---
title: Developing Portlets For The WebSphere Portal Server
order: 4
layout: page
---

[[developing-portlets-for-the-websphere-portal-server]]
= Developing portlets for the Websphere Portal Server

When creating portlets for the Websphere Portal Server (aka WPS) you
have the choice between different frameworks

* JSF (2.0)
* Spring Portlet MVC
* Vaadin 6 / 7

While using JSF seems to be a bit outdated, because WPS just supports an
old JSF Version (MyFaces 2.0.2) Spring Portlet MVC is a good and valid
options for developing portlets.

On this page I will try to collect all information to
develop Vaadin portlets in a fast and easy to use way. I will also
handle topics like using CDI and the navigator in a portal environment
as well as some architectural ideas like using the MVP pattern for a
portlet project. As an example portlet I will use a simple master /
detail portlet just like the Vaadin address book application. I have
developed all code examples on this wiki pages with the current Vaadin
version (7.4.2 as I am writing this) and tested the portlets on WPS 8.0
and 8.5.

I use Maven for dependency management and SLF4J for logging. You can
download the small zipped project in the attachments section. Please,
feel free to leave comments and / or questions on the bottom of the
page.

[[a-simple-portlet]]
A simple Portlet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lets start with a "Click Me" (aka "Hello World") Vaading portlet.

The UI class is identical to servlet development (create a button with a
click listener and show a notification when clicking the button). The
interesting part is the configuration of the portlet.xml file.

[[portlet.xml]]
Portlet.xml
^^^^^^^^^^^

[source,xml]
....
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<portlet-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="2.0" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd" id="com.gisag.vaadin.ClickMeUI">     
  <portlet>         
    <description>Vaadin Click Me Portlet </description>         
    <portlet-name>Vaadin Click Me Portlet</portlet-name>         
    <display-name>Vaadin Click Me Portlet</display-name>        
    <portlet-class>com.vaadin.server.VaadinPortlet</portlet-class>

    <init-param>           
      <name>UI</name>           
      <value>com.gisag.vaadin.ClickMeUI</value>         
    </init-param>         

    <init-param>             
      <name>productionMode</name>             
      <value>false</value>         
    </init-param>     
        
    <init-param>           
      <description>Path of all static vaadin resources (configurable from context root)</description>             
      <name>vaadin.resources.path</name>             
      <value>PORTLET_CONTEXT</value>       
    </init-param>

    <!-- Supported portlet modes and content types. -->         
    <supports>             
      <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>             
      <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>         
    </supports>     
  </portlet>
</portlet-app>
....

In the `portlet` tag you have to set a value for the `portlet-class`. For
this simple we can use the default Vaadin portlet class
`com.vaadin.server.VaadinPortlet`; you also have to name you UI class as a
portlet init parameter.

To let WPS find the Vaadin javascript and theme resources you have to
use the portlet init parameter `vaadin.resources.path`. The value
`PORTLET_CONTEXT` is a Vaadin constant value that makes the vaadin
resources available in the portlets resource path.

Run the Maven build with `clean package` as goals and deploy the created
war file in the portal administration. Create a blank portal page and
add your portlet to the page. Your "Click me" portlet should look like
this:

image:img/Click_Me_2015-03-31_21-03-27.png[Your first portlet]