Dojo AMD and portlet-client-model - dojo

Question

I'm using Dojo 1.9.1 AMD with WebSphere 8 portlets and can't figure out how to continue to leverage the WebSphere mechanism for getting/setting user's portlet preferences. Prior to moving from pre-AMD Dojo (1.6) to Dojo 1.9.1 AMD, I was including at the top of some JSP files these lines:
<%# taglib uri="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/websphere/portal/v6.1/portlet-client-model"
prefix="portlet-client-model" %> <portlet:defineObjects/>
<portlet-client-model:init>
<portlet-client-model:require module="ibm.portal.xml.*"/>
<portlet-client-model:require module="ibm.portal.portlet.*"/>
</portlet-client-model:init>
which get converted/generated into these lines at run-time:
<script> if(typeof dojo=='undefined') {
document.writeln("<scr"+"ipt src='/wps/portal_dojo/v1.4.3/dojo/dojo.js' ></scr"+"ipt>");
} </script>
<script>dojo.require('ibm.portal.xml.xpath'); dojo.require('ibm.portal.xml.xslt');</script>
<script>dojo.require('ibm.portal.portlet.portlet');</script>
<script>if(typeof(ibmPortalConfig) == "undefined") {ibmPortalConfig = {contentHandlerURI: "/wps/mycontenthandler/urs/!ut/p/digest!q8eCn6qc7fl2VjdmXXlayA/nm/oid:wps.portal.root"};} else if(!ibmPortalConfig["contentHandlerURI"]) {ibmPortalConfig["contentHandlerURI"] = "/wps/mycontenthandler/urs/!ut/p/digest!q8eCn6qc7fl2VjdmXXlayA/nm/oid:wps.portal.root";} </script><div id='com.ibm.wps.web2.portlet.root.Z7_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530O2' style='display: none;'>/wps/mycontenthandler/urs/!ut/p/digest!q8eCn6qc7fl2VjdmXXlayA/pm/oid:--portletwindowid--#oid:Z6_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530G4</div>
<div id='com.ibm.wps.web2.portlet.preferences.Z7_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530O2' style='display: none;' pageid='Z6_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530G4' configid='Z3_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E53085' editdefaultsid='Z5_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530O6'
></div>
<div id='com.ibm.wps.web2.portlet.user.Z7_HHGGGIO0JGPN00AI72U5E530O2' style='display: none;'>/wps/mycontenthandler/urs/!ut/p/digest!q8eCn6qc7fl2VjdmXXlayA/um/secure/currentuser/profile?expandRefs=true</div>
which then allowed me to use javascript for getting and setting user portlet preferences. When I try using this same technique with Dojo 1.9.1 AMD, the same code that is generated above causes a javascript error complaining that the "dojo.require" is not a function.
With the improved Dojo AMD, I no longer have any calls to "dojo.require" like I used to, so I haven't encountered this issue, but these WebSphere custom tags automatically generate "dojo.require" calls that are now failing.
Do I need to try to mix the old pre-AMD inclusion of dojo.js with the preferred AMD inclusion calls? Has anyone encountered this issue yet?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Your main problem is that you're using an old taglib. If I look at the URL I see that you're using a v6.1 taglib, which uses Dojo 1.4.3 and that is obviously outdated. Try to replace the taglib with:
<%# taglib
uri="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/websphere/portal/v8.0/portlet-client-model"
prefix="portlet-client-model" %>
I suppose that should generate some more appropriate code, compatible with the latest releases. You will probably have to update some libraries on your classpath as well.
Also, if you're using WebSphere Portal 8, then only Dojo 1.7 is supported officially, so make sure you're not using different versions here. WebSphere Portal 8.5 supports Dojo 1.9 (uses 1.9.3 to be exactly), but from your question it was not clear if you're using v8 or v8.5.
If you want to change the Dojo configuration and set async: false, that's possible, but you will have to set it before dojo.js is loaded. That means you will have to edit theme.html and the localized themes (for example theme_en.html) to add the following content above the co:head dynamic content spot:
<script type="text/javascript">
dojoConfig = {
async: false
};
</script>
<link rel="dynamic-content" href="co:head">
Be careful though, if you set it, you might break something, I don't know if IBM has their own configuration that includes custom packages or not, but if they do and you're overriding that configuration, then it might lead to errors.