Channel Authoring
uPortal provides several different channel types, providing a means to aggregate a variety of content. A good introduction to channel types and why one would choose one over another can be found at Channel Development Strategies | by Steve Barret (Cornell University).
Channel Types
| Image Channel | The Image channel simply displays an image. A link my be specified for the image |
| CInlineFrame Channel | a CInlineFrame channel renders a web page within an inline frame |
| CWebProxy Channel | This channel attempts to convert well formed HTML from another web server and into XML which can be rendered as a channel in uPortal. |
| RSS Channels | Renders an RSS feed in the portal using native stylesheet, available as a channel or portlet |
| CGenericXSLT Channels | Simple XML transformations convert XML documents into channel content. The documents are obtained via URL specified as channel definition. |
| Remote Channel Proxy | Simple XML transformations convert XML documents into channel content. The documents are obtained via URL specified as channel definition. |
| Custom Channel | Custom channels, often referred to as "native" channels, are those hosted by uPortal itself. To clarify, custom channels are those written in Java and implement specific interfaces that allow them to be executed within uPortal itself. |
| Applet Channel | Renders a java applet as a channel |
| Portlet Example | A Description of how to create and deploy a Portlet |
Guides to channel type selection and creation
| How To Write a uPortal Channel for uPortal 2.x | A guide for developing a channel for uPortal 2.x by Owen Gunden, University of Virginia. |
| Writing A Channel for the uPortal(tm) | by Michael Oltz. |
Presentations
3. Available channels and channel ideas
- Channel examples - not necessarily easily distributed for your use, nor necessarily the most popular of channels, but nonetheless neat channels someone wanted to share
- Popular channels
- Channels wiki space - The Channels spaces has many more pages about the development of uportal channels
Channel projects
Calendar
Oracle Calendar
There is at least one project that interfaces with Oracle Calendar using a PHP client. Oracle themselves provide a web services toolkit for Oracle
Calendar which uses Apache SOAP (not Apache Axis). See e.g.:
- http://www.tju.cn/docs/ocs9042/calendar.904/b10893/wssoap.htm
- http://www.tju.cn/docs/ocs9042/calendar.904/b10893/wsjava.htm
There is also a command line utility called UNIICAL which can be used to import iCAL objects into the calendar server (found inside Oracle Calendar Reference Manual).
