pluto and its place

[Dan Moore <mo...@yahoo.com>]

Hi folks,

I'm looking at solutions for a portal interface into the Expresso
framework.  (Expresso is an open source framework developed by
jcorporate.com.)  This is additional functionality, so it'd be nice not
to maintain two systems.

I've installed Pluto (the tip of the trunk from subversion--thanks for
the instructions, Kenneth), and it seems like it's possible to
integrate into Expresso.  We have three major requirements fora portal
solution

1.  Minimize/maximize portlets--pluto seems to handle that quite
nicely.
2.  Moving portlets around--pluto doesn't seem to have any support for
this whatsoever.
3.  Login/personalization--pluto has some support--it leverages the
servlet authentication model, right?

I've taken a look at the integration guide
(http://portals.apache.org/pluto/Howto_use_the_Pluto_container.html)
and also done some looking on the mailing lists on integration (which
seemed to suggest I should look at how jetspeed-2 is integrating Pluto;
I downloaded jetspeed-2 [from CVS] and didn't see the pluto
integration).  

I guess the questions I have for you all is:

0.  Are my above assumptions about what pluto provides correct?
1.  How serious an effort is integrating pluto?
2.  Are there any other simple portal solutions that jump to mind (we
don't need the kitchen sink--I've looked at
Liferay--http://sourceforge.net/projects/lportal/ and
eXo--http://sourceforge.net/projects/exo/ as well as Jetspeed1/2 and
Pluto)?  

We're seriously considering a jsp template based solution, but I'd like
to avoid that if possible.

Thanks for your time,
Dan

Re: pluto and its place

["Scott T. Weaver" <sc...@binary-designs.net>]

Dan Moore wrote:

>Hi folks,
>
>I'm looking at solutions for a portal interface into the Expresso
>framework.  (Expresso is an open source framework developed by
>jcorporate.com.)  This is additional functionality, so it'd be nice not
>to maintain two systems.
>
>I've installed Pluto (the tip of the trunk from subversion--thanks for
>the instructions, Kenneth), and it seems like it's possible to
>integrate into Expresso.  We have three major requirements fora portal
>solution
>
>1.  Minimize/maximize portlets--pluto seems to handle that quite
>nicely.
>2.  Moving portlets around--pluto doesn't seem to have any support for
>this whatsoever.
>3.  Login/personalization--pluto has some support--it leverages the
>servlet authentication model, right?
>
>I've taken a look at the integration guide
>(http://portals.apache.org/pluto/Howto_use_the_Pluto_container.html)
>and also done some looking on the mailing lists on integration (which
>seemed to suggest I should look at how jetspeed-2 is integrating Pluto;
>I downloaded jetspeed-2 [from CVS] and didn't see the pluto
>integration).  
>
>I guess the questions I have for you all is:
>
>0.  Are my above assumptions about what pluto provides correct?
>  
>
Jetspeed 2 is fully integrated with the Pluto container.  Take a look at 
the Spring config files here:

/portal/src/webapp/WEB-INF/assembly/jetspeed-spring.xml (search for pluto)
&
/portal/src/webapp/WEB-INF/assembly/pluto-factories.xml

And we fully implement and extend Plutos standard object extend using 
RDBMS persistence as opposed to XML.

>1.  How serious an effort is integrating pluto?
>  
>
Well, it is not the easiest thing to do.  It takes a lot of digging and 
experimenting.

>2.  Are there any other simple portal solutions that jump to mind (we
>don't need the kitchen sink--I've looked at
>Liferay--http://sourceforge.net/projects/lportal/ and
>eXo--http://sourceforge.net/projects/exo/ as well as Jetspeed1/2 and
>Pluto)?  
>  
>
Jetspeed 2 might be your best bet.  It is very modular, thanks to the 
Spring framework and Jetspeed 2's configurable processing pipelines, and 
integrates well into existing applications.  For example, the newest 
version of Jetspeed 1 (1.6) uses a specially configured Jetspeed 2 
engine called Fusion to process JSR-168 portlets.  I also think Jahia is 
using the same approach.

>We're seriously considering a jsp template based solution, but I'd like
>to avoid that if possible.
>
>Thanks for your time,
>Dan
>
>  
>


-- 
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."  - Admiral Hyman Rickover

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