WebLogic Portal

One More Think About Inline Editing with WLP 10.3.2 Content Templates

Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

In Inline Editing with WLP 10.3.2 Content Templates, I concluded that if something else came up I would blog it. Well, it did, so I will.

The shared library part went nice and smooth. To note the (semi-)obvious, the wlp-template-config.xml changes noted in the post must be done in the consuming application, not the shared application, as the consuming application always over-rides.

The part I forgot about was that you must create a role for editing the content or else only Admins will be able to do the inline editing.  I created an enterprise role named “homePageContentAdmin” for my first test, then granted that role update privelages on the content item. Once I did that, it worked properly.

As another sort-of-obvious note, this requires granting view privelages for anonymous or authenticated roles for other users to view the content.

If you found this interesting, please share.

© Scott S. Nelson

Inline Editing with WLP 10.3.2 Content Templates

Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Carrying on from WLP Content Presenter Portlet Simplified, the next goal is to get the in-line editing from the sample application running because most clients think that is a cool feature and don’t understand why it isn’t available by default. Right now I am almost done, and wanted to blog the progress to date, even if the most important part won’t be done until Monday…

There is a really (really, really) brief instruction in the official documentation to do this here.  I’m sure if you have been building content templates for years that document will be enough, just as I’m sure that if that were the case you won’t be reading this (unless to make tsk-tsk noises at my ignorance). The files to import can be taken straight from there, which is:

Display Template (Outer Template) – <WLPORTAL_HOME>samplesapplicationsportalApp contentPresenterSampleWebsamplePresenterTemplates inlineEditExamplePresenterTemplate.jsp
CM Display Template (Inner Template) That Displays the Content – <WLPORTAL_HOME>samplesapplicationsportalAppcontentPresenterSampleWebsampleCMTemplatesinlineEditExampleCMTemplate.jsp
JSP File that Performs Other Work – <WLPORTAL_HOME>samplesapplicationsportalAppcontentPresenterSampleWebsampleCMTemplatessaveNode.jsp

Now, the first time I tried this, I wanted my own paths and renamed everything. It didn’t work. I’m sure I can rename them now, but at this stage the important thing is to get it working, with re-branding to the custom project being secondary.

The next step is to add these to the wlp-template-config.xml. Where the manual tells you to make your own, I find it much easier to simply go to the merged view and copy in the one from the shared install. While this may make a little more work for future WLP upgrading, it is worth it to me to save the time. With the file now in my project, I get the copy from the sample application and added the nodes to my own application that reference the files imported earlier. The relevant parts of the resulting file are…

Under <content-name-space><name>wlp-content-presenter-single</name>:

<content-resource>
   <name>htmlContent</name>
   <default-template-uri>/portlets/wlp-content-publisher/templates/wlp-default/cm/wlp-default-resourceDefault.jsp</default-template-uri>
   <view>
      <name>Show</name>
      <description>This is the detailed node view for simple HTML content in the Avitek Financial Intranet sample.</description>
         <uri>/sampleCMTemplates/simpleShowView.jsp</uri>
   </view>
   <view>
      <name>ShowEdit</name>
      <description>This is the detailed node view with inline editing for simple HTML content in the Avitek Financial Intranet sample.</description>
      <uri>/sampleCMTemplates/inlineEditExampleCMTemplate.jsp</uri>
   </view>
</content-resource>

Under <template-name-space><name>wlp-content-presenter-single</name>:

<view>
   <name>Sample Single Item View with Inline Edit</name>
   <description>This is the sample Content Presenter Display Template view for a single item that provides inline HTML editing.</description>
   <uri>/samplePresenterTemplates/inlineEditExamplePresenterTemplate.jsp</uri>
</view>

Now, for this to work, you have to create a content type of named “htmlContent”. I created this type with no parent and a primary property named “content” of data type binary.

I’m still testing to find out if the content needs to include “.html” as a suffix to the name.  And, yes, you can by-pass much of this “have to” stuff if you re-write everything, but the goal here is to get it deployed and have business users editing content today 🙂

I thought I had it with that, as I could then set the content in an instance of the Content Presenter portlet as a piece of content of the type htmlContent and see the Edit HTML button, but nothing happened on clicking it. Dang! Running it in FireFox (the project was targeted at IE, otherwise I would have started in FireFox), I found the disconcerting message “wlp dojo is not defined”.

Ok, I haven’t used the Dojo tookit yet. I have been building stuff by hand for so long, I just haven’t had the need to use a pre-built JS framework, even one that is as highly praised as Dojo. So I’m not sure if I went about it the best way to get this fixed, but it was the fastest. I searched through the sample directory until I found dojo.js (in Windows, it was located at

[WEBLOGIC_HOME]wlportal_10.3samplesdomainsportalserversportalServertmp_WL_userportalApp4ycmg9beaextdojo-0.4.3-ajax ). I also found that in inlineEditExampleCMTemplate.jsp, the path it was looking for was ${pageContext.request.contextPath}/dojo-0.4.3-ajax/dojo.js.

I tried importing it directly to my project from OPOE, but it must be compressed or the path is too long, so I did a copy/paste to a temp directory and imported it from there.

And, viola! It worked.

Now all that is left is to make the web project into a shared library so that I don’t have to turn off validation is my “real” project. If there is anything out of the ordinary with that process I will blog about it here.  Otherwise, go forth and edit.

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© Scott S. Nelson

REST Logout for WLP with JSP 2.0 EL

Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

I used to create the log out URL like this:

String    webAppName    = request.getRequestURI().substring(1);
String    webAppPath    = request.getRequestURL().substring(0, request.getRequestURL().indexOf(webAppName));
String    restLogout    = webAppPath+webAppName.substring(0, webAppName.indexOf(‘/’))+”/bea/wlp/api/logout?invalidate_session=true”;

Then, today I needed to have it in a Bighorn skeleton, so I came up with the following:

<c:set var=”webAppName” value=”${fn:substring(pageContext.request.requestURI, 1, fn:length(pageContext.request.requestURI))}” scope=”application” />
<c:set var=”webAppPath” value=”${fn:substring(pageContext.request.requestURL, 0, fn:indexOf(pageContext.request.requestURL, webAppName))}” scope=”application” />
<c:set var=”restLogout” value=”${webAppPath}${fn:substring(webAppName, 0, fn:indexOf(webAppName, ‘/’))}/bea/wlp/api/logout?invalidate_session=true” scope=”application” />

With the URL in hand, you can now make the logout call:

function portalLogOut(restURL)
{
var xmlhttp    = null;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)// code for IE7, Firefox, Mozilla, etc.
{
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else if (window.ActiveXObject)// code for IE5, IE6
{
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”);
}

if(xmlhttp.overrideMimeType)xmlhttp.overrideMimeType(‘text/xml’);
if (xmlhttp!=null)
{
xmlhttp.open(“POST”,restURL,true);
xmlhttp.send(null);
}
}

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© Scott S. Nelson

WebLogic Portal (WLP) Lost Samples in 10.3.2

Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Ran across a fun new quirk this morning. To make sure that source control has everything necessary for a build I maintain two workspaces and check the build in one after a check in from the other. There were two errors today. One was just weird, which is that the path of WEB-INF/src somehow became required. Annoying, but no big deal to check it in (and probably could have removed it from org.eclipse.wst.common.component and .classpath without causing an issue).

The quirky part was the second error, which was that it was unable to resolve the reference to “wlp-sample-widgets-web-lib” library. I went to the WebLogic shared libraries in preferences, and sure enough it wasn’t there. Long story short, the sample widgets are not configured in a workspace unless it is added to a project in that workspace. The fix was to remove and then add the facet back in and then OEPE installed it into the workspace.

If you found this interesting, please share.

© Scott S. Nelson

WLP Content Presenter Portlet Simplified

Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

I find the steps at Adding the Content Presenter Portlet to be a bit hard to follow as the content loops back and forth between the sample application and your application, and has frequent references to other documentation where the link goes to the start of the document rather than the specific section necessary for the task at hand. Having always liked reading and writing Quick Start guides, I am posting this one for the WebLogic Portal Content Presenter Portlet. I will later add how to incorporate the inline editing demonstrated in the sample application once I figure it out for myself.

So, first off, I will skip ahead to explain why I start the Quick Start where I do, which is that the templates we will want to add later spit compile errors in OPOE. For that reason, I am creating a separate Portal Web Application that will later be deployed as a shared library. If you don’t need the templates from the sample  app,  you can just use your main application. If you don’t know how to get that far on your own, see the WLP Quick Start and come back here. One other caveat is that you will need a DataSync project associated with the EAR project.

Once you have whatever portal web application that will be Content Presenter enabled chosen, you need to add the necessary facets. Unlike WebLogic Workshop for WLP, you aren’t prompted to add facets when creating the project, so you need to go to the Project Properties after creating the Portal Web Application and add them.

The facet we care about is Content Presenter Framework. It does, however, have some dependencies. Fortunately, OPOE  lets you know what they are:

Adding Facets to WLP

So, rather than list them all out here, just select Content Presenter Framework under WebLogic Portal (Optional) and follow the errors for what to add. One note is that you will want Struts 1.2 instead of 1.3. Otherwise, the default version will do the trick.

To save time, I also selected the Sample Framework Components facet. You will eventually need to build your own log-in portlet, but this should do to get the Content Presenter working.

If you don’t already have one, create a .portal file for your portal web application and add the Sample Login Portlet. You could add the Content Presenter portlet at this time, but unless you are only going to have one in the application you don’t want to as it will be tied to the library instance. By adding it to new desktop  in the Portal Administration Tool (PAT), you will create a separate instance each time.

Create .portal File and Add Login

If you don’t already have some content in your repository to display, once you deploy the portal application go create some as the Content Presenter doesn’t seem to have the facility to create new content (or I haven’t figured it out yet, but if you are reading this then you haven’t either 🙂 ).

With content ready, create a portal and desktop (again, if you haven’t already) and add the content presenter portlet onto a page in the desktop (again, we do this here to have a specific instance):

Add Content Presenter Portlet to Desktop

You will also need to enable Disc on your desktop if you want the sample login portlet to work.

And…

Ta Daaaa!

At this point you can return to the standard documentation at Section 14.2.1, “Configuring the Content Presenter Portlet” for the rest of the steps as it seems to be back on track (for my taste) at that point.

If you found this interesting, please share.

© Scott S. Nelson