Developers new to the OracleAS Portal environment are often amazed at how easy it is to create web applications, portlets, and OracleAS Portal pages using the OracleAS Portal wizards. By taking advantage of these wizards, developers can concentrate on developing and deploying OracleAS Portal objects to the Web quickly and easily. Without being marketed as such, OracleAS Portal provides a rapid application development (RAD) environment that allows developers and architects to take full advantage of the various RAD methodologies (as opposed to the more traditional waterfall methods of development) pictured in Figure 9-1.
RAD methodologies allow developers, business analysts, project managers, and end users to interact throughout the development lifecycle, increasing the likelihood that a development project will succeed. OracleAS Portal provides an environment where OracleAS Portal components can be modified and deployed on the spot, allowing end users and developers to interact instantaneously. One thing many developers fail to grasp is how much flexibility the OracleAS Portal wizards provide for them. OracleAS Portal is an incredibly rich development environment that provides developers with a plethora of tools and methods to accomplish their tasks . All of this includes a seamless integration with Oracle databases, of course.
In the preceding chapter, we walked through the creation of an OracleAS Portal component: an OracleAS Portal Form. The OracleAS Portal Form was then placed on an OracleAS Portal Page and displayed. This chapter will discuss the major components developers can create using the OracleAS Portal wizards:
OracleAS Portal Forms
OracleAS Portal Reports
OracleAS Portal Charts
OracleAS Portal Dynamic Pages
OracleAS Portal Lists of Values
OracleAS Portal XML Components
In Chapter 10, the following advanced OracleAS Portal components and topics are discussed:
OracleAS Portal Calendars
OracleAS Portal Hierarchies
OracleAS Portal Menus
OracleAS Portal URLs
OracleAS Portal Links
OracleAS Portal Data Components
OracleAS Portal Page Design
OracleAS Content and Content Management