Overview of the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit: Developer's Guide

The SAS Web Infrastructure Kit: Developer's Guide provides information to help you use the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit to develop your own custom applications. It also explains how to use the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit to customize and extend the SAS Information Delivery Portal 2.0 to meet the unique requirements of your organization.

Note: In this guide, "portal Web application" is a generic term that refers to either of the following:

• the SAS Portal Web Application Shell, which is a portal-like Web application shell that is included in the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit and is used by other SAS Web applications

• the SAS Information Delivery Portal, which (when installed with the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit) fully implements the capabilities of the SAS Portal Web Application Shell

The guide includes the following sections:

• Developing Custom Portlets provides various types of information that you need to know in order to develop custom portlets for your portal Web application. The section includes the following topics:

  • Development Steps provides step-by-step instructions for portlet development tasks such as creating deployment descriptor files, creating resource files for portlet metadata, developing JavaServer Page (JSP) pages, creating custom action classes, implementing portlet help, and creating portlet archive (PAR) files to use in deploying portlets in the portal Web application.

  • Use Cases provides development steps and best practices for common use cases. The use cases include the creation of simple display portlets, localized portlets, portlet templates (also called editable portlets), and remote portlets (Web applications that are deployed and executed outside of the portal Web application).

  • Tips and Best Practices provides tips for incorporating commonly used features into your portlets, as well as best practices for making your portlets perform appropriately within the portal Web application's framework.

  • Using the Portlet API describes the application programming interfaces (APIs) that are provided with the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit to enable you to quickly develop portlets.

  • Sample Portlets provides fully developed samples of custom portlets, including all of the portlet deployment descriptors, JSPs, resource files, and action classes that are required to implement each portlet. The samples include a localized display portlet, an interactive form portlet, a Web application, a remote portlet, and a portlet template (editable portlet).

• Developing Custom Themes describes how to customize the appearance of the portal Web application by developing new themes, including text attributes, backgrounds, logos, and other graphical elements. This section also describes how to change the application name that appears in the banner.

• Integrating Other Web Applications with the Portal describes how to use SAS Foundation Services to develop Web applications that are integrated with the portal Web application and which can be invoked from the portal without an additional logon.

For details about administrative tasks that are required to support development activities, including the deployment of new portlets, themes, and content items, refer to the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide.