RE: [wsrp-wsia] Portlet, Portlet Configuration, or Configured Por tlet

[Gil Tayar <Gil.Tayar@webcollage.com>]

An alternative to the three options below, is the following (quoted from the modified Primer attached):

·       Portlet: a Producer implements Portlets. For example, a "stock quote" Portlet and a "weather" Portlet. A WSRP Web Service can expose multiple Portlets from one Web Service endpoint, which the Consumer can use by sending the appropriate portletHandle. A Portlet is an object which has a specific behavior - the data, business, and UI  it exposes - and specific configuration properties, which the Consumer and/or the End User can set and thus configure the Portlet. For example, the "stock quote" Portlet may have a "listOfStocks" property and a "numberOfStocksToDisplayInFirstPage" property.

·       Configured Portlet. Usually, the Consumer or End User do not set the values of the Portlets pre-defined by the Web Service. Rather, they create Portlets of their own, which are clones of the pre-defined Portlets, and set the values of the properties of these new Portlets. These Portlets, created by the Consumer or End User, are called Configured Portlets, and they act just like any other pre-defined Portlet in that their handle can be used anyplace a portletHandle needs to be sent.

Note that the specification does not assume that different pre-defined portlets necessarily have different behavior. For example, it is perfectly legal for the Producer to expose two "stock quote portlets", both having the same behavior, and both having the same properties, but with different values pre-assigned to those properties. This primer will not do this, and there will be a one-to-one correspondence between the pre-defined Portlets and their "type" (e.g. only one "stock quote portlet" and one "weather portlet"). This primer will use the term Portlet to encompass both the Pre-defined Portlets and the Configured Portlet, and use the specific terms when there is a need to differentiate between the two terms.

 

There is a significant difference between this suggestion and the others - this suggestion tries to differentiate between the Producer Offered entities and Consumer Configured ones, and suggesting that there is something "baser" about POE's than about CCEs. The reason why this differentiation is important is because the spec defines this difference, while our terminology only hints about it - the difference being that POEs are returned by the service description (and thus are "base portlets" ) and cannot be destroyed.

 

So my suggestion is to use Portlets to encompass both Pre-defined Portlets and Configured Portlets (or Custom Portlets).

 

Happy Holidays,

Gil

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Gil Tayar [mailto:Gil.Tayar@webcollage.com]
Sent: Thu, December 19, 2002 20:30
To: wsrp-wsia@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [wsrp-wsia] Portlet, Portlet Configuration, or Configured Portlet

As discussed in the teleconf - attached are three copies of the Primer, with the suggested names above inserted into the text, so that they can be viewed in context. I believe we should close this issue ASAP, so enjoy choosing between the three (and reading the primer :->)...

 

Cheers

Gil Tayar

WebCollage