The Telio Blog

StringBeans Portal

Hi all,

For one of our customers, we had to recommend and prototype a portal engine. For those of you who know me a little, I use the now famous (at telio at least) “10 minute” test.
Here is how it goes :

Phase 1

1. Cross read the application’s, utility’s, tool’s website and get a first impression
2. Download a binary package
3. Install the binary package
4. Run/test the application

Assuming the first phase went well (which should probably eliminate 75% or your initial list), proceed to phase 2 :

Phase 2

1. Download the source package
2. Build the source package
3. Install the source package
4. Run/test the application

If you reached point 4 of phase 2, you’ve got a winner Now by winner I mean an application that could potentially help you in what you are looking to do, or that you can at least modify to suit your needs.

In my portal engine research, I started off with Liferay, StringBeans, Exo, Jetspeed 2.
Jetspeed 2 was eliminated at step 1.1 (don’t ask me why exactly, it’s purely subjective), Exo failed at step 1.2, Liferay at step 1.3 (issues with tomcat 5 or something like that .. ), the winner was StringBeans.

So let’s go on to phase 2 with StringBeans. Download the source, unpack, “ant” (they don’t use maven, which is a good sign .. , no errors and I’ve got a war file ready to go matching the binary distribution.

Now how about the features I was looking for :

• JSR 168 compliant (not only on paper)
• easy customization of portal look and feel
• ability to plugin NTLM authentication
• Understandable source code and architecture

In less than one day, I had all requirements met and especially the last one. The source code is clear and simple.

For all of you looking for a nice portal implementation, try it out at http://www.nabh.com/projects/sbportal

P.