Portlets
Portlets are Java technology based web components that process requests and generate dynamic content. Portal is just an application that displays some page content.
Portlet Application
One or more related portlets packaged together. All portlets packaged together share the same context and resources.
Page
A page is a place holder for one or more portlets
Layout
This is the way portlets are arranged in a page. This basically defines the number of content areas in a page.
Each portal page is subdivided into one or more content areas. Each content area can contain one or more portlets.The portal administrator or a user who has authority to manage a page can control whether others who have authority to edit the page can move, edit or delete the content areas and the portlets on the page.
Themes
Themes represent the overall look and feel of the portal, including colors, images
and fonts.
Skins
Skin refers to the appearance an individual portlet. Each portlet can have its own skin.
State
The portlets can be in maximized,minimized or normal state. This is the state of the window in which the portlet output will be displayed.
Mode
For the current request, the task and the content the portlet generates is defined by the mode.
When the content is displayed to the user, the portlet is in view mode. In this mode, the portlet just renders the markup for the page.The edit mode gets input from the user and the Help mode is used to show a help screen. A portlet can also have other custom optional modes.
Next: Portlet Lifecycle
