Use portlet groups to collect together portlets that do not reside on NexJ Model Engine and administer their common properties and collective behavior.

Typically, you create a portlet group for each external server that provides portlets for your application. These portlet groups allow you to control a set of properties that can then be referenced by each portlet in the group. These properties enable portlets to be designed using relative URLs. The portlets are created using relative references, leaving the base URL to be specified by the portlet group at run time. The properties also allow you to deal with groups of portlets that require authentication against an external server before loading their content. In this case, the portlet group allows you to send a single authentication request through a log-in URL. That authentication is then used by all of the portlets associated with the group.

Creating new portlet groups

To create a new portlet group:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. In the Portlets list, double-click a portlet.
   The Edit Properties dialog opens.
3. Click the Select button next to the Portlet Group field.
   The Select Portlet Group dialog opens, showing the list of existing portlet groups.
4. Right-click in the list of portlet groups and select Add.
   The Add Portlet Group dialog opens.
5. Specify the values for the portlet group attributes. For details about the attributes, refer to Portlet group attributes.
6. Click OK.
   You are returned to the Select Portlet Group dialog.
7. Reselect the portlet group that the portlet was originally associated with.
8. Click OK.
   The Select Portlet Group dialog closes.
9. Click OK.
   The Edit Properties dialog closes.

The portlet group is created and portlets can be assigned to it.

Info

If you click Cancel at any time during this process, the portlet group will not be created.

Assigning portlets to portlet groups

You can assign portlets to portlet groups by updating the value of the Portlet Group property for the portlet.

You can set this property when you add a portlet or by updating its properties at any time. For more information, see Adding portlets to the list of available portlets and Editing portlet details.

Editing portlet group attributes

You can open a portlet group to update its values through the Select Portlet Group dialog.

To edit the attributes of a portlet group:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. In the Portlets list, double-click a portlet.
   The Edit Properties dialog opens.
3. In the Portlet Group field, click the Select button

   

   .
   The Select Portlet Group dialog opens, showing the list of existing portlet groups.
4. Click the portlet group that you want to edit and click Edit.
5. Specify the values for the portlet group attributes. For details about the attributes, hover over the attribute labels, or refer to Portlet group attributes.
6. Click OK.
   You return to the Select Portlet Group dialog.
7. Reselect the portlet group that the portlet was originally associated with.
8. Click OK.
   You return to the Edit Properties dialog.
9. Click OK.

The portlet group's information is updated.

If you click Cancel at any time during this process, the portlet group will not be updated with your changes.

Portlet group attributes

The following attributes can be set on a portlet group:

Name (string)

The name of the portlet group.

Base URL (string)

A base URL to which portlet URLs are appended. This allows the use of relative URLs during portlet design.

Load Ordering Type (integer)

Controls whether portlets in the group are to be loaded sequentially or in parallel. Set the values as follows:

• 0 - Load all portlets sequentially.
• 1 - Load the first portlet before all others, but load the others in parallel. This is typically the preferred method when using single sign-on functionality.
• 2 - Load all portlets in parallel.

Load Notification Type (integer)

Indicates the method that the container should expect to receive a "load complete" notification. Set the values as follows:

• 0 - The container should expect a "load complete" notification through a window.onload event.
• 1 - The container should expect a "load complete" notification through the (PortalAPI.setBusy(false)) portal API call.

Login URL (string)

A URL to connect to in order to log the portlet group and its portlets into any systems that it may need to access. This URL is accessed before any portlets are loaded.

Logout URL (string)

A URL to connect to in order to log the portlet group out of any systems that it is accessing. This URL is accessed when the workspace containing the portlets is closed, or when the application shuts down.

Use HTTP Get For Login/Logout (boolean)

Selecting this option indicates that a GET request should be submitted whenever the Login or Logout URLs are used. Otherwise, a POST request is used.

Timeout (integer)

The timeout duration for the Login URL in seconds.

Adding portlets to the list of available portlets

You can use the portal administration tools to add a new portlet to the list of available portlets for use in the application workspaces.

To add a new portlet:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Portlets > Add.
   The Add Portlet dialog opens.
3. Configure the portlet, being sure to specify a name, a URL, and any context variables or events that the portlet subscribes to.
4. When you are done, click OK.

The new portlet is registered with the portlet library and can be added to workspaces that you are editing.