学步园

我选择开源portal的标准：

(1). 支持JSR168

(2). 支持WAP

(3). 容易入门(不能没有文档， 也不能有文档但是都是垃圾)。

比较著名的开源portal要数Liferay和JetSpeed 2,这两个都是功能非常强大的Portal, 其他比较引人关注的还有Pluto, 不过，这个portal太过简单，只能用来平常的测试开发，要用于真正的项目恐怕不行，因为对apache比较有感情，所以我第一个尝试的目标就是JetSpeed2, 它有一大串features, 不过对我来说最重要的是他的JSR168 compliant和对wap的支持，但是当我开始JetSpeed 2的tutorial的时候，我发现我根本没有办法入门， 它的文档那个叫烂阿！！先是这个tutorial在不告诉我到哪里下载resources.zip的情况下就让我打开resources文件夹。。。，为了这个我郁闷的几天，后来在他的maillist里面知道了resource.zip在哪里下了，但是当我尝试创建一个新的项目的时候，它又给我报错了，说某个文件无法下载，我用ie去下载，果然没法下载，根本就没这个文件。唉，让我无法入门阿，我还发现它所谓的对wap的支持只是一句话，我没有在他的文档里面找到任何有关wap portlet开发的指导，于是我放弃。

接着我试了试liferay, 他的文档比jetspeed2写的要好不少，但是在我运行它的struts portlet的第三个例子的时候，liferay还是让我失望了，报错了， 我不想找错，而且我发现liferay也没怎么提到有关wap portlet的开发。失望啊。

于是我在那个开源portal的列表里面一个一个的找，一个一个的试，剩下的这些明显比Liferay和JetSpeed2还要差很多，不支持wap, 有的甚至不支持JSR168!如JPortlet。

最后发现只有一个没有看了：StringBeans，之所以没看，是因为我怎么也无法把它和Portal联系在一起，但是一试发现这真是个好东西！支持JSR168,支持wap，没有tutorial, 但是他的帮助文档是如此的好以至于我觉的没有tuorial也没什么。比JetSpeed2那个tutorial乱tutor要好得多，我发现我能在StringBeans的帮助文档里面找到大部分我想知道的东西。推荐大家使用StringBeans!!!!

下面是一位外国仁兄的blog,它和我有一样的观点，大家不妨一看：

(http://www.telio.be/blog/)

Hi all,

For one of our customers, we had to recommend and prototype a portal engine. For those of you who know me a little, I use the now famous (at telio at least) “10 minute” test.
Here is how it goes :

Phase 1

1. Cross read the application’s, utility’s, tool’s website and get a first impression

2. Download a binary package

3. Install the binary package

4. Run/test the application

Assuming the first phase went well (which should probably eliminate 75% or your initial list), proceed to phase 2 :

Phase 2

1. Download the source package

2. Build the source package

3. Install the source package

4. Run/test the application

If you reached point 4 of phase 2, you’ve got a winner
Now by winner I mean an application that could potentially help you in what you are looking to do, or that you can at least modify to suit your needs.

In my portal engine research, I started off with Liferay, StringBeans, Exo, Jetspeed 2.
Jetspeed 2 was eliminated at step 1.1 (don’t ask me why exactly, it’s purely subjective), Exo failed at step 1.2, Liferay at step 1.3 (issues with tomcat 5 or something like that .. ), the winner was StringBeans.

So let’s go on to phase 2 with StringBeans. Download the source, unpack, “ant” (they don’t use maven, which is a good sign .. , no errors and I’ve got a war file ready to go matching the binary distribution.

Now how about the features I was looking for :

• JSR 168 compliant (not only on paper)

• easy customization of portal look and feel

• ability to plugin NTLM authentication

• Understandable source code and architecture

In less than one day, I had all requirements met and especially the last one. The source code is clear and simple.

For all of you looking for a nice portal implementation, try it out at http://www.nabh.com/projects/sbportal