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Mentum Group jPorta

jPorta Web Site

Where Jetspeed is a full-feature strategy, jPorta is a much more scaled-down solution. Which can be beneficial, depending on the need. The documentation is well-designed, and describes the basic functioning, including how to use the XML-based gadget (portlet) registry, the layout manager and gadget tag usage syntax (jPorta uses JSP custom tags for much of its functioning). Installation instructions are only provided for JBoss/Tomcat, although the documents say it will work with any servlet 2.3 engine. I was able to easily deploy the application WAR file on JRun4, but wasn't able to log in for unknown reasons.

This last topic leads to Jeenius, the framework underlying jPorta that handles a number of lower-end management functions, much like the JavaServer Tags do. The most notable and deepest use of Jeenius is to handle all of the security (e.g. users and roles) and user profile information. Anyone interested in customizing jPorta will inevitably need to at least understand what Jeenius handles. For example, to troubleshoot my login issue, I will need to see what is happening with Jeenius' <jee:login> tag.

The good news is that both jPorta and Jeenius are fairly easy to learn. Both use JSP extensively to handle all of the display, relying on underlying custom tags to do the core of the work. This means that customization is remarkably easy, even for less-experienced J2EE developers. The code is very clean and the tag API is intuitive. If you are looking for a simple solution to display some simple servlet, HTML or JSP-based application as gadgets, jPorta would be quite viable. A number of sample gadgets are included that provide a good example for how to develop portlet-type applications for jPorta.

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