A Java Portlet Specification defines a contract between portlets and their containers; they provides a convenient programming model for Java portlet developers. It is defined through various Java Specification Requests (JSRs).

Background

Portlets

A portlet is a pluggable user interface software component that is managed and displayed in a web portal. A portlet responds to requests from a web client with and generates dynamic content. Some examples of portlet applications are e-mail, weather reports, discussion forums, and news.

Portlet containers

A portlet is managed by a portlet container, which runs portlets and provides them with the required runtime environment. A portlet container receives requests from the portal to execute requests on the portlets hosted by it.

Specifications

Portlet standards are platform independent application programming interfaces that are intended to enable software developers to create portlets that can be plugged into any portal supporting the standards. An example is the Java Portlet Specification. A Java portlet resembles a Java Servlet, but produces fragments rather than complete documents, and is not bound by a URL. A Java Portlet Specification (JSR) defines a contract between portlets and the portlet container. JSRs provides a convenient programming model for Java portlet developers.

JSR 168

The Java Portlet Specification V1.0 was developed under the Java Community Process as Java Specification Request JSR 168, and released in its final form in October 2003. The Java Portlet Specification V1.0 introduces the basic portlet programming model with:

Portlet Catalog

JSR 286

JSR-286 is the Java Portlet Specification v2.0 as developed under the JCP and created in alignment with the updated version 2.0 of WSRP. It was released in June 2008. It was developed to improve on the short-comings of the version 1.0 specification, JSR-168. Some of its major features include:

JSR 362

JSR-362 is the Java Portlet Specification v3.0 and was released in April 2017. Some of its major features include: