We're at the point that we need to determine the best portal to use as a standard / Best Practice. I know most of the functionality of each portal type. But, I would like your opinion on the subject.

What are the Pros and Cons of Collaborate VS Regular Portals?

Please prefix each reply with either "Pro: " or "Con: ". Or provide a link to such information.

Thank You, Doug

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I think the biggest Pro for Collaborative Portal is that it's where the WebFOCUS platform is headed. It also allows you to share different pages from the Domain. From future proofing perspective I can't think of any reason to develop a portal in V3 anymore.

Thanks for your input BabakNYC.

Please elaborate on "the WebFOCUS platform is headed."
and
V3. Do you mean "a regular portal, under the "Portals" folder/area?

If I remember this right, V3 is the regular Portal that sits outside of the Domains on its own. The Collaborative Portal is the V4 which sits inside the Domain. By platform I mean all the features that are being added to WebFOCUS such as Insight, Page Designer, et cetera. These new features are integrated into the Collaborative Portal because they all sit inside the Domains.

Doug

I found this narrative and it is a good summary.

The collaborative portal has the same capabilities as the basic portal, plus it includes several collaborative features which allow rearranging, reusing, and sharing content and pages between users more easily. Additionally, developers and users of the collaborative portal can view, post, edit, and manage comments. Comments are available on several content levels, including pages and panels. There are also several usability enhancements that the collaborative portal offers, such as pre-configured responsive page templates, Page Designer, as well as aliasing and embedding capabilities. Collaborative portals are created in the Domains node in the WebFOCUS repository. The collaborative portal feature includes the Retail Samples domain, which you can use to test various procedures before implementing them with your real-life content.

Thanks BabakNYC and Chuck,

We have some of both.

I like V4 as it's in the domain and uses the security associated with that domain.

Others like the security aspects of the V3 portals which live outside of the domain.

I'll push for the V4 which will most likely be the one being pushed at Summit... Pushing for the V3 may be like shoveling stuff against the tide.

~ Doug

See you at Summit? I'll be there.

Here is a link to a video that discusses collaborative portal..

https://webfocusinfocenter.inf...s5/BIPortal_8205.mp4

Doug,

V3 = Basic Portals (8.0 to 8.1);
V4 = Collaborative Portals (8.2 OG to 8.2.04)
V5 = WF Designer Portals (8.2.05+)


I would highly advise to use the V4 portal architecture until you jump to 8205+.

Many reasons for that.

Biggest ones:

V3 Cons (no pros to speak of): You will want to jump off the nearest cliff to end the frustration that is the "breadcrumb [heck]" navigation and other things that weren't polished out at this point. Very very limiting in getting a nice UX out of them.

V4: Insert everything that was said already, and you have the possibility of making a great responsive experience based on your developer prowess with HTML5/CSS/Js/jQuery. After some time working through limitations that STILL exist, we've eventually came to a point where we have found every REQUIRED workaround to mesh using V4 portal containers into our workflows, creating semi-great user experiences while staying within the IBI portal security model provided when you use the product.

Both V3 and V4 portals are deprecated as of 8.2.05. V3 and V4 functionality being baked into V5. If you are at the crossroads point of getting backing for utilizing a specific portal version, I would try to get them on board with moving to 8205 once it hits for on-premise installs.

The only hiccup I haven't seen them iron out yet with V5 is the ability for the page designer to let you manually configure control chaining and parameters for content being ran from one of their .page container files. We are still relegated to using "AppStudio" for responsive form creation we can plug into content panels within our portal pages for page level filtering (unless using Js). If they one day add the ability to manually configure controls with content params and add manual chaining functionality within their Page Designer, they cut 1 of 2 life threads left AppStudio still has for us. I will then only need it to open up content in VS Code to have it save back to the server, since they have yet to fully realize a text editor solution that people want to use. They have been making progress, but still fall short even in 8205 from what I've seen so far. Getting closer, still a no go though. Also hoping single character rendering lag doesn't happen in their new text editor like it does in the Embedded Js tab of the HTML Composer tool. We literally try to type Js and have to wait for what we've typed to render to the screen character by character.... They might be thinking, well maybe he doesn't use the Meta Data Canvas. I did...till it broke indefinitely. Now I just use their Data Assist from the RS Console. Literally only 2 reasons to have AppStudio installed. Sad day...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: CoolGuy,

Thanks COOL Guy,

Excellent summation of the versions...

I'll work with V4 till such time as V5 becomes available at our installation...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Doug,