WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET – Video Series

The PS3 version of the WSRP Producer for .NET (install guide) is available for download.

The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET provides a means for developers and administrators to service-enable new and existing ASP.NET applications through the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) standard. It also unlocks Web Parts to standards based portals by exposing them directly as WSRP components. Now enterprises can take advantage of departmental resources directly.

Product manager, Bob Fraser posted a 2-minute overview of the WSRP Producer for .NET. In addition to Bob’s intro, here are a few more demos as well.

Developer Overview

SharePoint Document Library

SharePoint Wiki Library

WebCenter Spaces PS3 VirtualBox Appliance

With the lead of WebCenter product manager, Rich Nessel, we just released a new VirtualBox Appliance. Here is a high level overview of the VM:

This Oracle VirtualBox appliance contains a fully configured, ready-to-use WebCenter Spaces installation.  It has been tested on Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit, Linux, and Mac OS.

All you need to do to try out WebCenter Spaces is to install Oracle VirtualBox on your desktop/laptop and import the WebCenter appliance — no installation and configuration required!  It is also REQUIRED to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack to get this VM working.

The following software is installed in this VirtualBox image:

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5
• Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition (11.2.0.1)
• Oracle WebLogic Server (10.3.4.0)
• Oracle Enterprise Content Management 11g R1 (11.1.1.4.0) – Content Server and Inbound Refinery
• Oracle WebCenter Spaces 11gR1 (11.1.1.4.0) and the following services: Discussions, Personalization, Analytics, Pagelet Producer

Additionally, there are two demonstrations installed, both featuring a fictitious bank, AviTrust – one is the bank’s internet site, the other is its employee portal.  Please review the README on the oracle user’s desktop for details about these two applications.

New, Radically Enhanced iPhone App for WebCenter Spaces

The newly updated iPhone app for Oracle WebCenter Spaces is available in the App Store. The app enables business end-users, managers, and executives to manage and participate professional connections, group projects, and dynamic online communities via iPhone.

New Features

• Support for PS3 (Patch Set 3 11.1.1.4.0) as well as PS2 (Patch Set 2 11.1.1.3.0) versions of Oracle WebCenter Spaces
• Revamped user interface including a new springboard launcher interface
• Search has been added for People Connections, files on your iOS device and (PS3 only) WebCenter resources on the server
• Recent Items are tracked for People, Documents, Document Folders, Group Spaces, Discussions, Topics, Lists, and visited web links
• Links in Activity Streams are now clickable
• Easily post to your activity stream, including attachments and camera support
• Improved status update interface in your user profile
• Improved support for adding/updating your Connections with the native iOS Contacts app
• Links to each person’s Manager and Reports, if available
• People Connection Lists to view your Connections more efficiently
• Recommended People Connections via Activity Graph (PS3 only)
• Local file system support and “Open In…” (can save documents to your iOS device, open them in other apps, and have this app open docs from other apps)
• Personal Documents support, both public and private, including the ability to upload, download, and delete
• Printing of documents and web sites via AirPrint
• Documents can be emailed as an attachment, or you can email a link instead
• Playback of video and audio files
• Easily post to a Group Space’s activity stream
• Message Board support in each Space
• Discussions has an improved user interface, including forward and back buttons for navigating messages
• Bookmark your favorite items as icons on the main launcher screens and re-position them (for Group Spaces, People, Documents, Document Folders, Discussion Forums, Discussion Topics, and Lists)
• “Quick Note” feature allows you to write text notes or record audio notes and save them in your Personal Documents on the server
• Support for multiple servers through the new Accounts feature switch quickly between different servers or user credentials
• Support for higher resolution “Retina” screen graphics and other iOS4.2+ features like printing and backgrounding

Mastering WebCenter Portal Templates – Part 1

One of the best ways to get started with the WebCenter Portal Framework is taking a close look at what the source code of out-of-the-box page templates. When you create a new WebCenter Portal Application, two similar templates are generated for you:pageTemplate_globe.jspx and pageTemplate_swooshy.jspx.

The context root

Sometimes it comes handy to get a hold of the context root. In this snippet you see the context root (requestContextPath) used to render the logo in the banner. Also, you see an EL on the rendered attribute of the component, indicating that the logo doesn’t render when the page or the template is being edited.

<af:panelBorderLayout id="pt_pgl1"
 rendered="#{!composerContext.inEditMode or attrs.isEditingTemplate}"
 inlineStyle='background-image:url(#{facesContext.externalContext.requestContextPath}/images/globe.png);'>

Template attributes

The template attributes provide a convenient way for the page to pass some contextual information to the template. For instance in the example below the page width is passed to the template by the page.

<af:panelGroupLayout id="pt_pgl2" layout="vertical"
 inlineStyle="width:#{attrs.contentWidth};margin: 0 auto;">

The attribute is defined on the bottom of the template. Notice the default value, in case the page doesn’t specify the value of the attribute.

<attribute>
 <attribute-name>contentWidth</attribute-name>
 <attribute-class>java.lang.String</attribute-class>
 <default-value>960px</default-value>
 </attribute>

In this example it’s not the page passing information to the template, it’s a shorthand: if the user is authenticated, the greeting will be displayed, otherwise it won’t.

<af:outputText id="pt_ot1"
 value="Welcome #{securityContext.userName}"
 inlineStyle="color:White; font-size:small;"
 rendered="#{attrs.showGreetings}"/>

The definition of the showGreetings attribute is again, defined in the bottom of the page template.

<attribute>
 <attribute-name>showGreetings</attribute-name>
 <attribute-class>java.lang.Boolean</attribute-class>
 <default-value>#{securityContext.authenticated}</default-value>
</attribute>

WebCenter PS3 Portal Framework VirtualBox Appliance

The brand new (and very first) WebCenter PS3 VirtualBox appliance is available for download. This VM image targets WebCenter developers and includes the most important features needed to evaluate and test the WebCenter Portal Framework:

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 5
• Oracle XE Universal Database 10.2.0.1
• Oracle Universal Content Management PS3 (11.1.1.4.0)
• Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.4.0
• Oracle WebCenter Portal Framework 11gR1 PS3 (11.1.1.4.0)
• Oracle JDeveloper 11.1.1.4
• Oracle WebCenter Extenstion for JDeveloper (11.1.1.4.0)

Additionally, the AviTrust Demonstration (web site of a fictitious bank), and the Tutorial for Oracle WebCenter Developers have been included in the appliance.  To get started, you’ll need to review the README file  on the oracle user’s desktop.

Requirements

• At least 3GB of RAM (recommended 6GB)
• At least 30GB of free disk space
• 2GHz processor

VirtualBox is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms as well. For additional information on installation and setup steps, review this page on OTN.

Is JSR 168 Not Supported by WebCenter Patch Set 3?

This question may came up when you try to build a JSR 168 portlet or attempt to open one in JDeveloper 11g R1 PS3. In the latter case what happens is that your portlet gets automatically upgraded to a JSR 286 portlet. Given that JSR 286 supersedes JSR 168, most of the time this doesn’t cause problems. However, if for some reason you HAVE to create or edit a JSR 168 portlet without upgrading it, you’ll need to use a Patch Set 2 or earlier JDeveloper for it (or any other tool supporting JSR 168 portlets).

Despite the fact that JDeveloper automatically upgrades your portlets, deploying JSR 168 portlets to the Fusion Middleware 11g Patch Set 3 is fully supported.

This topic is covered by the Oracle Fusion Middleware Upgrade Guide for Oracle SOA Suite, WebCenter, and ADF:

15.4.2.1 About Upgrading JSR168 Portlet Producers to JSR286

Oracle WebCenter 10g supports Java portlets based on the Java Portlet Specification, JSR 168; Oracle WebCenter 11g supports Java portlets based on Java Portlet Specification version 2, or JSR 286. JSR 286 is an extension of JSR 168, and is backward compatible with JSR 168.

In Oracle WebCenter 10g, Oracle JSF Portlet Bridge is based on and conforms to JSR 301, whereas in Oracle WebCenter 11g, Oracle JSF Portlet Bridge conforms to JSR 329.

In JDeveloper 11g, when you open for the first time an existing portlet producer application containing JSR 168 portlets, portlets are automatically upgraded to be JSR 286 compliant. If the application is a portlet bridge application, it is further automatically upgraded to be JSR 329-compliant.

In most cases, the upgraded portlets continue to work exactly as they did before. However, there are a few cases in which JSR 168 portlets function differently when upgraded to JSR 286; these portlets must invoke a JSR 168 compatibility mode to run under JSR 286.

In Oracle WebCenter 10g, a portlet producer application contains the portlet.xml and oracle-portlet.xml files. When you upgrade a portlet producer application, the oracle.portlet.xml file is deleted, and all its details are moved to portlet.xml. The navigation parameters stored in oracle.portlet.xml are converted into public render parameters and are added to portlet.xml. For information about how JSR 168 parameters are handled in an upgraded JSR 286-compliant portlet producer application, see Section 16.4, “Migration of JSR 168 Portlet Producers to JSR 286: Handling of Portlet Elements.”

WebCenter PS3 Launch Demo Preview

If you have visited oracle.com lately, you may have noticed the banner ad about our web cast, officially launching WebCenter 11g Patch Set 3. To whet your appetite, here is a screen shot of the portal we built for the launch. The demo walks you through some of the key aspects of this portal, including personalization, analytics, social services, content integration, business user editing experience, as well as the developer’s view.

If you want to find out how you can get a hold of this sample, tune in on Wednesday, February 2nd, at 10:00am pst.

Patch Set 3 New Features for Portlet Developers

If you’re a portlet developer, WebCenter 11g R1 Patch Set 3 has a handful of new features for you as well.

Most importantly, WebCenter now supports the development of JSR 286 portlets, thus eliminating the need for the Oracle-specific portlet descriptor, oracle-portlet.xml. You can build, test, and deploy JSR 286 portlets. First, you have to walk through the portlet creation wizard by creating an application based on the Portlet Producer Application template.

Then, you need to create a new portlet in your “Portlets” project.

On the JDeveloper design time experience side, the biggest change is the Design view for the portlet.xml portlet descriptor. After you have created the skeleton of your portlet code, you can easily go back and edit the generated code in a very easy to use, declarative manner.

As you can probably see in these screen shots, the editing experience of previously generated portlet meta data became very straight-forward.

Defining portlet events, parameters, security settings are all available to you.

And as always, you can switch to the source view to take a look at the generated code or make changes there manually.

Hidden Gems for Developers in WebCenter Patch Set 3

We have made a handful of improvements to the developer experience for WebCenter Portal developers. Let’s review three of them, in no particular order.

WebCenter-specific artifacts in the EL Editor

In PS3 we have grouped the WebCenter-specific EL constructs under a dedicated node in the EL Editor, making it very easy to access the security, navigation, or personalization context from EL. When it comes to the EL Editor, it’s very easy to get lost, hopefully this makes it easy to reference the various WebCenter artifacts.

New resource catalog: WebCenter Portal Catalog

We created a new resource catalog for portal developers, containing basic components that we expect many extranet and public facing web sites to leverage. On one hand, as a best practice, this is a list of light-weight components we recommend you to use, on the other hand it’s a convenient way to access these components. And best of all, you can expand this list or shape it the way you like by editing this resource catalog – or even by creating a new one.

WebCenter task flows: almost 100

One of the frequent questions we get from prospects and customers is “how many portlets/components does WebCenter have”. Well – if you qualify this question and ask “how many out of the box task flows does WebCenter provide in its development environment”, I know the answer to this one: 90. Here are a few screen shots for your review.

WebCenter 11g Patch Set 3 Released

While formally only a patch set, from a feature perspective WebCenter 11g Patch Set 3 is a major mile stone with fundamental new capabilities. This version has been in the works for over a year and we’re very excited about it. If there’s only one thing to note about this release, than it would be the following:  this is the converged portal platform with support for broad portal and extranet site use cases and incorporates the best features from all of the previously acquired portal products, including WebLogic Portal, WebCenter Interaction, fka: ALUI (fka: Plumtree), as well as Oracle Portal.

In this release WebCenter Spaces has evolved big time; but the new features that the WebCenter Portal Framework offers are more significant than ever before (more about it soon).

Main themes of the release:

• Portals & Sites
• Team & Social
• Enterprise Mashups
• Content Management
• Personalization
• Search & Discovery
• Desktop Integration & Mobile
• Analytics & Management

If you want to learn more about this release (including download, documentation, white papers), your best starting point is the WebCenter home page on OTN: http://webcenter.oracle.com and the Release Highlights page.