OracleAS Portal provides two ways to integrate content from
different Web sites into a centralized portal environment:
URL-based
portlets, which are implemented by using a manual, XML file-based approach
Web
Clipping, which provides a declarative approach to Web content integration
The OracleAS PDK URL-based portlet framework, a part of the Oracle
Application Server Portal Developer Kit (OracleAS PDK), enables you
to create portlets by accessing existing content by using URLs. This utility
enables you to declaratively publish both secured and public Web content as
portlets. The OracleAS PDK simply takes the URL of an application, parses the
content, and uses the OracleAS PDK-Java framework of OracleAS Portal to create
a URL-based portlet.
Web Clipping is a comprehensive suite for Web application integration that
enables clipping and scraping of Web content. The Web Clipping portlet, which
is installed as part of OracleAS Portal, enables page designers and content
contributors to easily compose rich pages by visually selecting portions of
existing Web content and presenting them as portlets. Web Clipping enables you
to aggregate content from numerous Web sites into a centralized portal environment.
You can clip sections of HTML code, as well as non-HTML components such as applets
or JavaScript, on a Web page and render the clipped sections as Web Clipping
portlets.
The OracleAS PDK 9.0.4.0.2 provides the URL-based Portlets Migration
Kit to enable portal administrators to migrate their existing URL-based
portlets to Web Clipping portlets. Web Clipping is built upon a robust architecture
and supports all the features and functions available with URL-based portlets.
The advantages of migrating from URL-based portlets to Web Clipping portlets
include:
Single
and straightforward method to publish Web content
Ability
to leverage the Web Clipping features to the migrated portlets
Simple
method to create portlets declaratively
Intuitive
user interface for business users when they need to edit the clipped Web content
Upgrade to Portal Tools 9.0.4.0.2 or later releases
by following the instructions provided in the Portal
Tools: Upgrading to Release 9.0.4 and later article. The OracleAS
PDK 9.0.4.0.2 includes new features for OmniPortlet and Web Clipping,
such as new data sources and layouts, external application integration,
inline rendering of links and forms, and URL-based Portlets Migration
Kit.
Note:
You must have access to the command prompt and local file system on the machine
where you are planning to run the migration tool, because the migration process
is largely accomplished through file manipulation. In particular, you must have
access to the files where the OracleAS Portal providers are deployed.
Installing the
OracleAS PDK URL-Based Sample Portlets
Note: If you have already
deployed URL-based portlets and added the existing URL-based portlets to your
portal, you can skip this topic. You can directly go to the Running
the Migration Tool topic to perform the migration of URL-based portlets.
However, the screenshots shown in this lesson may differ from what you actually
see.
The OracleAS PDK URL-based sample portlets use the OracleAS
PDK-Java Framework. Before performing the steps in this section, you must have
successfully installed the OracleAS PDK-Java Framework and registered the sample
providers.
There are three portlets available in the URL-based sample
portlet provider: Google.com, MIT XML Filter, and Stardeveloper ASP portlet.
To use these portlets in OracleAS Portal, you must first deploy the sample portlet
provider to a Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) container. Oracle Application
Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) is the J2EE server component of Oracle
Application Server. The URL-based portlets are preconfigured within the jpdk.ear
file, which is a J2EE Enterprise Application Archive file. In this lesson, you
use OC4J to simplify the Web provider deployment.
The provider.xml file stores information
that is used by the URL provider. You can configure provider-specific information,
such as portlet title and portlet description, in the provider.xml
file. This XML file is used to specify the URL that is displayed in your portlet.
1.
Open the
provider.xml file for the URL-based portlets.
You can find it in the <OC4J_HOME>\j2ee\home\applications\jpdk\jpdk\WEB-INF\providers\urlsample
directory.
Note: <OC4J_HOME>
refers to the root directory of your OC4J installation.
2.
Configure the proxy server
settings in the provider.xml file (if required), because
the URL-based portlets access URLs over the Internet. Depending on your
setup, you may not need a proxy server to access external URLs. The
URL-based portlet provider uses the proxy server settings that you specify
in this file to connect to external Web sites.
If you are using a proxy server, alter the
following tags appropriately. If you are not using a proxy server, remove
the following tags:
Modify the <stylesheet>
tag to point to the correct location of the XML style sheet for the
XML Filter portlet. It is located in the <OC4J_HOME>\j2ee\home\applications\jpdk\jpdk\htdocs\urlsample
directory.
For example, you can edit the provider.xml
file to provide the style sheet information, as shown below:
Note: If you have already
deployed URL-based portlets and added the existing URL-based portlets to your
portal, you can skip this topic. You can directly go to the Running
the Migration Tool topic to perform the migration of URL-based portlets.
However, the screenshots shown in this lesson may differ from what you actually
see.
The OracleAS PDK URL-based sample portlet provider is now
deployed. Next, you can test whether the portlet provider is properly configured
with OC4J.
1.
Access the provider test
page by using the following URL:
where <host
name> and <port>
are the host name and port number of the HTTP listener for your target
OC4J instance.
Note:
In an OracleAS installation with Web Cache installed, the port number
should be the Web Cache listener port, for example 7777.
In a stand-alone OC4J installation, the default HTTP port number is
8888.
2.
Review the content of the
displayed test page. This page lists the portlets that are included
with the URL provider that has a service name of urlsample.
Registering the Provider
for URL-Based Portlet Samples
Note: If you have already
deployed URL-based portlets and added the existing URL-based portlets to your
portal, you can skip this topic. You can directly go to the Running
the Migration Tool topic to perform the migration of URL-based portlets.
However, the screenshots shown in this lesson may differ from what you actually
see.
After deploying the URL provider and its portlets, you must
register the provider with OracleAS Portal. The provider registration is the
process by which OracleAS Portal is informed about the access details of the
provider. Providers are registered through the OracleAS Portal Web user interface.
After you register a provider, the provider and its portlets are available in
the Portlet Repository. They are also listed in the OracleAS Portal Navigator.
1.
Access your OracleAS Portal
instance. Click the Login link in the Login
portlet.
2.
Enter your username and
password. Click Login.
Note:
If you do not know your username or password, contact your portal administrator.
3.
Click the Administer
tab.
4.
Click the Portlets
sub-tab.
5.
In the Remote Providers
portlet, click the Register a Provider link.
Note:
To register your provider, you must have Manage or
Edit privileges on providers. If you do not have these
privileges, you must request them from your portal administrator.
6.
On the Provider
Information page, provide the following details:
Fields
Values
Name
URL_Sample
Display Name
URL
Sample Portlets
Timeout
100
Timeout Message
URL
Sample Portlets Timed Out after 100 seconds
Implementation Style
Web
Click Next.
7.
The portal and the provider
communicate with each other over HTTP. Before using the provider and
its portlets, you must specify the access details of the provider.
On the Connection page, specify the following provider
information in the appropriate fields:
Fields
Values
URL
http://<host
name>:<port>/jpdk/providers/
Service Id
urn:urlsample
User/Session Information
User
Login Frequency
Once Per User Session
8.
Click Finish.
9.
You should receive a message
indicating that your registration is successful.
Click OK.
Adding a URL-Based
Sample Portlet to a Portal Page
Note: If
you have already deployed URL-based portlets and added the existing URL-based
portlets to your portal, you can skip this topic. You can directly go to the
Running the Migration Tool topic to perform the
migration of URL-based portlets. However, the screenshots shown in this lesson
may differ from what you actually see.
URL-based sample portlets can now be added to
pages just like any other portlet in the Portlet Repository.
In this section, you add a URL-based sample portlet
to your portal page.
1.
Click the
Navigator link.
2.
Access your
portal page.
To help you perform the steps in this section, a page group named Migrating
URL Portlets and a page named URL Portlets Page
within that page group have already been created.
Note:
To learn more about creating page groups and pages, see the Building
the Portal Site lesson.
Your path should be Path:Page Groups > <Migrating
URL Portlets> Pages.
3.
Click the
Edit link to the right of the URL Portlets Page
link.
4.
Click the
Add Portlet
icon on the region header. OracleAS Portal displays the Portlet Repository.
5.
Click the
Portlet Staging Area link.
Note:
By default, all the newly registered providers and portlets are available
in the Portlet Staging Area in the Portlet Repository.
6.
Click the
URL Sample Portlets provider link.
7.
Click the Google.com
Portlet link to move it to the Selected Portlets
area.
8.
Click the
ASP Portlet link to move it to the Selected
Portlets area.
9.
Click OK to return
to the portal page.
10.
Note that the URL-based
sample portlets have been added to your portal page.
You can see your URL-based sample Google portlet, as shown below.
Note that the Refresh link is not available in the
Portlet Header for the URL-based portlets.
11.
You can see your URL-based
sample ASP portlet, as shown below.
Note that the content rendered by the URL-based portlet is unorganized
and poorly formatted.
Note: If you have already
upgraded to Portal Tools 9.0.4.0.2 or later releases by following the instructions
provided in the Portal
Tools: Upgrading to Release 9.0.4 and later article, you can skip this topic.
The Web Clipping provider is implemented as a Web provider
of OracleAS Portal 10g
(9.0.4). It provides all the information required to publish external Web content
within the Web Clipping portlet. The Web Clipping provider fetches the content
selected by the user in the Web Clipping Studio, and renders it inside the Web
Clipping portlet.
You must configure the Web Clipping provider by defining a
proxy server and port that enable the provider to connect to content sources
outside the firewall. You can also specify a list of host names for which the
proxy will be bypassed. To configure the Web Clipping provider, follow the instructions
in the Configuring
the Web Clipping Provider document.
You can access the Web Clipping Provider Test page by using
the following URL:
http://<host name>:<port>/portalTools/webClipping/providers/webClipping
The Web Clipping Provider Test page enables you to know whether the provider
is functioning properly.
Next, you must register a Web Clipping provider with OracleAS
Portal.
1.
Click the Navigator
link at the top right of the page.
2.
Click the Providers
tab.
3.
Click the Registered
Providers link.
4.
Click the Provider
link to register a new Web provider.
5.
The Register Provider
page is displayed. Enter the following details in the Provider
Information section:
Fields
Values
Name
Web_Clipping
Display Name
My
Web Clipping
Timeout
60
Timeout Message
My
Web Clipping Provider timed out
Implementation Style
Web
6.
Click Next.
7.
Enter the Web
Clipping Provider URL in the URL field.
The URL format is
http://<host name>:<port>/portalTools/webClipping/providers/webClipping.
8.
In the User/Session
Information section, select the User option
button to send user-specific information to the provider.
Select Once Per User Session from the Login
Frequency list.
Make sure that you have specified the correct proxy settings in the
Proxy Settings section of the page. OracleAS Portal
uses the proxy server settings that you specify in this section to connect
to the Web Clipping provider.
10.
Click Finish.
11.
Click OK
to complete the Web provider registration.
The migration process involves writing configuration data
from the URL-based portlet's configuration files into the Web Clipping portlet's
configuration files. During the migration process, the service deployment properties
file and the provider.xml file are copied into the Web Clipping
application, along with the existing customizations to these files. Because
the original files used by the existing URL-based portlets are not modified,
there is no need to back up any of these files before beginning the migration
process. After completing the migration process, the new Web Clipping portlets
are available in the Web Clipping Repository.
The migration tool parses the service deployment properties
file to find the corresponding provider.xml file, which contains
the XML definition of the URL-based portlets to be migrated. For each of the
URL-based portlets defined in the provider.xml file, an equivalent
clipping definition is created and inserted into the current Web Clipping Repository.
The migration tool changes the XML snippet of the provider definition class
from URLProviderDefinition to WcProviderDefinition.
For each migrated URL-based portlet, the replacement XML snippet contains a
clip ID, which is a pointer to the newly inserted clipping definition. The new
portlet definition XML snippet no longer contains the same information as it
did when it was a URL portlet definition.
You must run the migration tool once for each URL-based portlet.
The location of these service deployment properties files that is used for the
URL-based portlets may vary depending on individual deployment scenarios. For
the shipped URL-based sample portlets, you can find the service deployment properties
files in the <OC4J_HOME>/j2ee/home/applications/jpdk/jpdk/WEB-INF/deployment
directory.
The service names of the URL-based portlet providers are:
urlsample
- demonstrates the basic capabilities of URL-based portlets urlparams
- demonstrates how to build a parameter-driven URL-based portlet provider urlnls
- demonstrates how to build a URL-based portlet provider that performs character
set conversion to correctly display multibyte characters, such as Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, and Arabic urlbasicauth
- demonstrates how to build a URL-based portlet provider that displays data
from a source that is secured by using basic authentication urlexternalauth
- demonstrates how to build a URL-based portlet provider that displays data
from a password-protected external application
1.
Before you initiate migration,
ensure that no other users have modified the files that you intend to
migrate.
Shut down the OC4J instance in your Oracle Application Server instance
or the stand-alone OC4J instance where your Portal Tools application
is running.
To shut down a stand-alone OC4J instance, you can use the following
command from the <OC4J_HOME>\j2ee\home
directory:
Note: Do not restart OC4J until
the migration has finished.
To shut down the OC4J instance in your OracleAS instance, execute the
following command from the <INSTALL_HOME>/opmn/bin
directory:
opmnctl
stopproc gid="<OC4J_INSTANCE>"
For example, if your Portal Tools application is running in the OC4J_Portal
instance, enter
opmnctl stopproc gid="OC4J_Portal" at the command prompt,
as shown below:
Note:<OC4J_INSTANCE>
refers to the OC4J instance where your Portal Tools application was
deployed.
<INSTALL_HOME>
refers to the OracleAS installation home, which is the root directory
of your OracleAS installation.
2.
Open the command window.
If you are using a stand-alone OC4J instance, change your current directory
to <OC4J_HOME>/portal/jlib.
If you are using OC4J in your OracleAS installation, change your current
directory to <INSTALL_HOME>/portal/jlib.
<WEBCLIP_SVC_DEP_PROPS>
refers to the path to your Web Clipping service deployment properties
file.
It is typically found in the <INSTALL_HOME>/j2ee/<OC4J_INSTANCE>/applications/portalTools/webClipping/WEB-INF/deployment/webClipping.properties
directory.
<URLSVCS_SVC_DEP_PROPS>
refers to the path to the URL-based portlets service deployment properties
file pointing to URL-based portlets that you want to migrate.
It is typically found in the <INSTALL_HOME>/j2ee/home/applications/jpdk/jpdk/WEB-INF/deployment
directory.
For example, you can see the command that is executed on a stand-alone
OC4J instance.
4.
Look for the “Importing
into Web Clipping was successful” message to check that
your URL portlet has been imported.
After migrating all the
URL-based portlets, you must verify that the migration is successful.
First, restart the OC4J instance that hosts your provider.
To start a stand-alone OC4J instance, execute the following command
from the <OC4J_HOME>\j2ee\home
directory:
java
-jar oc4j.jar -err errors.log
Note: The errors.log
file is an arbitrary file where the standard error messages are written.
You can access the errors.log file to identify
the errors that might have occurred when you started the OC4J instance.
To start the OC4J instance in your OracleAS instance, execute the following
command from the <INSTALL_HOME>/opmn/bin
directory:
Access your portal page to check whether the URL-based portlets
that were added to your page were successfully migrated.
1.
Click the Page
Groups tab.
2.
Click the Migrating
URL Portlets link.
3.
Click the Pages
link.
4.
Click the Edit
link to the right of the URL Portlets Page
link.
5.
You can now see your migrated
URL-based sample Google portlet, as shown below. Note that the Refresh
link is available by default in the Portlet Header
for the Web Clipping portlet.
6.
You can see your migrated
URL-based sample ASP portlet, as shown below.
Note the difference in the rendering of content in the Web Clipping
portlets. You can see that the style sheet has been applied and the
content is better organized.
7.
Access the test page for
the migrated URL-based sample portlets by using the following URL:
http://<host name>:<port>/portalTools/webClipping/providers/urlsample
8.
Click the Edit link
to edit the Google.com portlet.
9.
Note that you can alter the clipping
for the migrated URL-based portlet without modifying the provider.xml
file.
Bookmark
icon on the region header. OracleAS Portal displays the Portlet Repository.
