Method and apparatus for enabling associated portlets of a web portlet to collaborate for synchronized content display

• US 8,055,705 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2009
• Issued: 11/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kapoor, Rohit, Nigul, Leho, Ng, Joanna
• Primary Examiner(s): BATES, KEVIN T
• Application Number:
  US12/393,925
• Publication Number:
  US 20090292800A1
• Time in Patent Office: 985 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/205, 715/742
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

The invention provides method and apparatus for collaboration between a plurality of associated portlets in a portal server including: associating each portlet with a portlet descriptor describing context names; forming collaboration groups of portlets having corresponding context names for synchronized contents.

Claims

1. A method of hosting a plurality of associated portlets accessible by a user in a web portal having portlet refresh capability, wherein said portlets comprise portlet descriptors, comprising:

managing said plurality of associated portlets in a portlet application;

assigning a priority description to each portlet using its portlet descriptor, wherein the priority description comprises a priority, which priority is a priority of portlet refresh;

invoking a sequence sorter to dynamically identify a refresh order of the associated portlets based on the priority of each of the associated portlets; and

invoking a transaction manager to manage refreshing of said portlets in sequence, according to the refresh order.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of associated portlets comprises collaboration groups of portlets;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein each master portlet has a higher priority than a corresponding slave portlet.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said collaboration groups are assigned different group priorities.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said collaboration groups of portlets are refreshed in order of their group priorities.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein refreshing occurs first by group priority order and then by portlet priority refresh order within each group.

7. A portal server:

the portal server hosting multiple associated portlets in a web portal accessible by a user;

the portal server comprising a processor and a memory and having portlet refresh capability;

said associated portlets comprising collaboration groups of portlets;

the portal server configured to manage multiple associated portlets;

each associated portlet having a portlet descriptor;

each portlet descriptor comprising a refresh priority description for said portlet, and a group refresh priority description for the group of portlets of which said portlet is a member;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet; and

the portal server further comprising a sequence sorter to dynamically identify a refresh order of the associated portlets based on the refresh priority of each of the associated portlets;

the portal server further comprising a transaction manager to manage refreshing of said portlets in sequence, according to the refresh order; and

the portal server further configured to refresh said collaborative groups of portlets in order of their group refresh priorities.

8. The portal server of claim 7, wherein each master portlet has a higher priority than a corresponding slave portlet.

9. The portal server of claim 7, wherein said collaboration groups are assigned different group priorities.

10. The portal server of claim 7, wherein refreshing occurs first by group refresh priority order and then by portlet priority order within each group.

11. A portal server:

the portal server comprising a processor and a memory;

the portal server hosting multiple associated portlets in a web portal accessible by a user, said portal server having portlet refresh;

capability;

the portal server configured to manage multiple associated portlets;

each associated portlet comprising a portlet descriptor;

each portlet descriptor comprising a refresh priority description for said portlet;

said associated portlets further comprising collaboration groups of portlets;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet;

the portal server further comprising a sequence sorter configured to dynamically identify a refresh order of the associated portlets based on the refresh priority of each of the associated portlets; and

the portal server further comprising a transaction manager to manage refreshing of said portlets in sequence, according to the refresh order.

12. The portal server of claim 11 wherein said master portlets have higher priorities than slave portlets.

13. The portal server of claim 11, wherein said collaboration groups are assigned different group priorities.

14. The portal server of claim 11 wherein said portal server refreshes said groups first in group priority order and then refreshes within each group in priority order.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer usable program code executed to perform operations for hosting a plurality of associated portlets accessible by a user in a web portal having portlet refresh capability, wherein said portlets comprise portlet descriptors, the operations comprising:

managing said plurality of associated portlets in a portlet application;

assigning a priority description to each portlet using its portlet descriptor, wherein the priority description comprises a priority, which priority is a priority of portlet refresh;

invoking a sequence sorter to dynamically identify a refresh order of the associated portlets based on the priority of each of the associated portlets; and

invoking a transaction manager to manage refreshing of said portlets in sequence, according to the refresh order.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein said plurality of associated portlets comprises collaboration groups of portlets;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16 wherein each master portlet has a higher priority than a corresponding slave portlet.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein said collaboration groups are assigned different group priorities.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein said collaboration groups of portlets are refreshed in order of their group priorities.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein refreshing occurs first by group priority order and then by portlet refresh order within each group.