What is Portlet Mode

A portlet mode indicates the function a portlet is performing in the render method. Normally, portlets perform different tasks and create different content depending on the function they are currently performing. A portlet mode advises the portlet what task it should perform and what content it should generate. When invoking a portlet, the portlet container provides the current portlet mode to the portlet. Portlets can programmatically change their portlet mode when processing an action request.

The Portlet Specification defines three portlet modes, VIEW, EDIT, and HELP. The PortletMode class defines constants for these portlet modes. Every portlet must support VIEW mode and optionally it can support EDIT and HELP mode

WebSphere portal server managed custom Portlet modes

A preference is modified by using setValue. This normally occurs at the personalized layer and therefore affects only the current user. WebSphere Portal uses two special custom modes from the set of predefined custom modes in the Java Portlet Specification to allow setting up the more general preference levels:

The edit_defaults custom portlet mode is used to work directly on the shared preferences. In this case the personalized preferences level is not available.

Similarly, the config mode is used to read and modify the administrator level of preferences.

The deployment descriptor level of preferences can only change when the portlet is redeployed with a modified portlet.xml. It cannot be modified by portlet code.

I built a sample portlet to demonstrate how you can use the edit_defaults and config mode supported by WebSphere Portal Server.

package com.webspherenotes.portlet.jsr286;

import java.io.IOException;import java.util.ArrayList;

import javax.portlet.ActionRequest;import javax.portlet.ActionResponse;

import javax.portlet.GenericPortlet;import javax.portlet.PortletException;import javax.portlet.PortletMode;import javax.portlet.PortletPreferences;import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;

public class WPSCustomPortletMode extends GenericPortlet{

protected void doView(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException { System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doView()"); response.setContentType("text/html"); response.getWriter().println("User Name " + request.getPreferences().getValue("userName", "Not Set")); System.out.println("Exiting CustomPortletMode.doView()"); }

public void processAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException { System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.processAction()"); String userName = request.getParameter("userName"); PortletPreferences preference = request.getPreferences(); preference.setValue("userName", userName); preference.store(); System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.processAction()"); }

protected void doEdit(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException { System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doEdit()"); response.setContentType("text/html"); getPortletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp").include(request, response); System.out.println("Exiting CustomPortletMode.doEdit()"); }

protected void doEditDefaults(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException{ System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doEditDefaults()"); response.setContentType("text/html"); getPortletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp").include(request, response); System.out.println("Exiting CustomPortletMode.doEdit()"); System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doEditDefaults()"); } protected void doConfig(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException{ System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doConfig()"); response.setContentType("text/html"); getPortletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp").include(request, response); System.out.println("Exiting CustomPortletMode.doConfig()"); }

PortletMode configMode = new PortletMode("config"); PortletMode editDefaultsMode = new PortletMode("edit_defaults"); protected void doDispatch(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) throws PortletException, IOException { System.out.println("Entering CustomPortletMode.doDispatch"); System.out.println("Requested portlet mode " + request.getPortletMode()); if(request.getPortletMode().equals(configMode)){ System.out.println("Request for config mode"); doConfig(request, response); }else if(request.getPortletMode().equals(editDefaultsMode)){ System.out.println("Request for edit_defaults mode"); doEditDefaults(request, response); }else{ super.doDispatch(request, response); }

System.out.println("Exiting CustomPortletMode.doDispatch"); }}

The WPSCustomPortletMode.java overrides doDispatch() and forwards control to corresponding custom modes. I am forwarding control to same index.jsp in edit, edit_defaults and config mode and all three of them allow user to submit a value for userName that i am storing in preference in processAction() method. Depending on the mode this value will get stored at different preference level.

This is how the portlet.xml file for WPCustomPortletMode looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><portlet-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd" version="2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd"> <portlet> <portlet-name>WPSCustomPortletMode</portlet-name> <display-name>WPS Custom Portlet Mode Portlet</display-name> <portlet-class>com.webspherenotes.portlet.jsr286.WPSCustomPortletMode</portlet-class> <expiration-cache>0</expiration-cache> <supports> <mime-type>text/html</mime-type> <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode> <portlet-mode>edit</portlet-mode> <portlet-mode>config</portlet-mode> <portlet-mode>edit_defaults</portlet-mode> </supports> <portlet-info> <title>WPS Custom Portlet Mode Portlet</title> <short-title>WPS Custom Portlet Mode Portlet</short-title> <keywords>WPS Custom Portlet Mode Portlet</keywords> </portlet-info> </portlet> <custom-portlet-mode>

<description>Shared Settings mode</description> <portlet-mode>edit_defaults</portlet-mode> </custom-portlet-mode> <custom-portlet-mode> <description>Administrative mode</description> <portlet-mode>config</portlet-mode> </custom-portlet-mode> </portlet-app>

I am defining two custom-portlet-modes here and for both of them the value of portal-managed equal to true, which is default value to indicate that these custom portlet modes are managed by WebSphere Portal