Hello,

I am currently evaluating open source frameworks for building a B2C/B2B portal/business community. Because the cost should be reduced to min, I decided to base it on J2EE with JBoss, Tomcat and MySQL.

Currently I prefer a combination of the following frameworks:

..hit the wrong button :-)

Currently I prefer a combination of the following frameworks:
- WebWork
- SiteMesh
- OSCache
- Castor
- XDoclet
- Cactus/Junit
- Lucene
- Ant

For development I will use
- Eclipse with some plugins for JBoss and Tomcat
- ArgoUML
- Vi :-)

A feature, in my opinion is a must have for a portal, is personalization (one that is really missing at theserverside.com). So I looked at Jetspeed (or future Portlet API). I have some problems with it:
1. It comes with turbine, that seems to be a functional overkill and not well designed
2. If I use turbine and portlets, I can't see how to combine it with WebWork or Struts...because Jetspeed has a strict MVC model-1 approach and takes control over my JSPs or Velocity sides by making portlets of them.

Does any one has a good suggestion for personalization using the above technologies without loosing the flexibility of WebWork od Struts? Or does somebody know another framwework that does personalization as good as Jetspeed, but without its "restrictions"?

Thank you,

Mirko

Don't forget to look on these Open Source solutions for Portals and Content Management Systems:

http://www.arsdigita.com
http://www.jahia.org
http://www.opencms.org
http://opensource.go.com
http://www.wyona.org

And if you need some Open Source EJB components:
http://www.opensymphony.com
http://openuss.sourceforge.net

Almost all are Open Source ;-)

Have fun!

Lofi.
http://openuss.sourceforge.net

Hey guys,

  As we are re-working on TSS, I am wondering what open source frameworks currently exist that can be easily 'added' to what we are working with now. Like say we want a 'survey/poll' feature. Anything out there we can integrate with?

  Also, I am very puzzled by all the buzz around portlets. Portlets don't seem like such a big deal to me. Its basically just a box on a UI right? Like the 'new articles' or 'hot threads' boxes on the right side bar of TSS' homepage?

  I don't think that adding and removing portlets is an interesting or useful application of personalization. What do you guys think?

Floyd

Floyd,

I really can't understand the portlet hype at the moment, too. But I think that personalization is a must have for all future portals of any kind. I really miss this feature at TSS. I would me nice to have a feature like "My Server Side", where I could customize all threads and articles I like from all TSS categories in one page. It could also show all my postings with its answers, so I don't have to search them in all the threads.

For implementing this features, Jetspeed (or Portlet API) is really nice, but it lacks in many other situations, where WebWork or Struts does the job much better. At the moment I don't see how to integrate both technologies...

I am really curious how your new TSS architecture will look like...will you make it open source like the previous one?

Mirko

Hi Floyd,

I think the ability to allow a user to customise their homepage using some variant of portlet technology would be extremely useful. For example the ability to add summarys of specific discussion forums or a break down of news items of particular interest to the user which can be selected and customised by the user.

TSS is one of very few sites that I visit on an almost daily basis, the ability to tailor the homepage would get my vote.

Andy Bowes

Guys,

We will take all your personalization requests under consideration when working on the new version of the site. At the least we will have a cool 'my TSS' feature, at the most we will have cool dynamic changes on the homepage, as Andy suggested.

take care,

Floyd

Hi,

My company intends to develop a portal so I would like to know which development tool (free, if possible) you would recommend. It should offer also, if possible, chat and forums services (WAP would be great !), email, portlet support... and, of course, integration with J2EE technology.

I would appreciate if you could tell me about development tools that best meet these requirements...

Thanks a lot !

Hi,

take a look at uPortal:
http://mis105.mis.udel.edu/ja-sig/uportal/

tja