Portlet Factory - Web Service Call builder, No trusted certificate found

I am using the Web Service Call builder and testing a call to a https site. When running the application, it return the error "No trusted certificate found".

From the error message, I suspected that the server does not recognise the SSL certification for the site that I'm accessing. Refering to this document, the SSL cert have to be exported and added into the server. Please take note that WebSphere 6.0 used ikeyman to add in the cert while 6.1 is done through the admin console.

WebSphere Portlet Factory Fixpack 6.1.2.1 for Portlet Factory v6.1.2

WebSphere Portlet Factory Fixpack 6.1.2.1 for Portlet Factory v6.1.2 is out. Get the update at IBM update site here.

Portlet Factory update design shortcut tips - copy model directly

When developing in Portlet Factory, I do the testing on my local server because it is faster than deploying onto the development websphere portal server. But somethings we have to develop and test directly in a portal server. What you have to do is to deploy the project onto the portal server. As you know the deployment will take some time. So a faster way is to copy the model directly from your Portlet Factory Eclipse workspace into the Portal deployment path.

From
<workspace path>\<project>\WebContent\WEB-INF\models\helloworld.model

To
<portal wp_profile path>\installedApps\<cell>\<app.ear>\<app.war>\WEB-INF\models\helloworld.model

Once you copy from your workspace to the server. Log out of the portal and log back in. Presto, the model update is there. This is only recommended for development and testing purposes only. For production environment it is better to package the project and update the application deployment.

Portlet Factory 6.1.2

Portlet Factory 6.1.2 is out. You can get the 60 days trial version here.
It looks like 6.1.2 is a new version and not an upgrade or fixpack for PF 6.1.

Prepend javascript to an action button - Portlet Factory

I am creating a form, which is submitted and a thank you page is display. Only the Form section is change to Thank You after submission, without refreshing the whole page.

I used a Button builder and set that in the Post-Action Behavior. The issue that I had was when submitting, the button stays active. If the connection is fast, it does not matter but when I was working at a slow connection place, when submitting, it takes a few seconds before the Thank you page shows but the button is still active.

The button calls an action. I want the button to run additional Javascript before running the action. From the forum, I manage to find the solution.

The HTML Event Action can be used. Select the location you want to insert the javascript. Action type, I use "Run a script". Then put in the javascript. In Advance, use Prepend new value.



This is very useful to add in more actions before the button action is triggered.

Portletize Lotus Notes Application - Part 2 (Multi-value separator)

Lotus Notes field allow us to set it to mutiple values. It can be set to take one or more separator values (space, comma, semicolon, new line and or blank line).

What happen when a field on the portal is map to a multiple value field in Notes? If we set comma is separator, even if the value in the portal contains a comma, it will be stored as a single value (eg "one, two") and not multi value (eg "one", "two").

Portlet Factory by default uses "|" as the separator which Notes does not support. After a few failed attempt to convert the separator, I manage to use an agent to do the job. In the Domino View & Form builder, there is an option "Run agent on save". This would call the agent to process the field before saving.

I know this is just a work around and there is a more efficient way to do it. At the Portlet Factory - Lotus Collaboration Forum, Sam have helped to answer the questions.



An Event Handler builder can be used. In the Event Name, select System:OnWebAppLoad. Then in the Actions, select the method setItemValueSeparator from your view. Set it to comma. This should automatically convert the field into a comma separated multi-value. At the moment, it does not support multiple separator (according to Sam in the forum). It would be useful if in the future version to support that and also as like in Notes, we can set which separator to use for display. Hoping to see the features in the future release.

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Portletize Lotus Notes Application - Part 1 (Profile Sets)

From the existing samples in Portlet Factory (PF), you can get a simple Lotus Notes (LN) application up and running in no time. I will skip the most details covered in the sample.


By using just a Domino View & Form builder, you can get the most simple function of viewing, creating, editing and deleting documents. When setting up the builder, you have to put in the property file for the Domino connection, Database Name, etc. Development and production server should have different settings.

In LN, I normally use profile document. The profile document would contain settings that is needed for the application to run. Same for PF, we can use Profile Set also. Profile Sets contains one or more profiles entries. There's a sample on PF samples page on how to use the profiles feature.


An example that we can use here is to set a profile for the Database name. In my environment, production path and development path is different. Thus for the application to run, it have to point to the correct database path. First, create a Profile Input for the Database name. If a profile set does not exist, you can create a new profile set. Then create a new Profile Entry name DatabaseName type text. I give it a default value to the development server database path.


Next is to set the entries configurable on the portal. Add in a Portlet Adapter builder to create the portlet. Then scroll down to Portlet Sets section. There should be a list of Profile Sets that is created. For those that you want to be configurable, it can be set to "Show individual profile values in Configure". You may want to check on "Require Configuration". This would force the portlet to be configured during deployed before it can be used.

I received a portlet application from a team and it needs code changes everytime it is deploy in development and production. This cause a lot of issue when they forget to make the changes. Thus using the Profile Set example above, it provides a more flexible way to deploy application to different environments.

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Websphere Portal Server implementation

I have not been updating my blog lately. So now I'm trying to put together what I have been learning for the past 2 month. Been busy setting up the new Websphere Portal (WP) infrastructure for my company. It have been quite a long process. WP is like 1000 pieces puzzle compare to Lotus Domino 100 pieces puzzle. There are so many things to do to get a proper WP environment up and running. And there are still fine tuning to be done. Maybe we lack in experience for WP but definitely it is not a simple system to setup.

Next is the development of some portlet applications. I have familiarize myself with Portlet Factory and managed to portletize some Lotus application. In my previous job, I have created portlet using Websphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD). Definitely Portlet Factory has made it much easier to than WSAD. Almost every now and then I find some cool feature in Portlet Factory. I will share more of this in the next few writeup of how I've portletize an Lotus Application.

Through so many Lotus blogs, I have learn so much. Lotus community have been very willing to share their experience and that is great. I'm hoping to learn from Websphere Portal/Portlet Factory blogs. I did a quick search on Google for Webpshere Portal Blog and Portlet Factory Blog. What a let down. I manage to find only a handful of blogs and not all of them are updated. If you know any good Guru out there, appreciate you could leave the URL on the comments. I did a search on Lotus Notes Blog and can definitely see the big different in numbers of blogs. Hmm... do Lotus community have more time to blog? Maybe Lotus tools have make things simpler thus we have more time to blog.

Category View Builder - Expand All (Portlet Factory)

Things have been so crazy the pass month. Been spending so much time picking up new skill but at the same time have to rush for the project. So I have been neglecting my post here. Almost coming to the completion of my project. Phase 1 anyway. Portlet Factory does give a good impression during these learning period.

I start to build a sample application using db2 as datastore. After playing around, I understand better the concept of separating data access & UI front end. This can be easily be done by creating separate model for service provider and consumer. For the first model, I prepare the SQL statements and the service provider & service operation builder. Then for the UI front end, service consumer builder is used. That way, the back end provider can be changed without changing the UI model. Of course the data schema have to be same.

I won't go into the detail of how that is done. The Portlet Factory samples covers a lot of those. I have gotten used to having categorized view from Lotus Domino/Notes. Thankfully, Portlet Factory provides category view builder. It is just a simple as selecting your table and specifying which column need to be categorized.



My only problem is getting it to expand all during load. Thanks to mtr on the forum, I have some idea on how to get it done. I use view & form builder to display the categorized view. So instead of setting the "View & Form" builder as main, create an "Action List" builder as the main. First I user the DataService to set the result for the table. Then I use the Category View function to expandAll. At last display the view page.



Hope the will help those looking for a expand all during load. The more I use Portlet Factory, the more I find it as a user friendly tool. Quite a lot of things can be done without going down into coding. That is a very good news for beginner.

Websphere Portlet Factory

Just installed Websphere Portlet Factory (WPF) and test it out a bit. My previous experience of developing portlet is using Websphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD), now called Rational Application Developer (RAD). Definitely WPF is much simpler to get started with, for developing portlets than WSAD.

I manage to built a simple portlet to display a Domino application view and document in a few minutes. Basically a few builders in a portlet factory model would do the job. But this just create the WPF provided standard view and display all the fields in the document. It would take more work to customized to the way we may want it to be. But still so far, no Java coding yet. Good new ya.

Will spend more time learning up WPF. Definitely it is much easier to learn than building portlet in WSAD. This hold true especially for those who are still going to learn Java :) Let just see how far we can built portlet application using WPF without JAVA codings. Will update my findings soon.