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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
WebSphere Commerce integration with WebSphere Portal
You can integrate WebSphere Commerce, a Business Application Service with WebSphere Portal, an Interaction Service. The Interaction Service provides core portal services (WebSphere Portal) that aggregate applications and content and deliver them as role-based applications. The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) pattern is used for communication, mediation, transformation and integration with external systems. Using an ESB to integrate the Web services exposed from WebSphere Commerce to the WebSphere Portal promotes a loosely coupled design where the ESB manages the interactions styles between the WebSphere Commerce services and the presentation layer. You do not need to alter your presentation layer to support the protocol and format used by the WebSphere Commerce services. Instead, you rely on the ESB to perform tasks such as message transformation and protocol mediation. Neither WebSphere Commerce nor WebSphere Portal needs to change in order to communicate with one another. The ESB is used to act as an interpreter between the two systems and will translate the messages into a format the receiving system understands.
Customizing WebSphere Commerce Portal integration
There are two main approaches to Customizing WebSphere Commerce Portal integration. Using the provided WebSphere Commerce MVCPortlet class (MVC style), and Using WebSphere Portal general programming techniques (Web service style).
Using the provided WebSphere Commerce MVCPortlet class (MVC style)
The WebSphere Commerce Portlet, MVCPortlet, is a generic implementation of the MVC pattern. It allows you to set up one or more portlets, each with its own configuration, to call various WebSphere Commerce services. The goal of this MVCPortlet is to cleanly separate the model (application logic that interacts with a database) from the view (HTML pages that are presented to the client) and the controller (instance that passes information between view and model). This programming pattern greatly reduces code redundancy and maintains a consistent behavior across all WebSphere Commerce portlet actions.
WebSphere Commerce Portal integration event handlers
The MVCPortlet framework is designed in a flexible way so that each portlet request can be handled differently using an event handler. For each action event and render event, it is possible to define a corresponding event handler in the portlet MVC configuration file.
WebSphere Commerce portlet action handler
This WebSphere Commerce portlet action handler invokes the logic for handling this portlet action request.
Business context object
A BusinessContextType object is used to represent the business contextual information defined for the portlet. This contextual information should be set into this object for synchronizing with WebSphere Commerce services.

Business context object

A BusinessContextType object is used to represent the business contextual information defined for the portlet. This contextual information should be set into this object for synchronizing with WebSphere Commerce services.

There are two types of business contextual information - sticky and non-sticky. Sticky business contextual information is session information that lasts for the entire Portal session. The business context object for this sticky contextual information is stored in the portlet session, using a contextKey as the identifier, so that it can be shared and re-used for future access.

Non-sticky contextual information lasts only for the duration of a request. An example of this type is the additional context data provided on the JSP page using the getData tag. Although it is processed in the same way when sending over to the client library, after the response comes back the non-sticky contextual information is discarded and is therefore not available for future uses.

The following two business context values must be present in the business context object:

langId: A numeric constant that represents the language used for WebSphere Commerce service
storeId: A numeric identifier that represents the WebSphere Commerce store

In order to retrieve an existing business context object from the portlet session, you can write the following code to call a special helper class using a contextKey:


BusinessContextType businessContextType = SessionHelper.getBusinessContextType(portletRequest, contextKey);

If you are planning to create or manage these business context objects at runtime, a business context plug-in is provided with the MVC Portlet. For more information about this business context plug-in, see the Business context plug-in topic.