How to access portlet preferences when not logged in

[andersf]

Hello everyone!

I have installed JBoss Portal 2.41-GA on my win XP computer. It is using the 1.5.0_11 jdk.
the purpose was to try out some portlets i had made with myeclipse.

Everything worked fine except for the situation when my portlet tried to collect the portlet preferences when not logged in to the Jboss Portal.
Then the portlet returned with the default preferences statically declared in portlet.xml, or none if none defined.

When Im logged in to the Portal I can collect the preferences and also dynamically changing them with the portlet's doEdit/processAction methods. And the portlet uses my changed preferences as long as Im logged in.

I have tried many different approaches:
- setting readonly = false in the portlet.xml for each portlet preference.
- adding portlet-preferences tag to all the xml:s, like -instances.xml and -object.xml
- logged in and changed portal security in every possible way i could think of.

I also tried to change the preferences in the News-feed portlet that comes with the default installation of Jboss portal. When not logged in, the news-feed portlet used the preferences from the default declaration in portlet.xml and not the changes i had made when logged in.

So, what am I missing here?
Is there a way getting the preferences you have stored in the portlet even if your not logged in?

thankful for any response,

Anders

[peterj]

Preferences are stored based on the logged-in user, therefore they can be changed only if there is a user is logged in. When not logged in, only the default preference settings in portlet.xml, or in portlet-instances.xml, can be used.

[andersf]

Thank you, Peter!

Now I know that it is only possible to use the programmatically stored preferences if you're logged in.

[tomstrummer]

So if I created a portlet instance via the management portlet there's absolutely no way to assign 'default preferences' for non-logged-in users?

[theute]

default preferences are those at the portlet instance level or portlet level

[tomstrummer]

Right... So can I access the "portlet instance level" preferences through the management portlet? Or do I have to edit a portlet-instances.xml file? Because normally that file won't have a record of instances I've created through the management applet, right?

Thanks.

[theute]

Both ways, look at the "Instances" tab of the admin portlet

[tomstrummer]

I see; when I go to the instances tab, a few have a preferences link, but most of the others do not.

Namely, I'm using the iframe portlet, which definitely uses the portlet preferences API. But there is no preferences link in the admin portlet for any of the iframe instances I've created.

Can you explain the difference between how the iframe portlet uses preferences and how, for instance, the news portlet or weather portlet uses them?

Thanks again.
-Tom

[tomstrummer]

"tomstrummer" wrote:
I see; when I go to the instances tab, a few have a preferences link, but most of the others do not.

Namely, I'm using the iframe portlet, which definitely uses the portlet preferences API. But there is no preferences link in the admin portlet for any of the iframe instances I've created.

Can you explain the difference between how the iframe portlet uses preferences and how, for instance, the news portlet or weather portlet uses them?

*bump*

Any ideas? I would love to know the answer to this. Thanks.

[tomstrummer]

Finally figured out the answer.

Put something like the following in portlet.xml:

 <portlet-preferences>
 <preference>
 <name>expires</name>
 <value>180</value>
 </preference>
 <preference>
 <name>RssXml</name>
 <value>http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/forecastrss?p=33145</value>
 <read-only>false</read-only>
 </preference>
 </portlet-preferences>
 </portlet>
</portlet-app>

The names have to match what's being used in your code when you pull preference values. But anything that's defined there shows up on a "preferences" page in the admin portlet once you've created a portlet instance.

See also Portlet 1.0 spec, section PLT.14.3 (bottom of p58, 59)