Chapter 1. Introducing portals and portlets
This chapter covers
- An overview of portals and the Java portlet technology
- Installing and using Liferay Portal
- Setting up the Eclipse IDE and creating the project structure
- Developing a Hello World portlet
When the internet first came about, “content” reigned supreme. Then the “user experience” took over. If you’ve been an internet user for the last couple of years, this transformation didn’t go unnoticed. During this transformation, most websites got a facelift intended to enrich the user experience by providing user-customizable themes and features that allow users to control what content is presented and how it’s presented.
The lack of a standard approach and technology to address user-experience requirements, such as personalization, customization, and content aggregation in web applications, led to ad hoc ways of implementing these features. The result was maintenance nightmares, lost developer productivity, and longer turnaround time for incorporating new features. With the arrival of the Java portlet technology, this has changed. The Java portlet technology provides a standard approach to incorporating user-experience features in web applications.