Portlet specific CSS and JS files

[Subbu Allamaraju <subbu@bea.com>]

I would like to know if there is an interest in addressing the following 
issues.

WSRP1.0 has the following limitations:

a. Portlets can not ask Consumers to load specific js files. The only 
option is to inline the JavaScript within the HTML.

b. Portlets are restricted to use Consumer-specified CSS styles or 
inline styles, but cannot ask Consumers to load additional styles from 
css files.

In most applications, CSS files and JavaScript are maintained outside 
markup. Some applications share these css/js files across multiple 
pages. Such sharing will also improve performance since browsers can 
cache those files, and markup will be less bloated.

For the 2.0 spec, I think we have the right plumbing to solve these use 
cases. Here is one possibility:

a. Portlets advertise a number of resource IDs or resource URLs.
b. Consumers aggregate thoese resources into the page 's head element.

There are some open questions:

a. What happens if portlets duplicate any css definitions that are 
already defined by the consumer? The consumer should be allowed to win, 
I think.

b. How to deal with the MEDIA attribute? AFAIK, these are not 
well-supported by browsers. Are there other user agent devices that 
support these?

Any comments?

Regards,

Subbu