Good morning Listers! Admission time: I am really new to Jetspeed and to portals in general. Up until about 3 weeks ago, I didn't have a clue about building portals, but I was nevertheless told by my bosses to build a portal by the end of this month. As it turns out, that was one tough assignment.
So, please bear in mind that I probably won't fully understand any answer from you guys unless it is spelled out in very simple terms. Assume that I am a complete dunce and don't worry that treating me as such will hurt my feelings! ;-) On to the question ... I reckon I have now worked out how to create my portal. Each PSML file in a folder relates to a tabbed entry on the portal front page (or subsequent sub-pages if the PSML files are in a sub-directory of the main portal directory). Whether a tab is shown depends on whether the person viewing the front page is allowed to see it (as defined by security-constraints in the PSML file, and depending on whether the person has logged in or not, and of course depending on that person's permissions (or role)). Each PSML file defines a set of portlets that are to be displayed on the page. I believe that the portlet.xml file in the portlet's deployment directory may also indicate (through security-role-ref) whether it is allowed to be shown at all, but I'm not sure of that. What I want to do is to display a portlet on EVERY page, no matter what part of the portal site is being displayed. As far as I can work out, the only way to achieve this is to add the appropriate portlet fragment to every PSML file on the portal site. This would work, but what a tedious task that would be! Is there a better way to achieve this? Also, I want the contents of my portlet to automatically refresh itself every 60 seconds or so. How would I achieve this? I thought the rss::RSS example portlet might do this (to refresh the RSS newsfeed every 3600 seconds, as it's supposed to do), but it appears that it doesn't do that. An alternative I've come up with is to create a servlet instead of a portlet (my portlet really is very simple, and could be easily converted into a servlet). Then I could change the header.vm part of my layout decoration to install a fixed fragment of HTML and Javascript that would display the results of my servlet on every displayed page of the portal; the Javascript would use XMLHTTPRequest to fetch a fragment of HTML to display in the HTML fragment (<div>). My idea is that this fragment of HTML could be placed above the left-side navigation menu, so that it is always visible whenever a user enters any page on the portal. The trouble with this approach is that ALL visitors to the portal will see that HTML fragment. If I could find a way within header.vm to determine if the user has logged in and has appropriate viewing permissions, then I could arrange to NOT include this HTML fragment in appropriate cases. Any ideas on how I could find out in header.vm whether the current user of the portal is logged in and has appropriate permissions? Or does anybody have a better idea altogether? My aim is to have an auto-updating portlet that is always visible to logged in users on every page that the user visits, and that is not visible to users that are not logged in at all. This could be achieved as a portlet, or as a fragment of HTML that appears in the portal header (or footer, for that matter). Either way, it must not be visible to users that are not logged in, or who are logged in but who do not have the appropriate permissions. Suggestions would be most gratefully received!! ------- On a totally unrelated issue, I am having real difficulty in understanding the folder.metadata file. There is documentation available on the Jetspeed 2 website, but I find it difficult to follow. I think an "idiot's guide" to the file might be helpful for dunces like me, especially in respect of how to construct the left-side navigation menu. The examples provided in the distribution are not very helpful in this respect (they raise more questions in my mind than they answer). Is there an idiot's guide to folder.metadata files anywhere? Or some examples with explanatory notes? ------- BTW, I initially considered using Jetspeed 1.6 to build my portal, mainly because the only available complete tutorial on Jetspeed was based around version 1.6. But I thought, what the hey, let's use the most up to date version of Jetspeed (version 2), it must have better features, and it surely can't be anything other than an upwards-compatible version built on top of version 1.6. It seems I was wrong. Unless I am very much mistaken, Jetspeed 2 seems to be a significant re-work from version 1.6, and most of the tutorial material from version 1.6 does not apply to Jetspeed 2. There is precious little tutorial material available for Jetspeed 2, it seems, which makes it difficult for a Jetspeed virgin like me to get started at all. Am I right in what I say above? Ie that Jetspeed 2 is not upwards-compatible from Jetspeed 1.6? ------- Many thanks for your time, Mike --------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Church Software Engineering QinetiQ Bldg Lovell Rm 109 Malvern Technology Centre St. Andrews Road, Malvern Worcestershire, WR14 3PS Tel: 01684 896085 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.QinetiQ.com QinetiQ - The Global Defence and Security Experts. The Information contained in this E-Mail and any subsequent correspondence is private and is intended solely for the intended recipient(s). For those other than the recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on such information is prohibited and may be unlawful. Emails and other electronic communication with QinetiQ may be monitored. 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