WebSphere Portal Support in MyEclipse
This document outlines some of the key components of support and development for working with WebSphere Portal servers in MyEclipse.
WebSphere requires a MyEclipse Blue or Bling subscription.
1. WebSphere Portal Server Support
This document outlines some of the key components of support and development for working with WebSphere Portal servers in MyEclipse. The topics covered in this overview build on information found in the basic Portlet overview for MyEclipse. This document covers aspects of Portlet development specific to developers working with WebSphere Portal 7.x & 8.x servers.
MyEclipse for WebSphere includes server connectors that support WebSphere Portal server versions 6.1 through 8.x. After you configure WebSphere Portal server, it is available in the Servers view along with other servers.
Configured WebSphere Portal server in Servers view
Configure the WebSphere Portal like other WebSphere connectors. There are a few fields specific to portal servers to pay attention to. The most important are the portal server home directory, the portal server-specific profile, and the server name that specifies the WebSphere_Portal server. WebSphere Portal server also requires a username and password to operate, so those details must be provided, as well.
WebSphere Portal server configuration
2. Adding JSR WebSphere Portal Support to a Web Project
To develop applications for deployment to WebSphere Portal, you need to add JSR Portlets facets to your web project. Add this support by selecting the project and choosing MyEclipse>Project Facets>Install JSR Portlets Facet.
Adding portlet capabilities to a web project
For WebSphere Portal 7 or 8, choose JSR 286. Select your WebSphere Portal version from the Target runtime drop-down.
Note: For WebSphere Portal 7.0, your Web project must use the Web 2.5 specification, rather than Web 3.0. WebSphere Portal 8.0 supports Web 3.0.
Adding the Portlet facet
When you click Finish, the project is ready to support JSR Portlet development that can be deployed to WebSphere Portal server.
3. WebSphere Portal Deployment Support
After you have a portlet application configured for WebSphere Portal 7.0 or 8.0 and have added a few JSR 286 style portlets to the project, you are ready to deploy them to WebSphere Portal server. The only restriction on deployment is that the portal server must be running (online) for portal engine deployment to occur.
Deploying a project to WebSphere Portal server
During deployment, the application is deployed as a normal Java EE Web Application to the WebSphere app server running the portal engine. At the end of this “normal” deployment, if MyEclipse detects that you have portlets support added to your project, a special WebSphere portal engine deployment will take place transparently.
The same thing occurs with undeployment. When you remove the Java EE web application deployment, if MyEclipse detects that your project is a portlet project, it will undeploy all the portlets from the WebSphere Portal server.
4. WebSphere Portal Configuration Overview
After you deploy your project to WebSphere Portal 7.0 or 8.0 server, you can search for the deployed web application on the Administration>Portlet Management>Web Modules page.
Viewing the deployed web application
Any portlets defined in your web application are registered with the portal server. Those portlets are available on the Portlets page if you search for them by name.
Portlet search
After you find a portlet, it can be added to a portal page with the click of a button.
Adding a portlet to the page
After the portlet is running on the portal server page, it acts like a normal Java EE web application running on a server. If the server is in debug mode, normal developmental features like Java and JSP debugging, hot-swap, and hot-sync debugging are available.