Portlet

A portlet is a pluggable user-interface software component that is displayed in a web portal (such as an enterprise portal or a web content management system).^[1][2][3] A collection of portlets produce fragments of markup^[4][5] (such as HTML, XHTML, or WML) that are presented as an integrated portal user experience.^[6]

A portlet container owns a collection of portlets.^[4] A container manages the life cycle of its portlets and provides a runtime environment with services such as persistent storage for user preferences.^[7] A container supports aggregating (integrating) information from different sources. Via user customization, a container supports a personalized portal user experience. A container with its portlets can form a web application.^[8] Portlet-based applications are often used for portals focused on news, weather,^[6] and Internet forums.

A portlet receives user agent requests as dispatched by the portal server and then the container. A portlet responds with dynamically generated content.^[7] Its container sends data to the portal for aggregation, but is not responsible for aggregating the content produced by the portlets. The portal itself handles aggregation.^[7] A portal and a portlet container can be built together as a single component of an application suite or as two separate components of a portal application.

Typically, a portlet technology is defined by a standard which enables software developers to create portlets that can be plugged into a portal conforming to the standard. An example is the Java Portlet Specification.^[9]

See also

• Applet – Small software application
• Software widget – Part of a larger software application which has a stand-alone UI and simplified features

References

1. "PORTLET | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary".
2. "Portlet Definition | GIS Dictionary". support.esri.com.
3. "Definition of portlet". PCMAG.
4. Guo, Yuanbo; Jun, Woochun; Kaschek, Roland; Krishnaswamy, Shonati; Pan, Zhengxiang; Sheng, Quan Z. (2005-10-24). Web Information Systems Engineering – WISE 2005 Workshops: WISE 2005 International Workshops, New York, NY, USA, November 20-22, 2005, Proceedings. Springer. p. 22. ISBN 978-3-540-32287-0.
5. "Markup languages". www.ibm.com. 2019-01-04. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
6. Sarin, Ashish (2011-09-15). Portlets in Action. Simon and Schuster. 1.3 What is a portlet?. ISBN 978-1-63835-236-5.
7. Sarin, Ashish (2011-09-15). Portlets in Action. Simon and Schuster. 1.5.1 The portlet container. ISBN 978-1-63835-236-5.
8. "Portlets". gateway.maine.gov. 2014-10-01. Retrieved 2024-02-13.
9. "JSR 362: Portlet Specification 3.0".

External links