Just to clarify further:

When the user changes context, it is in the action phase of the context selector that I would imagine I wouldhave to use one of the JBoss apis to re-initialise all the portlets in the portal.

Hi Antoine

Thanks for your post. I must say I'm banging my head against a brick wall on this one.

Our enviroment is pretty fixed namely: JBoss AS 4.04 and JBoss portal 2.4

With regards to using IPC as approach:

I need to notify each of the portlets on the page about the change in context and I'm not sure exactly how to do this. Do you have an example of IPC involving more than two portlets in JBoss Portal 2.4?

(What complicates matters further for us is most of our application makes use of Springs Portlet MVC framework which uses Springs DispatcherPortlet so all our customer code takes place in spring controllers as opposed to portlets).

The other approach I have been playing around with (without success) is to
create an interceptor and add it jboss-portal.sar/META-INF/jboss-service.xml

The biggest problem I am having with this approach is how the interceptor running in jboss-portal.sar can detect a context change from our portlet application which is running in a separate war file which means we can't share information via the HttpSession.

There must be mechanisms to achieve this using PortalNodeEvent (or similar).

Any thoughts on this?

Right, for anybody interested I eventually solved my problem and I don't think for one minute that it's elegant but it does the job.

EssentiallyI created a custom CommandInterceptor (see code below). The interceptor clears the navigational state of all portlet windows in the portal if there there is an action request to the portlet window called "DNSCustomerContextSelectionPortletWindow". Fortunately in my scenario an action request targetting this portlet window will mean I need to clear the navigational state of all portlet windows in the portal.

The interceptor needs to be built to a jar file and the jar file placed in :

/jboss-4.0.4.GA/server/default/deploy/jboss-portal.sar/lib/

/jboss-4.0.4.GA/server/default/deploy/jboss-portal.sar/META-INF/jboss-service.xml

 <mbean
 code="com.dns.jboss.portal.interceptor.DNSCustomerContextChangeInterceptor"
 name="portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=DNSCustomerContextChangeCheck"
 xmbean-dd=""
 xmbean-code="org.jboss.portal.common.system.JBossServiceModelMBean">
 <xmbean/>
 </mbean>

<mbean
 code="org.jboss.portal.server.impl.invocation.JBossInterceptorStack"
 name="portal:service=InterceptorStack,type=Command"
 xmbean-dd=""
 xmbean-code="org.jboss.portal.common.system.JBossServiceModelMBean">
 <xmbean/>
 <depends-list optional-attribute-name="InterceptorNames">
 <depends-list-element>portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=PortalNode</depends-list-element>
 <depends-list-element>portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=PolicyEnforcement</depends-list-element>
 <depends-list-element>portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=PageNavigation</depends-list-element>
 <depends-list-element>portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=EventBroadcaster</depends-list-element>
 <depends-list-element>portal:service=Interceptor,type=Command,name=DNSCustomerContextChangeCheck</depends-list-element>
 </depends-list>
 </mbean>

package com.dns.jboss.portal.interceptor;

import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Iterator;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
import org.jboss.portal.common.invocation.InvocationException;
import org.jboss.portal.core.command.CommandInterceptor;
import org.jboss.portal.core.command.ControllerCommand;
import org.jboss.portal.core.command.InvokeWindowActionCommand;
import org.jboss.portal.core.model.portal.Page;
import org.jboss.portal.core.model.portal.Window;
import org.jboss.portal.server.ServerInvocation;


public class DNSCustomerContextChangeInterceptor extends CommandInterceptor
{
 private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger( DNSCustomerContextChangeInterceptor.class );

 public void invoke( ControllerCommand cmd ) throws Exception, InvocationException
 {
 if ( customerContextChange( cmd ) )
 clearPortalNavigationalState( (InvokeWindowActionCommand)cmd );
 cmd.invokeNext();
 }

 private boolean customerContextChange( ControllerCommand command )
 {
 if (command instanceof InvokeWindowActionCommand)
 {
 InvokeWindowActionCommand iwac = (InvokeWindowActionCommand)command;
 if ( iwac.getWindow().getName().equals( "DNSCustomerContextSelectionPortletWindow" ) )
 return true;
 }
 return false;
 }

 private void clearPortalNavigationalState( InvokeWindowActionCommand iwac )
 {
 Collection portalChildren = iwac.getPortal().getChildren();

 for( Iterator i = portalChildren.iterator(); i.hasNext(); )
 {
 Object portalChild = i.next();
 if ( portalChild instanceof Page )
 {
 Page page = (Page)portalChild;
 Collection pageChildren = ( (Page) portalChild ).getChildren();
 for ( Iterator j = pageChildren.iterator(); j.hasNext(); )
 {
 Object pageChild = j.next();
 if ( pageChild instanceof Window )
 {
 Window window = (Window)pageChild;
 if ( !window.equals( iwac.getWindow() ) )
 {
 ServerInvocation sinv = iwac.getContext().getExecutionContext().getServerInvocation();
 log.debug( "CLEARING NAV STATE OF WINDOW: " + window.getName() );
 sinv.getRequest().getNavigationContext().setNavigationalState(window.getInstanceRef(), null );

 //WindowNavigationalState windowNavState = (WindowNavigationalState)sinv.getRequest().getNavigationContext().getNavigationalState( window.getId() + "_window");
 //windowNavState = new WindowNavigationalState();
 //sinv.getRequest().getNavigationContext().setNavigationalState(window.getId() + "_window", windowNavState);
 }
 }
 }
 }
 }
 }

}