Portlets are
pluggable user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
software component
A software component is a modular unit of software that encapsulates specific functionality. The desired characteristics of a component are reusability and maintainability.
Value
Components allow software development to assemble software ...
s that are managed and displayed in a
web portal
A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...
. A portlet responds to requests from a web client with and generates dynamic content. A portlet is managed by a portlet container.
Description
A portlet is a
pluggable user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
software component
A software component is a modular unit of software that encapsulates specific functionality. The desired characteristics of a component are reusability and maintainability.
Value
Components allow software development to assemble software ...
that is managed and displayed in a
web portal
A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...
, for example an
enterprise portal
An enterprise portal, also known as an enterprise information portal (EIP), is a framework for integrating information, people and processes across organizational boundaries in a manner similar to the more general web portals. Enterprise portals p ...
or a
web CMS. A portlet can
aggregate (integrate) and personalize content from different sources within a web page. A portlet responds to requests from a web client with and generates dynamic content.
Portlets produce fragments of
markup (
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, pr ...
,
WML) that are aggregated into a portal.
Hence, a portlet (or collection of portlets) resembles a
web-based application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...
that is hosted in a
portal. Some examples of portlet applications are
e-mail
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
,
weather reports,
s, and
news
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...
.
Portlet containers
A portlet is managed by a portlet container.
A portlet container runs portlets, provides them with the required runtime environment, manages their life cycles.
A container also provides persistent storage mechanisms for the portlet preferences.
A portlet container receives requests from the portal to execute requests on the portlets hosted by it. A portlet container sends data to the portal for aggregation, but is not responsible for aggregating the content produced by the portlets; the portal itself handles aggregation.
A portal and a portlet container can be built together as a single component of an application suite or as two separate components of a portal application.
Standards
Portlet standards are platform independent
application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...
s that are intended to enable
software developer
Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...
s to create portlets that can be
plugged into any portal supporting the standards. An example is the
Java Portlet Specification.
See also
*
Applet
In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program, often as a plug-in. The term is frequently used to refer to a Java applet, a program ...
*
Java Portlet Specification
*
Software widget
A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or software component, component made for one or more different software platforms.
A Desk accessories, desk accessory or applet is an example of a simple, Standalone ...
References
External links
{{wiktionary, portlet, position=left
Web portals