System and method for application flow integration in a portal framework

A system for providing application flow integration in a portal framework, comprising:

• a portal servlet which handles all incoming servlet requests and determines whether they represent a request for either a portal page or a non-portal page;
• a portal processor which handles all portal page requests, and for each request
• obtains the current portal state object for the request,
• executes appropriate framework logic to adjust the current state depending on the current appflow event,
• invokes webflow namespaces for the portal and all portlets to be rendered for the request, wherein the webflow namespaces declaratively cause execution of appropriate business logic for the given request, and,
• provides a URL to the portal servlet which is used to forward the request to the appropriate servlet or jsp;
• a portal state object which represents the current state of the portal for the current user;
• a portal session which maintains the current portal page for the user and the content jsp page for each portlet;
• and,
• a portal manager which provides an interface between persisted portal data and the clients of that data, by assembling a portal state object for the current user and returning it to the client.

A method for providing application flow integration in a portal framework, comprising the steps of:

• handling all incoming servlet requests and determining whether they represent a request for either a portal page or a non-portal page;
• for each request
• obtaining the current portal state object for the request,
• executing appropriate framework logic to adjust the current state depending on the current appflow event,
• invoking webflow namespaces for the portal and all portlets to be rendered for the request, wherein the webflow namespaces declaratively cause execution of appropriate business logic for the given request, and,
• providing a URL to the portal servlet which is used to forward the request to the appropriate servlet or jsp;
• representing the current state of the portal for the current user;
• maintaining the current portal page for the user and the content jsp page for each portlet;
• and,
• providing an interface between persisted portal data and the clients of that data, by assembling a portal state object for the current user and returning it to the client.