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Collaborative Services API

Lotus Collaborative Services provide Java API methods and tags for JavaServer Pages (JSP files) for extending the functionality of collaborative portlets such as the Domino and Extended Products Portlets, People Finder, and the Common Mail portlet.


Collaborative Services defined

Collaborative Services are a set of methods and JavaServer Page tags that allow developers who are writing portlets for WebSphere Portal or other appservers to add Lotus collaborative functionality to their portlets. The services may be used to develop new custom portlets, or to add collaborative functionality (for example, menus or person links indicating online status) to existing portlets.

The services are designed to provide naming, authentication, portal and custom services for portlets that use the Domino and Extended products configured for the portal. As such, the methods provided by the services complement - not replace - the APIs of the individual Domino and Extended products such as the Domino Java API.

Application developers using Collaborative Services can design and implement functional extensions in portlets that incorporate the features of Domino and Extended Products.


Benefits of Collaborative Services

The services provide standardized access to applications, easy-to-use APIs that are optimized for a collaborative portal, and a consistent security model across all Domino and Extended products. The services enhance many aspects of operation of a collaborative portal site, including:

All of the Collaborative Services, except the people and menu tags, are user interface-neutral; that is, the portlet developer can design the user interface for the collaborative features being implemented. The goal of Collaborative Services is to provide the data necessary for rendering the user interface and to allow the developer to execute actions on the Domino and Extended products that have been installed and enabled in the portal environment.

The Java APIs in the services contain no platform-specific code. Because the components are UI-neutral and are not dependent on implementation details, they can be used to implement pervasive applications for mobile and wireless devices.

In addition, because the services hide the configuration details of the Domino and Extended products that are installed within an enterprise, collaborative functionality can be easily added to a portlet in a generic way - regardless of the physical requirements and machine-dependent details of portal configuration.


Details of operation

The Collaborative Services program runs in the cs.jar file in the following location:

Windows:

PortalServer_root\pcc.api\pcc.cs\common\shared\app

UNIX:

PortalServer_root/pcc.api/pcc.cs/common/shared/app

i5/OS:

PortalServer_root/pcc.api/pcc.cs/common/shared/app

The program is configured through the CSEnvironment.properties file in the following location:

Windows:

profile_root\PortalServer\config\config

UNIX:

profile_root/PortalServer/config/config

i5/OS:

profile_root/PortalServer/config/config

Installing WebSphere Portal, and running any one of...