Web Portal Project

CS 526 Class
- Project

-Lee, Austin
-Narayan, Sujeeth
-Viswanathan, Arun

1
Agenda
Part 1 Portals Introduction
Part 2 uPortal Introduction
Part 3 uPortal Architecture
Part 4 Channels
Part 5 Individual Explorations
Part 6 - Conclusion

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Motivation
Yes!! Portal jobs in market!!
Middleware Technologies Portlets,
WebServices, XML, CSS,
CU-Boulder has implemented. UCCS
too..
Bigger team size, different experiences
and more learning

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What is a Portal ?

Portals wrap an organizations documents and applications in a single

web interface that provides distributed access, cross-platform usability,

personalization, management, and security features.

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List of Portal Features
Categorization of content (taxonomy)
Content management & aggregation
Personalization
Robust application integration
Development tools
Mobile/wireless support
Single Sign-On
Security

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Available Portals
Open Source Portals with Java
eXo
JetSpeed Apache
WebSphere Portal IBM
uPortal - JASIG

Open Source Portals with Microsoft Technologies

DotNetNuke
Rainbow

Others
PHPNuke, Microsoft Share Point, Oracle Portal, Peoplesoft Portal,..

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Portals Survey

Survey by: http://portlets.blogspot.com

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Part 2 uPortal Introduction

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What is uPortal ?
Developed under JA-SIG (Java in Administration Special
Interest Group) by institutions of higher-education including
Princeton, Yale, and University of Delaware

An open source, open standards effort built upon Java, XML,

XSL, JSP, J2EE, and JDBC

More of a framework for building custom portals than a proper

portal

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uPortal extended - SAKAI
Developed by Universities MIT, Stanford, Indiana
and O.K.I
SAKAI = Collaboration & Learning Environment
Includes :
Course Management System
Research collaboration system
Tool Portability Profile Tool standard for future educational
application
SEPP Sakai Education Partners Program

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uPortal Sample Screen

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Part 3 - uPortal Architecture

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Architecture

External
Web
Java Servlet Resources
Apache
Engine
Servlet
Connector uPortal
Framework

Java
DB
Channels
Web Browser

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System Requirements
Microsoft Windows
Solaris
Linux
Mac OS X

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Software Requirements
Sun JDK 1.3 or above
Ant 1.5.3 or above (Java build tool)
Servlet Container/Engine compatible
with Servlet 2.2 and JSP 1.1 API
(Tomcat 3.3.2)
JDBC Compliant Database (Hypersonic
SQL)

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Browser Compatibility
Netscape 4 and above
Internet Explorer 4 and above
Mozilla 5 and above

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J2EE
The portal architecture can take
advantage of the J2EE services provided
by the Web Container.
Can use JMS, JTA as available
Can handle Applets, Servlets, JSP
pages

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Custom Channel Creation
Custom channels are written in Java:
CHelloWorld.java
CHelloWorld.ssl (stylesheet)
normal_explorer.xsl
normal_netscape.xsl
about.xsl (optional)

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Portlet
Packaged channel
Requires compiled java class(es)
Portlet library (lib/portlet-api-1.0.1.jar)
Web descriptor (portlet.xml)
When finished, package into a JAR file,
then rename to .war

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Pushed Fragments
A channel forced on a group of users
Fragment owner has access to modify
settings of a fragment

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Part 4 - Channels

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Channel Types
Custom
Applet
Image
Inline Frame
Portlet
RSS
Web Proxy
WSRP Consumer
XML Transformation

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Channels - Demo

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Individual Explorations

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System Info

OS: Fedora Core 3 (2.6.11 kernel)

Processor/Memory: Pentium 4, 256 MB

Browser: Mozilla Firefox v1.0.3

uPortal Quick Start v2.4.2

JDK v1.4.2 & v1.5.0

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Configuration

Download zip file

Extract

Set JAVA_HOME, PATH env variables

Start up HSQL server and Tomcat server

On browser, http://localhost:8080/uPortal

Login as admin, developer, demo,

student, faculty, staff

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My Channel

A campus news channel (RSS)

current happenings
discussion forums
student comments
Weather channel ( WSRP)
Usage-tracking functionality
(implement?!)

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Individual Explorations

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PayPal Channel - Demo

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MySQL caveat
Documentation refers to older version of
MySQL and JDBC connector
Current version (MySQL 4.1.11 and
MySQL-JDBC-Connector 3.1.8) uses
different naming schemes when you
modify dbloader.xml, names and
versions must be exact! (see
JdbcExample1.java)

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Individual Explorations

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Classifieds Channel
Goals:
Enable users to have a separate classifieds channel

It could be either push-fragment or user subscription

Classifieds publish time frame

Customizable by user
Only Titles and Link (View)
Title and Details (View)
Subscribe to interested Categories Cars , Rental

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Classifieds - Roles
Admin
Channel Admin
Content Manager
Time Frame Manager
Request User
Fill in the content details and time period
General Users
Subscribe to the channel

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Classifieds Channel - Design
Built using XML and Portlets

XML Schema used :

<Classifieds>
<Classified>
<Title></Title>
<Details></Details>
<Link></Link>
</Classified>
</Classifieds>

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Design (Continue)
Portlet JSR -168
Use IPersonal Interface by uPortal for
user Identification

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Part 6 - Conclusion

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Lessons Learnt
uPortal documentation refers to old versions, and/or is
incomplete
JDK 1.4 or higher....but JDK 1.5.0?
RSS Portlet example fails to render with 1.5.0
CLASSPATH is also necessary when using the JDBC database connector JAR
Environment variable setting
Set them once-and-for-all
Running uPortal
First time, start both servers as root user
Subsequent startup, no need to be root
Not mentioned in README!!
Modify ant.bat (or ant.sh) with fixed path of Ant folder.
Use ant deploy in uportal folder to recompile java for your JDK!

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References
www.uportal.org
www.sakaiproject.org
www.cuconnect.colorado.edu
www.portlets.blogspot.com
www.w3c.org
http://people.emich.edu/kmanickam/uportal_2_0_1
/channel_2_0_1.htm
www.mysql.com

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Questions ??

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