Struts 2 Portlet - redirectAction not working, doView() not called

Question

I'm trying to create a simple Struts 2 JSR 286 Portlet, running on WebSphere Portal 7. I'm able to display a simple JSP that contains a link which calls an action and displays another JSP which accepts input. That works fine.

I start to run into problems, however, when I try to use a redirectAction. I don't see any error messages, but the redirect doesn't seem to work. The Portlet just shows a blank page.

In debugging this I noticed that the doView method of my Portlet class is never called, which seems very suspicious.

If anyone has experience developing Struts 2 Portlets on WebSphere Portal, I would appreciate some help in checking that my config files are correct. Have I missed something?

Here are the details:

WebSphere Portal 7.0.0.2
WebSphere Application Server 7.0.0.25
RAD 8.0.4
Struts 2.3.14.2
Windows 7

portlet.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<portlet-app id="com.ibm.demo.jsr286.TopUpPortlet.72594d5fe3" 
version="2.0" 
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd" 
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd">
<portlet>
    <description xml:lang="EN">Demo JSR 286 Struts Portlet</description>
    <portlet-name>Demo Portlet</portlet-name>
    <display-name>Demo Portlet</display-name>

    <!-- DemoPortlet extends org.apache.struts2.portlet.dispatcher.Jsr286Dispatcher -->
    <portlet-class>com.demo.jsr286.DemoPortlet</portlet-class>

    <init-param>
        <name>viewNamespace</name>
        <value>/view</value>
    </init-param>

    <init-param>
        <name>defaultViewAction</name>
        <value>index</value>
    </init-param>

    <expiration-cache>0</expiration-cache>

    <supports>
        <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
        <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>
    </supports>

    <supported-locale>en</supported-locale>

    <portlet-info>
        <title>Demo Portlet</title>
        <short-title>DemoPortlet</short-title>
        <keywords>Demo Portlet</keywords>
    </portlet-info>

</portlet>

<default-namespace>http://JSR286StrutsDemo/</default-namespace>
</portlet-app>

web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5" 
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd">

<display-name>JSR 286 Struts Demo</display-name>

<servlet id="Struts2PortletDispatcherServlet">
    <servlet-name>Struts2PortletDispatcherServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.struts2.portlet.dispatcher.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<filter>
    <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

</web-app>

struts.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN" "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">
<struts>
<include file="struts-plugin.xml"/>

<package name="view" extends="struts-portlet-default" namespace="/view">

    <!-- This action works  -->     
    <action name="index">
        <result>/html/view/index.jsp</result>
    </action>

    <!-- This action works  -->
    <action name="startDemo">
        <result>/html/view/demo.jsp</result>
    </action>

            <!-- This action does not work  -->
    <action name="redirectToIndex">
        <result type="redirectAction">
            <param name="actionName">index</param>
            <param name="namespace">/view</param>
            <param name="portletMode">view</param>
        </result>
    </action>

</package>

</struts>

* Update *

I've narrowed the problem down slightly. It looks like the action is being interpreted as a file location rather than a struts action. So, when I call action "redirectToIndex" it tries to display a page called "/view/index.action". I verified this by creating a file with that path and sure enough, the contents of that file are displayed in the portlet.

I feel that I'm probably missing some configuration option, but I'm not sure what. Servlet filter maybe? Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Actually you don't need doView method, because Jsr286Dispatcher is just a dispatcher. You can use actions like in ordinary Struts2 application.

From the documentation:

The portlet-class element is always org.apache.struts2.portlet.dispatcher.Jsr168Dispatcher (or a subclass, if you have added some custom functionality). This is the portlet that acts as the dispatcher for the Struts 2 framework, and translates incoming user interaction to action requests that Struts 2 understands.

For jsr286 specification <portlet-class> should be org.apache.struts2.portlet.dispatcher.Jsr286Dispatcher and defaultViewAction init-param will call Struts2 action. And in struts.xml file, like usually, you can define action class + method to call.

So you need to define Jsr286Dispatcher as <portlet-class> and create action which you will use in struts.xml action definitions.

Also see this two links: http://struts.apache.org/development/2.x/docs/struts-2-portlet-tutorial.html and http://struts.apache.org/development/2.x/docs/portlet-plugin.html.