eXo Portal

The portal product leverages the eXo Kernel, eXo Core, eXo Portlet Container and eXo Java Content Repository products.

It is responsible to aggregate the portlets in the page ether in a normal layout model or in the new WebOS paradigm.

The information shown in the user portal depends on who you are and how you have configured your portal navigation tree and pages but also the roles you have in organizational groups, this is the community concept.

Portal Documentation table of content

HOW TOs:

• Use an Existing Portlet Application
• Database Configuration
• Configure Portal Default Persmissions
• Create Somes Pages with XML
• Create Users and Groups with XML
• How to handle multi language in eXo
• Create a Portlet using eXo WebUI Framework
• Skin Config
• Javascript Configuration
• Javascript inter application communication
• Export-Import+Portal+Config
• Connect the portal to your LDAP
• Use the Windows Session to connect to the portal (SPNEGO)
• Make your own LoginModule for JAAS

Advanced documentation

• Inversion of Control, the theory behind eXo
• Understand the Kernel Configuration mechanism
• Deploy your own service
• Portal Lifecycle : Understand how the portal is configured and how it handle requests
• Portlet Lifecycle : Understand how portlets are configured (using eXo UI framework) and how requests are handled
• Widgets Lifecycle : Understand how widgets are configured and how requests are handled
• AJAX in e Xo Framework (WebUI) : Understand how the portal manages Ajax calls
• How do we use Grovvy templates in eXo WebUI Framework

eXo introduced the innovative concept of dynamic layout rendering.

Indeed the usual way of rendering a portal page is a static one where you need a template, usually a jsp page, for each layout (2 columns, 3 columns and so on). That makes you dependent of the integrator or developers as for each new layout you will need to ask for a custom development.

eXo, with its dynamic way that creates a tree of nested UI containers that contain portlets as shown in the previous picture. Each container is responsible to render its children. In the picture the main container renders its children in several rows while the nested container displays them as columns.

Furthermore, by manipulating the tree using the WYSIWYG editor, it allows you to create new containers, define how they will render their children, add new portlets.

Advanced Drag and Drop mechanism

As most portal use the static layout mechanism they can only drag portlets from one static location, let's say a column, to another one.

With eXo Portal, it is possible to also drag the UI containers and the portlets and to drop them in containers that are deeper or upper in the Portal component tree. This feature is unique and not just a tool!