Understanding role of Authoring Templates in IBM Lotus Web Content Management.

In Lotus Web Content Management, content is created by using authoring templates. These templates are forms that contain content and can be grouped into different document types. When it comes to defining the required document types, it is common to hear content owners requesting a document type for every propose. For example, the sales team wants a document type for products, human resources wants document types for career information, and marketing sees a need for a document type for news and company information. From a technical perspective, these requirements fit in fewer authoring templates because they are quite similar essentially.
Instead of creating a new template for every document type on the Web site, templates can differ by page design, such as page layout, page style, and components. Then, you can apply these templates to the many content document types that you create so that the content propose is separated from its layout, making content and presentation flexible. Proper construction of the shell site ensures maximum reuse, flexibility, and performance.

Know how to Retrieve a Signer Trust Certificate from a remote endpoint?

To rerieve a Signer Trust Certificate from a remote endpoint and save to RAD's local Key Store, you may use either:
Jython Administrative Scripts
RAD WAS WTE Admin Console as shown below.

Launch the WAS Administration Console


• Open the Navigation Menu Security folder on the left.
• Click SSL certificate and key management

• Click Manage endpoint security configurations

• Under Inbound -> [cellname] -> nodes
• Click [nodename](NodeDefaultSSLSettings,null) (should be the upper link)

• Click Key stores and certificates (on the far right)

• Click NodeDefaultTrustStore (should be the 2nd link)

• Click Signer certificates (on the far right)

• Click the Retrieve from port button (in the upper area of the screen)

• Supply the endpoint Host ( Web Service DNS alias)
• Supply the endpoint Port (443)
• Supply an endpoint Alias (anything you desire)
• Click the Retrieve signer information button

• Click OK

• Verify the new certificate entry
• Click Save (top of screen)

• Logout of the Admin Console
• Bounce the RAD WAS 6.1 WTE server

WebSphere Portal -Know How to disable DOJO loading..!!!

As we know WebSphere Portal has inbuilt DOJO support. DOJO is used to built interactive applications with dynamic capabilities. Now everytime your portal page is loaded leads to loading of DOJO and DIJIT javascripts. But in many cases if we just are building simple portal pages having very simple themes applied to it which dont use DOJO then it is unnecessary to load DOJO functions each time the portal page gets loaded. Hence what we can do is that we can disable this DOJO loading. In order to reduce DOJO loading which is associated with our theme go to the head_links.jspf and comment out the following lines if you know your theme is not using them and you dont want your page to load them :




You can comment the above lines in order to disable DOJO loading in WebSphere Portal.

Know how to use DOJO toolkit with WebSphere Portal

Dojo allows you to easily build dynamic capabilities into web pages and any other environment that supports JavaScript sanely. You can use the components that Dojo provides to make your web sites more usable, responsive, and functional. WebSphere Portal also allows use to use DOJO in order to build interactive portal applications. To know how to use DOJO toolkit with WebSphere Portal click here.

Know how to send mail using Java Mail API..

The following are the core classes of Java Mail:

1. Session
2. Authenticator
3. Store
4. Folder
5. Message
6. Address
7. Transport

Just like the classes of other Java APIs, the factory class pattern is used in all the above classes. It will be clearer when the classes are discussed. I will be discussing the first four classes in this part as they are the "founding" classes of any Mail application.

1. Session:

Session forms the basis of any client server based application, framework or APIs. The Java Mail API is no exception. The Session class defines a basic mail session. To pass values to the Session object, the Properties object could be used. Since all the constructors of this class are private, a sharable object can be obtained by using the method of the same class -- getDefaultInstance(). This method takes two parameters in its parameterized form -- an object of Properties class, and one of the Authenticator class. The Authenticator will be discussed shortly. So, to get an instance of Session class the code is:
Properties props = new Properties();
// fill props with any information
Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);

If a shared instance is not what is required, the getInstance() method to get a unique instance looks like this:
Properties props = new Properties();
// fill props with any information
Session session = Session.getInstance(props, null);

The parameter for Authenticator is supplied as null. This can be done to keep the application simple, but it is not recommended.

2. Authenticator:

As in the case of java.net packages, the Mail APIs can take advantage of the Authenticator class. This class provides access to the protected resources via username and password. The resources can be anything ranging from simple files to servers. For Java Mail, the resource is the server. In essence the Authenticator object passes as a parameter to the getInstance()/getDefaultInstance() method, and controls the security aspect of the Session object.

There are two ways to use the Authenticator. First, you can separately subclass the Authenticator and provide its object to the getInstance()/getDefaultInstance() method. The other way is to subclass the Authenticator by the same class that encapsulates the mailing logic. The following is an example of former approach:
Properties props = new Properties();
// fill props with any information
Authenticator auth = new MyAuthenticator();
Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, auth);

To make use of the other approach the code is:
Properties props = new Properties();
// fill props with any information
Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, this);

3. Store:

This class represents a mail storage. To retrieve messages, one must connect to this store. But before that, an object of the Store class must be obtained, which is done like this:
Store store = session.getStore("pop3");
store.connect(host, username, password);

The getStore() method of Session class provides an instance of Store. The parameter is the protocol to be used. It can be either “imap” for IMAP and “pop3” for POP3. Once the Store object has been obtained, the connect() method can be called with hostname/IP, username and password as parameters to connect to the Store. The connect() has a no parameter form. If the Authenticator’s object has been passed to the getInstance()/getDefaultInstance() along with the Properties object containing the hostname, then the no parameter form can be used.

4. Folder:

All the messages belonging to a particular user are placed inside a Folder within the Store. The Folder represents such a folder. As is the case with Store, an object of Folder could be obtained by calling the getFolder() method of the Store class. The getFolder() method takes only one parameter -- the name of the folder to be opened as a string. To open the inbox pass “INBOX” as the parameter. In code:
Folder folder = store.getFolder("INBOX");
folder.open(Folder.READ_ONLY);

Once the instance of Folder has been obtained, calling the open method on that instance will actually open the folder. Once opened, the messages can be retrieved. The open() method accepts one parameter representing the state in which the folder has to be opened. The constants provided in the Folder class can be used to provide the required state. Of the available states the most common are “read only” represented by Folder.READ_ONLY and “read write” represented by Folder.READ_WRITE.

Now we will see how to put it all together as a class that can be extended and reused. So let's get started.

Start with the package name.

package ap.mail;

Then come the imports.
package ap.mail;
import ap.mail.MailAuthenticator;
import com.sun.mail.iap.Protocol;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Properties;
import java.util.Vector;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import org.apache.james.userrepository.DefaultJamesUser;
import org.apache.james.services.UsersStore;

The last two imports are important if the password authenticator has to be used.

Next is the class. The class must subclass the Authenticator, as the class itself would implement the logic for password authentication.
public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
:
:
}

The variables to be used across the methods have to be declared.

public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
protected String from;
protected Session session;
protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
protected Folder rootFolder,currentFolder;
protected Store store;
:
}

Then comes the constructor. Since the Properties will be used to pass the information regarding the host username and password, the object of the Properties class would be instantiated here.

public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
protected String from;
protected Session session;
protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
protected Folder rootFolder,currentFolder;
protected Store store;

public MailClient(String user, String host, boolean debug,String password)
{
from = user + '@' + host;
authentication = new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);
Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("mail.user", user);
props.put("mail.host", host);
props.put("mail.debug", debug ? "true" : "false");
props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
}

:
}

To provide the authentication support, the getPasswordAuthenticator() method has to be overridden. Since this application would not provide its own implementation, this method would just return an object of type PasswordAuthentication.

public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
protected String from;
protected Session session;
protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
protected Folder rootFolder,currentFolder;
protected Store store;

public MailClient(String user, String host, boolean debug,String password)
{
from = user + '@' + host;
authentication = new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);
Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("mail.user", user);
props.put("mail.host", host);
props.put("mail.debug", debug ? "true" : "false");
props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
}
public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
{
return authentication;
}

:
}



The next step is to connect to the store.

public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
protected String from;
protected Session session;
protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
protected Folder rootFolder,currentFolder;
protected Store store;

public MailClient(String user, String host, boolean debug,String password)
{
from = user + '@' + host;
authentication = new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);
Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("mail.user", user);
props.put("mail.host", host);
props.put("mail.debug", debug ? "true" : "false");
props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
}
public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
{
return authentication;
}
public boolean connectToStore()
{
boolean connected=false;
try
{
store = session.getStore();
store.connect();
rootFolder = store.getDefaultFolder();
openFolder("INBOX");
connected=true;
}
catch (NoSuchProviderException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (MessagingException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
return connected;
}

:
}

Once the connection to the store has been established, to extract the messages, the folder has to be opened. That is done like this:

public class MailClient extends Authenticator
{
protected String from;
protected Session session;
protected PasswordAuthentication authentication;
protected Folder rootFolder,currentFolder;
protected Store store;

public MailClient(String user, String host, boolean debug,String password)
{
from = user + '@' + host;
authentication = new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);
Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("mail.user", user);
props.put("mail.host", host);
props.put("mail.debug", debug ? "true" : "false");
props.put("mail.store.protocol", "pop3");
props.put("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");
session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
}
public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
{
return authentication;
}
public boolean connectToStore()
{
boolean connected=false;
try
{
store = session.getStore();
store.connect();
rootFolder = store.getDefaultFolder();
openFolder("INBOX");
connected=true;
}
catch (NoSuchProviderException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (MessagingException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
return connected;
}
public boolean openFolder(String folder)
{
boolean isOpenend=false;
try
{
currentFolder = rootFolder.getFolder(folder);
currentFolder.open(Folder.READ_WRITE);
isOpenend=true;
}
catch (MessagingException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
return isOpenend;
}

}

That’s it. This class can now connect to a mail server. In this case, it connects to an Apache James Server. And this brings this discussion to its conclusion. In this part the discussion was focused on the basics of Java Mail. The next part will focus on APIs that help applications send huge amounts of data, and on how to actually achieve this end. Till next time.

Cross page portlet communication in WebSphere Portal Server using URL Generation API

How can I make communication between two portlet without using wires when you want to paas parameters from one portlet to other and that shoud be used by second portlet.
Well this can be achieved using URL Generation API, just use the code below on your SourceJSP of SourcePortlet.In the code below, PAGE_UNIQUE_NAME would be page name on which you have target portlet and Portlet name would be your target portlet name.Params would be your parameters that you want to pass to target portlet.

String homeURL = PortletURLHelper.generateUrl(PAGE_UNIQUE_NAME, Portlet Name, HashMap params, renderRequest, renderResponse);

you can get param values in target portlet using the following code

Map map = renderRequest.getParameterMap();

now just iterate the map and find the values you passed from source portlet.