What Is a Portlet

Deploying HelloWorld Portlet on Pluto

Pluto is in the early stages of development, so it does not have a set of easy-to-use administrative tools. In order to use the Pluto server, you will have to download both the binary and source versions. Please note that these instructions are for Windows; Unix users can get similar results by changing slashes and using .sh shell scripts rather than .bat batch files.

1. Create a folder, such as C:\PlutoInstallation.
2. Download pluto-1.0.1-rc1.zip and pluto-src-1.0.1-rc1.zip from the Pluto website.
3. Extract pluto-1.0.1-rc1.zip into C:\PlutoInstallation. It should get extracted in C:\PlutoInstallation\pluto-1.0.1-rc1.
4. Start Pluto by calling C:\PlutoInstallation\pluto-1.0.1-rc1\bin\startup.bat.

   You are ready to access your Pluto server at http://localhost:8080/pluto/portal.

5. Extract pluto-src-1.0.1-rc1.zip to C:\PlutoInstallation\PlutoSrc.
6. Go to C:\PlutoInstallation\PlutoSrc and run maven distribute:all.. This should build and download necessary dependencies required for running common admin tasks.

   Now it is time to install our HelloWorldPortlet.war as a portlet.

7. First, copy HelloWorldPortlet.war to the C:\PlutoInstallation\portlets directory, creating the directory if necessary.
8. Rename C:\PlutoInstallation\plutosrc\build.properties.sample to build.properties.
9. Open build.properties and change it so that maven.tomcat.home points to the Pluto binary installation. In our example, this will be maven.tomcat.home=C:/PlutoInstallation/pluto-1.0.1-rc1.
10. To install your portlet, go to C:\plutoInstallation\plutosrc\deploy and run maven deploy -Ddeploy=c:\PlutoInstallation\portlets\HelloWorldPortlet.war. You should get a "build successful" message.
11. In C:\PlutoInstallation\pluto-1.0.1-rc1\webapps, you should see a folder for HelloWorldPortlet.
12. Now, open the web.xml file of your installed portlet by going to the C:\PlutoInstallation\pluto-1.0.1-rc1\webapps\HelloWorld\WEB-INF\ folder. You will see that a few lines are automatically added to this file, like this:

    <servlet>
    
      <servlet-name>HelloWorld</servlet-name>
    
         <display-name>HelloWorld Wrapper</display-name>
    
          <description>Automated generated
    
          Portlet Wrapper</description>
    
          <servlet-class>org.apache.pluto.core.PortletServlet
    
          </servlet-class>
    
          <init-param>
    
             <param-name>portlet-class</param-name>
    
             <param-value>com.test.HelloWorld
    
             </param-value>
    
          </init-param>
    
          <init-param>
    
             <param-name>portlet-guid</param-name>
    
             <param-value>HelloPluto.HelloWorld
    
             </param-value>
    
          </init-param>
    
    </servlet>

13. Now it's time for us to add this portlet to the page. Go to C:\PlutoInstallation\pluto-1.0.1-rc1\webapps\pluto\WEB-INF\data. You will find two XML files there: pageregistry.xml and portletentityregistry.xml.
14. portletentityregistry.xml contains the definition of the portlet. Add these lines to it:

     <application id="5">
    
       <definition-id>HelloWorld</definition-id>
    
         <portlet id="1">
    
           <definition-id>HelloWorld.HelloWorld</definition-id>
    
         </portlet>
    
        </application>

    The <definition-id> of the application should be the name of the web application folder. The portlet's <definition-id> should be equal to the generated portlet-guid in web.xml.

15. pageregistry.xml defines which portlets to include on the page. Change it like this:

      <fragment name="p2" type="portlet">
    
        <property name="portlet" value="5.1"/>
    
      </fragment>

16. Restart the Pluto server by first calling shutdown and then startup. Now go back to http://localhost:8080/pluto/portal and click on "Test Link"--it should show our HelloWorld portlet.

17. The right side of Figure 3 shows what your HelloWorld portlet will look like.

    
    Figure 3. Screen shot of portlet screen (click for full-size image)