9 Replies Latest reply on Feb 17, 2006 4:39 PM by keletappi

    Clueless 101

    andrewbee

      JBoss version: 4.03SP1
      Portals version: 2.2.1RC2
      DB: Oracle 10g Express
      OS: Windows XP

      I am here to find answers to some very basic questions about JBoss Portals (version xxx), but also to vent some frustration about the lack of even basic documentation that addresses the needs of someone who hasn't used it before. What is there is unusable and leaves me with more questions than answers (like the product itself).

      I managed to get it installed and running, DB configured. So far, so good. Now, I try to deploy the HelloWorldTapestry example (since I'm going to be writing portlets with Tapestry). Nowhere in the docs that come with Portals does it tell you how to deploy a portlet! So, some googling later, I come up with the fact that the war file has to be copied to server\default\deploy directory. I do this. But, how do I test the darn thing? Browsing to localhost .../portals, I don't see the portal anywhere. On which of the 4 tabs (CMS Manager, Test, default, management) does it appear, or where do I select it so that it will appear? (I am logged in as admin/admin, BTW).

      And why, when I remove a portlet .war file and restart JBoss, does it then blow up? I have to actually delete the Oracle user (and hence its schema) to get it to even run again! It's brittle as anything - I should not have to do this.

      And why, when registering for JBoss.com, does my password have to be minimum 8 characters and include a number, and then I have to wait for an email, before I can even post to the forums? It's only a developer site, not a high-security e-commerce site or something.

      And, more questions about the product in general: how do you build an application with Portals? Specifically:
      - How do you stop the tabs appearing (for a non-admin end user)?
      - How do you customize the look and feel?
      - How do you have the login authentication go against something like LDAP instead of whatever it uses out of the box?
      - How do you even find out what it uses out of the box?
      - How do you customize which portlets appear?
      - Can you have content outside of the portlets like, say, the current time?
      - How do you do interportlet communication?
      - How do you have one portlet refresh itself without reloading the entire page?
      ..... and a whole host of other developer questions.

      Is there a book that covers this stuff, that's actually written for a real developer that's never worked with this before?

      Thanks in advance (and sorry about the venting)