You can request a portlet directly through a Uniform Resource Locator
(URL) to display its content without portal aggregation. The PortletServingServlet
servlet registers each Web application that contains portlets. It is similar
to the FileServingServlet servlet of the Web container that serves resources.
The PortletServingServlet servlet supports direct rendering of portlets into
a full browser page by a URL request.
You can invoke each portlet by its context root and name with the URL mapping
/<portlet-name> that
is created for each portlet. The context root and name has the following
format:
http://<host>:<port>/<context-root>/<portlet-name> For example,
http://localhost:9080/portlets/TestPortlet1
The context root identifies
the Web archive (WAR) file that contains the portlet. The portlet name uniquely
identifies the portlet with a portlet application of a WAR file. The DefaultDocumentFilter
servlet only supports HTML, UTF8 encoding and an extended URL form based on
the basic URL form as shown above.
You can only display one portlet at a time using the PortletServingServlet
servlet. If you want to aggregate multiple portlets on the page, you need
to use the aggregation tag library. Refer to the Portlet aggregation using
JavaServer Pages article for additional information.
Because a portlet only delivers fragment output whereas a servlet usually
delivers document output, a mechanism is introduced to convert the fragment
into a document, called the PortletDocumentFilter filter. By default, the
PortletDocumentFilter filter only supports converting HTML. The conversion
is implemented using a servlet filter before the PortletServingServlet servlet
is initiated to return the portlet‘s content inside of a document. This default
document servlet filter only applies to URL requests, not for includes or
forwards using the RequestDispatcher method. You can create servlet filters
to support other markups additional document servlet filters. Refer to the
Converting portlet fragments to an HTML document article, for additional information.
The PortletServingServlet servlet does not persist portlet preferences
in a XML file or database. It places the portlet preferences directly into
a cookie to store the preferences persistently. Refer to the Portlet preferences
article, for additional information on how to change this behavior.
Portlet URL syntax
You can add additional portal
context such as portlet mode or window state. You can access the PortletServingServlet
servlet by using a URL mapping that has the following structure:
http://host:port/context/portlet-name [/portletwindow[/ver [/action |
/resource[/id=custom-id][/cacheability]] [/mode] [/state] [rparam][/?name]]]
Any
differing URL structure results in a com.ibm.wsspi.portletcontainer.InvalidURLException
exception. Empty strings are not permitted as parameter values and creates
an InvalidURLException exception. The following is a list of valid parameters:
- http:// host:port/context/portlet-name
- This is the minimum URL required to access a portlet. A default portlet
window called ‘default’ is created. The portlet-name variable
is case-sensitive.
- /portletwindow
- This parameter identifies the portlet window. You must set this parameter
if you choose to add more portal context information to the URL.
- /ver=major.minor
- This optional parameter is used to define the version of the portlet API
that is used. You must set this parameter if you choose to add more portal
context information to the URL. Only versions '1.0’ and '2.0' are supported.
Any other version creates an InvalidURLException exception.
- /action
- This is a required parameter if you call the action method of the portlet.
The action parameter causes the action process of the portlet to be called.
After the action has been completed, a redirect is automatically issued to
call the render process. To control the subsequent render process, a document
servlet filter can set a request attribute with name 'com.ibm.websphere.portlet.action'
and value 'redirect' to specify that the portlet serving servlet directly
returns after action without calling the render process.
- /mode=view | edit | help | custom-mode
- This optional parameter defines the portlet mode that is used to render
the portlet. The default mode is ‘view’. The value is not case-sensitive.
For example, ‘View’, ‘view’ or ‘VIEW’ results in the same mode.
- /state=normal | maximized | minimized | custom-state
- This optional parameter defines the window state that is used to render
the portlet. The default state is ‘normal’. The value is not case-sensitive,
for example, ‘Normal’, ‘normal’, or ‘NORMAL’ results in the same state.
- * [ /rparam=name *[=value] ]
- This optional parameter specifies render parameters for the portlet. Repeat
this parameter chain to provide more than one render parameter. For example,
/rparam=invitation/rparam=days=Monday=Tuesday.
- ?name=value&name2=value2 …
- Query parameters may follow optionally. They are not explicitly supported
by the portlet container, but they do not invalidate the URL format.
- /action | /resource
- This parameter defines the methods of the portlet that is called. Valid
values are no, action or resource parameter. No specific method defined calls
the render method. The resource parameter is only supported for JSR 286 portlets.
- /resource [/id=custom-id] [/cacheability=cacheLevelFull | cacheLevelPortlet
| cacheLevelPage]
- Set this parameter to define the method of the portlet to be called. No
redirection occurs. No other method of the portlet is called. To control the
resource parameter, you can add an additional ID parameter to provide a resource
serving identifier that is passed through to the portlet. The cacheability
parameter defines the cache level of this resource URL. This parameter is
only supported with JSR 286 portlets .
![[z/OS]](../../ngzos.gif)
The following list includes examples
of valid JSR 168 and JSR 286 URLs:
- http:// localhost:9080/sample/WorldClock
- http:// localhost:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=1.0/mode=edit/rparam=timezone=UTC
- http:// localhost:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=1.0/action/state=maximized?timezone=UTC
- http://localhost:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=2.0/resource/id=somePicture.jpg
![[iSeries]](../../iseries.gif)
The following list includes examples of valid
JSR 168 and JSR 286 URLs:
- http:// your.server.name:9080/sample/WorldClock
- http:// your.server.name:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=1.0/mode=edit/rparam=timezone=UTC
- http:// your.server.name:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=1.0/action/state=maximized?timezone=UTC
- http://your.server.name:9080/sample/WorldClock/myPortlet/ver=2.0/resource/id=somePicture.jpg