Pagelet and Portlet Development: Adaptive Pagelets

Introduction: Adaptive Tags

AquaLogic Interaction and AquaLogic Ensemble provide a collection of useful XML tags that can be included in the markup returned by any gatewayed page, including pagelets. Using the attributes defined in the tag, the gateway transforms the XML and replaces it with standard HTML to be displayed in a browser. These concepts also apply to portlets; a portlet is a pagelet designed for use in the ALI portal.

For example, when used in a banner pagelet/portlet in the ALI portal, the following code is replaced with the date and time in the current user's locale.

<pt:standard.currenttime xmlns:pt='http://www.plumtree.com/xmlschemas/ptui/'/>

The Adaptive Tag libraries provide access to a wide range of components. The Adaptive Tag collection currently includes libraries for use in both ALI portal and Ensemble.

For detailed information on using tags, see the next page. For information on how the portal processes tags, see Adaptive Tag Control Flow. You can also create custom tags; for details, see Creating Custom Adaptive Tags.

For a full list of tags and attributes, see the TagDocs.

Cross-Product Tag Libraries

The cross-product Adaptive Tag libraries provide key functionality for use in pagelets that work in both Ensemble and the ALI portal. These libraries include core tags, constants, common tags, and logic tags.

Core Tags

The Core Tags library provides two basic tags to support core tag functionality.

Constants

Constants tags provide access to useful URLs: the stylesheet, Image Service, and the correct return URL for the current user.

<link type="text/css" href="pt://styles" rel="StyleSheet"></link>

<img src="pt://images/plumtree/portal/public/img/icon_help.gif">

<a href="pt://return">Back</a>

Common Tags

The Common Tags library provides access to useful functionality, including URL transformation and namespace definition. This library also allows you to insert error information in the page, and CSS and JavaScript references in the Head element in a gatewayed HTML page.

Logic Tags

Logic Tags handle basic logic, including creating data objects and collections, setting shared variables, and looping over a data collection.

ALI Portal Tag Libraries

The ALI portal tag libraries include tags to display portal navigation components, portal ui components, and standard ui elements. Tags in the standard and transformer libraries also provide access to useful functionality, including URL transformation and logic based on user and group membership.

Navigation Tags

Navigation Tags are used with Data Tags to build complete custom navigation solutions for the portal. The AquaLogic Pages and AquaLogic Pathways also include tags to insert components into portal navigation.

UI Tags

UI Tags allow you to add standard portal UI components to any pagelet/portlet, including search inputs and buttons, login components, access to account settings, error messages, and more. Tags from the Standard Tag library can be used to display instance-specific information, including the date and time and the page name and type.

Standard Tags

The Standard Tags library contains most of the tags available in portal version 5.x, previously called "transformer tags." This package includes tags for the following purposes:

Legacy tags not included in the Standard library are provided in the Transformer Tags library (6.1 and earlier) or the Common Tags library (Ensemble / ALI 6.1MP1 and above).

Ensemble Tag Library

The Ensemble library provides tags to insert pagelets in Ensemble consumer pages and access authentication and role information for Ensemble resources.

Next: Using Adaptive Tags