Installation and Administration Guide 555July 2004 Customizing the Customer InterfaceImplementation of the Sample CustomerInterfaceIntroductionSymposium Web Center Portal is based on a tiered architecture, with the JavaServer Pages (JSP) and HTML files representing the user interface. The middletier is composed of a suite of dedicated Java classes representing a subset of theSymposium Web Center Portal business logic. These classes map to certainSymposium Web Center Portal business entities and are available to theapplication through the businessobjects.jar file.Each business object communicates with the database in an instance of adedicated database connectivity class, available in the dbconnector.jar file. It isimportant that these files, and the other jar files required by the application, areplaced in a location where the servlet engine can readily locate them.When you start writing the code for the application, you must refer to thedatabase. You do this through the Java classes provided in thebusinessobjects.jar and dbconnector.jar files. These files are located in theapplication’s WEB-INF/lib (if you are using Apache) or inetpub/wwwroot (ifyou are using IIS) subfolder.The database connectivity is configured using the parameters in thedb.properties file (the location of which is specified in the application’s web.xmldeployment descriptor). In particular, values for the database server name,database name, and port number (5005) are required.Note: This document assumes that you have access to the Symposium WebCenter Portal JSP pages.Home pageThe home page of the application welcomes the user to the application. Itprovides information about what the application is for, and displays the top-levelmenu selection for the user.
