Propagation not working for "Offered Capability" for portlets

Propagation of portlets does not propagate all the capabilities of portlets. Use Case: One or more portlets have entitlements with capability "Offered" added to the entitlement along with other capabilities including View, Edit, Minimize, Maximize etc.

Offered capability is highlighted with green color here in the screen shot.

This screen shot is from source environment.

When these portlets along with the entitlements are propagated to target environment, the capability "Offered" of the portlets are not propagated along with other capabilities.

Sample REST (API) Urls

REST URL Format: http://:/portalWebApp/rest-command-api?name1=value1&name2=value2

1. To list the portlets from a portal application
/bea/wlp/api/portlet/list?webapp=webappname

2. To get the details of the portlet
/bea/wlp/api/portlet/details/actual_porlet_def_label?webapp=webappname

3. Get the page list
/bea/wlp/api/page/list?webapp=webappname

4. Get the book list
/bea/wlp/api/book/list?webapp=myWebapp

5. Get the desktop list
/bea/wlp/api/desktop/list?webapp=myWebApp&locale=en

6. Get the Layout list
/bea/wlp/api/layout/list?webapp=myWebApp&max=2&start=2&locale=en-us

7. Login a user
/bea/wlp/api/login?username=user&password=pass

8. Logs out a user
/bea/wlp/api/logout?invalidate_session=true

9. Get the status of a user
/bea/wlp/api/userstatus?webapp=myWebapp&portal=myPortal&desktop=myDesktop

Note: To download the json file for the result of REST commands, append &format=json to the url

Reference: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13155_01/wlp/docs103/clientdev/rest.html
API : http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13155_01/wlp/docs103/apidocREST/index.html

Propagation Servlet URL

Weblogic Portal propagation servlet URL is required to propagate the entities from source to destination. Propagation servlet documented is
http://[hostname]:[port]/propagation/inventorymanagement which returns 404 when trying to access it. Correct propagation servelt url is :
http://[hostname]:[port]/[EarProjectName]Propagation/inventorymanagement unless it is modifed.

Find Weblogic Password (Encrypted)

Weblogic server encrypted password can be found in boot.properties file. Make sure that any \ (slash) characters have been removed from the encrypted password. Location of boot.properties can be found in domain's admin server folder.

Maven :: maven-apt-plugin

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.myfaces.tobago</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-apt-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0.10-BEA</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>generate-sources</phase>
<goals>
<goal>execute</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<generated>.apt_generated</generated>
<aptOptions>x=3,web.content.root=WebContent</aptOptions>
<target>1.5</target>
<nocompile>true</nocompile>
<showWarnings>true</showWarnings>
<verbose>false</verbose>
<fork>false</fork>
<sourcePath>src</sourcePath>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

Eclipse shows Initializing Java Tooling NullPointerException Error

Eclipse IDE shows Initializing Java Tooling java.lang.NullPointerException when a new workspace is trying to load

One of the reason for this error is due to different JRE used by the Eclipse IDE and the System environment variable settings for JAVA_HOME. Edit the environment variable JAVA_HOME and set it to the same JRE used by Eclipse IDE. Close and reopen the Eclipse IDE will resolve the hanging or taking long time to load.

You will notice a glimpse of Initializing Java Tooling and it will complete soon without any error.

Firefox useful plugins for Web developer

• Firebug - Web development and debugging tools to debug HTML, Javascript and CSS
• Firefox Throttle - Bandwidth utilization throttling plug-in
• HTTP Fox - An HTTP protocol/packets/requests analyzer
• User Agent Switcher - Tool to switch the user agents without switching the browsers

Microsoft Excel Useful Tips

Click the followings to see the solution (tested in Ms Excel 2007), these links will open in new popup window:

1. Convert Column to Rows and vice versa
2. Get started with PivotTable Reports
3. Create a drop-down list from a range of cells
4. Get started with PivotTable reports in Excel 2007
5. Example of formatting a cell to percentage :: =TEXT(J5,"0.0%")
6. Example of concatenating cells/texts :: =CONCATENATE(H3, "(",H6,")")

Side By Side Deployment for Applications

Why do we need "Side By Side Deployment" ?
In the past there has to be a downtime when a application needs to be deployed or a new version of the same application needs to be deployed.

Today application downtime has become zero. Zero downtime can be achieved in various ways. Oracle Weblogic Server provides a neat mechanism of deploying the new version of application without affecting the existing version of application and existing user sessions. At the same time it makes sure that once all the user sessions end (or after a specified timeout period) old version of application is retired automatically.

Once new version of application is deployed using "Side By Side Deployment" mechanism, all new user requests will be served by the new version of the application.

Prerequisite to deploy the application using "Side By Side Deployment" mechanism is that the previously deployed application has to be versioned. If previously deployed application is not versioned then the new application cannot be deployed using "Side By Side Deployment" mechanism. If attempted, it will throw weblogic.management.ManagementException: [Deployer:149081]You cannot deploy application, '[Your-App-Name]', with version '[App-Version]'. The application was previously deployed without version.

To version an application, the attribute "Weblogic-Application-Version: x.xx" should be present in manifest file.

Once the new version of application is deployed successfully and all user sessions requesting old version of application is closed, the old version of application will go into "Retired" state automatically. An application which is in "Retired" state can be made "Active" by clicking the "Start - Serving All Requests". If old version of application is made active, the new version of application will go into "Retired" state, provided all the user sessions requesting new application is closed.

Applications in "Retired" state has to be manually undeployed.