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Friday 30 August 2013

CSS3 Basic Interview Questions and Answers for Web Designers and Developers

CSS3 Basic Interview Questions and Answers for Web Designers and Developers

Below is the list of CSS3 basic interview questions and answers. These CSS3 interview questions and answers are meant for freshers as well as for experienced web designers and developers. So, If you going for an interview on CSS3,  I suggest you to must give a look at following CSS3 interview questions. These CSS3 interview questions are based on basic introduction to CSS3, why we need CSS3, difference between CSS and CSS3, CSS3 modules, CSS3 browser support, rounded corners in CSS3, borders and shadows in CSS3, CSS3 animation and opacity etc. So lets have a look on following basic CSS3 interview questions and answers.

1. What is the difference between CSS and CSS3?

CSS3 is upgreaded version of CSS with new future like Selectors,Box Model, Backgrounds and Borders, Text Effects,2D/3D Transformations, Animations, Multiple Column Layout, User Interface etc
   
2. List out CSS3 modules.

Below are the listed major modules:

Selectors
Box Model
Backgrounds and Borders
Text Effects
2D/3D Transformations
Animations
Multiple Column Layout
User Interface
   
3. What new futures added in CSS3 for Borders and how Browser Support it?

Following border futures added:

border-radius
box-shadow
border-image

and all modern Browser Support it like below:

Internet Explorer 9 supports border-radius and box-shadow
Firefox requires the prefix -moz- for border-image.
Chrome and Safari requires the prefix -webkit- for border-image.
Opera requires the prefix -o- for border-image.
   
4. How you will create Rounded Corners using CSS3?

We have to creat a class like below:

<style>
.roundc{
border:2px solid #ff0000;
border-radius:25px;
background:#dddddd;
width:300px;
-moz-border-radius:25px; /* Firefox */
-webkit-border-radius:25px; /* Chrome and Safari */
-o-border-radius:25px; /* Opera */
}
</style>

and we have to add this class where we want the round corner like in below div
<div class="roundc" > this is the round corner by css3 </div>
   
5. How we create border using images by CSS3?

By using border-image: property of css3 we can create a border using images like below

.roundpcds
{
border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 round;
-moz-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 round; /* Firefox */
-webkit-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 round; /* Safari and Chrome */
-o-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 round; /* Opera */
}

.stretchPcds
{
-moz-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 stretch; /* Firefox */
-webkit-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 stretch; /* Safari and Chrome */
-o-border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 stretch; /* Opera */
border-image:url(borderpcds.png) 30 30 stretch;
}
   
6. How you will create Box Shadow and text Shadow using CSS3?

Like below we can create Box Shadow using CSS3 .boxshadowabc
{
box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccccc;

.textshadowabc
{
text-shadow: 5px 5px 5px #FF0000;

and then need to use these class boxshadownabc ,textshadowabc
   
7. What is the CSS3 The background size Property?

The background-size property specifies the size of the background image.

As we know Before CSS3, the background image size was find out by the real size of the image. In CSS3 it is possible to specify the size of the background image, which allows you to re-use background images in different ways.

.abcbp1
{
background:url(background.gif);
-moz-background-size:80px 60px; /* Firefox 3.6 */
background-size:80px 60px; /* or we can do background-size:100% 100%;*/
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
   
8. What is the word wrap / word wrapping in CSS3?

To Allow long words to be able to break and wrap onto the next line in css3 we used word-wrap property like below class 

.wordwrappcds{word-wrap:break-word;}
   
9. What is the CSS3 animation?

When the animation is created in the @keyframe, bind it to a selector, otherwise the animation will have no effect.

Bind the animation to a selector by specifying at least these two CSS3 animation properties:

A) Specify the name of the animation
B) Specify the duration of the animation   

10. What is Opacity in CSS3?

Opacity is used to show or hide the html element For example 0 for hide and 1 for show.

11. What is the other name of combined selector in CSS3 and what is it used for?

The other name of combined selector in CSS3 is known as Grouping

12. How is multiple background images handled in CSS3?

If you want to use the multiple background ,we can insert as follows...

background-image: url(decoration.png), url(ribbon.png), url(old_paper.jpg); also we can mention the position of the image either percentage value or top left, left center like this

13. What is wrapping in CSS3?

Wrapping is a vital property for proper display of contents in web pages. If wrapping is disabled then the user could not display and view long lines that goes outside the window boundary and thus becomes useless.

Definition:

The wrap() method wraps specified HTML element(s) around each selected element.

Syntax

$(selector).wrap(wrappingElement,function(index))

where wrapping element specifies what HTML element(s) to wrap around each selected element.It's compulsory.

Possible values:

HTML elements
jQuery objects 
DOM elements

function(index) is Optional. Specifies a function that returns the wrapping element 

indexReturns the index position of the element in the set

14. What is the syntax of opacity in CSS3?

Firefox uses the property opacity:x
Ex:style="opacity:0.4;

IE uses filter:alpha (opacity=x)
Ex:filter:alpha(opacity=40)"

15. What is CSS rule 'ruleset'? 

There are two types of CSS rules: ruleset and at-rule.

Ruleset identifies selector or selectors and declares style which is to be attached to that selector or selectors. For example P {text-indent: 10pt} is a CSS rule. CSS rulesets consist of two parts: selector, e.g. P and declaration, e.g. {text-indent: 10pt}.

P {text-indent: 10pt} - CSS rule (ruleset)
{text-indent: 10pt} - CSS declaration
text-indent - CSS property
10pt - CSS value

16. What are the various style sheets?  

Inline, external, imported and embedded are the different types of style sheets.

17. What are style sheet properties?

CSS Background
CSS Text
CSS Font
CSS Border
CSS Outline
CSS Margin
CSS Padding
CSS List
CSS Table

18. List various font attributes used in style sheet?

font-style
font-variant
font-weight
font-size/line-height
font-family
caption
icon
menu
message-box
small-caption
status-bar  

19. What are the five possible values for “position”? 

Values for position: static, relative, absolute, fixed, inherit 

20. What does isNaN function do? 

Return true if the argument is not a number.       

21. What is a CSS File? It is used for what purpose?

CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets", and are used to control and manage font styles, font sizes, and web site color combinations that are used in a web page. In order to retain continuity of "look and feel" throughout a website, all pages within a website will often refer to a single CSS file. The CSS file is typically contained in a separate file from the website, and the various web pages retrieve the CSS file each time a web page is displayed. CSS files 
make global appearance changes easy -- a single change in a CSS file will mean that any pages using that CSS file will automatically display the changes .

22. How do I make a picture as a background on my web pages?

Point the body background to the name of your image you wish to use as the background as shown below. This body line should be the first line after your < / head> tag.

<body background="picture.gif">

You can also have the background image fixed, so it does not move when using the scroll bar in the browser. To do this add the BGPROPERTIES tag as shown below. 

<body background="picture.gif" bgproperties="fixed"> 

23. How do I add scrolling text to my page? 

Keep in mind not all browsers support scrolling text. however to do this add a tag similar to the below example:

<marquee >THIS WOULD SCROLL< /marquee> 

The above example would create the below scrolling text. If your browser supports scrolling text the below example should be scrolling. More examples can be found on our main HTML page that lists most of the HTML commands. 

24. How do I make it so that someone can mail me by just clicking on text with subject?

Use the mailto command in your A HREF link tag as shown below:

<a href="mailto:support@computerhope.com?Subject=Enquiry">Click here to mail</ a> . 

25. How do I align pictures so that one may be higher or lower than the other?

Use the align statement in your IMG SRC tag as shown below. 

<img src="http://www.computerhope.com/chguy.gif" align=top> 

Also, instead of align=top you can do align=middle, and align=bottom.  

26. What is external Style Sheet? How to link?

External Style Sheet is a template/document/file containing style information which can be linked with any number of HTML documents. This is a very convenient way of formatting the entire site as well as restyling it by editing just one file. The file is linked with HTML documents via the LINK element inside the HEAD element. Files containing style information must have extension .css, e.g. style.css. 

<HEAD> 
<LINK REL=STYLESHEET HREF="style.css" TYPE="text/css"> 
</ HEAD>   

27. Is CSS case sensitive? 

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is not case sensitive. However, font families, URLs to images, and other direct references with the style sheet may be. The trick is that if you write a document using an XML declaration and an XHTML doctype, then the CSS class names will be case sensitive for some browsers. It is a good idea to avoid naming classes where the only difference is the case, for example: div.myclass { ...} div.myClass { ... } If the DOCTYPE or XML declaration is ever removed from your pages, even by mistake, the last instance of the style will be used, regardless of case.   

Thursday 29 August 2013

HTML5 Interview Questions and Answers for Web Designers and Developers

HTML5 Interview Questions and Answers for Web Designers and Developers

Below is the list of HTML5 basic interview questions and answers. These HTML5 interview questions and answers are meant for freshers as well as for experienced web designers and developers. So, If you going for an interview on HTML5,  I suggest you to must give a look at following HTML5 interview questions. These HTML5 interview questions are based on basic introduction to HTML5, why we need HTML5doctype of HTML5, media elements in HTML5, embedding audio and video to HTM5, canvas element in HTML5, types of storage in HTML5 like localStorage and sessionStorage, new Form elements in HTML5, deprecated elements in HTML5, HTML5 APIs etc. So lets have a look on following basic HTML5 interview questions and answers.

1. What's new HTML5 DocType and Charset?

As HTML5 is now not a subset of SGML, its DocType is simplified as follows:

<!doctype html>

And HTML5 uses UTF-8 encoding as follows:

<meta charset="UTF-8">

2. How can we embed Audio in HTML5?

HTML 5 comes with a standard way of embedding audio files. Supported audio formats are MP3, Wav and Ogg.

<audio controls>
<source src="jamshed.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
Your browser doesn't support audio embedding feature.
</audio>

3. How can we embed Video in HTML5?

Same like audio, HTML 5 defined standard way of embedding video files. Supported video formats are MP4, WebM and Ogg.

<video width="450" height="340" controls>
<source src="jamshed.mp4" type="video/mp4">
Your browser does'nt support video embedding feature.
</video>

4. What are the new media elements in HTML5 other than audio and video?

HTML 5 has strong support for media. Other than audio and video tags, it comes with the following tags:

<embed> acts as a container for external application.
<track> defines text track for media.
<source> is helpful for multiple media sources for audio and video.

5. What is the usage of canvas element in HTML5?

<canvas> is an element in HTML5 which we can use to draw graphics with the help of scripting (which is most probably JavaScript). 

This element behaves like a container for graphics and rest of the things will be done by scripting. We can draw images, graphs and a bit of animations etc. using <canvas> element.

<canvas id="canvas1" width="300" height="100">
</canvas>

6. What are the different types of storage in HTML5?

HTML5 has the capability to store data locally. Previously, it was done with the help of cookies. The exciting thing about this storage is that it's fast as well as secure.

There are two different objects which can be used to store data:

localStorage object stores data for a longer period of time even if the browser is closed.
sessionStorage object stores data for a specific session.

7. What are the new Form Elements introduced in HTML5?

There are a number of new form elements that have been introduced in HTML 5 as follows:

datalist
datetime
output
keygen
date
month
week
time
number
range
email
url

8. What are the deprecated Elements in HTML5 from HTML4?

Elements that are deprecated from HTML 4 to HTML 5 are:

frame
frameset
noframe
applet
big
center
basefront

9. What are the new APIs provided by HTML5 standard?

HTML 5 standard comes with a number of new APIs. Few of them are as follows:

Media API
Text Track API
Application Cache API
User Interaction
Data Transfer API
Command API
Constraint Validation API
History API
and many more....

10. What is the difference between HTML 5 Application Cache and regular HTML Browser Cache?

One of the key features of HTML 5 is "Application Cache" that enables us to make an offline version of a web application. It allows to fetch few or all of website contents such as HTML files, CSS, images, JavaScript, etc. locally. This feature speeds up the site performance. This is achieved with the help of a manifest file defined as follows:

<!doctype html>
<html manifest="example.appcache">
.....
</html>

As compared with traditional browser caching, it's not compulsory for the user to visit website contents to be cached.

11. Can you give an example of Canvas element and how it can be used?

<canvas id=“myCanvas” width=“500″ height=“400″>
</canvas>
<script type=“text/javascript”>
var myCanvas=document.getElementById(“myCanvas”);
var myText=myCanvas.getContext(“2d”);
myText.fillStyle=“#82345c”;
myText.fillRect(0,0,150,75);
</script>

12. What is the purpose of HTML5 versus XHTML?

HTML5 is the next version of HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and DOM Level 2 HTML. It aims to reduce the need for proprietary plug-in-based rich internet application (RIA) technologies such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Apache Pivot, and Sun JavaFX. Instead of using those plugins, it enables browser to serve elements such as video and audio without any additional requirements on the client machine.

13. What is the difference between HTML and HTML5?

HTML5 is nothing more then upgraded version of HTML where in HTML5 supports the innovative features such as Video, Audio/mp3, date select function , placeholder , Canvas, 2D/3D Graphics, Local SQL Database added so that no need to do external plugin like Flash player or other library elemenents.

14. What are some other advantages of HTML5?

a) Cleaner markup than earlier versions of HTML
b) Additional semantics of new elements like <header>, <nav>, and <time>
c) New form input types and attributes that will (and in Opera’s case, do) take the hassle out of scripting forms.

15. What is the  <!DOCTYPE>? Is it mandatory to use in HTML5?

The <!DOCTYPE> is an instruction to the web browser about what version of HTML the page is written in. The <!DOCTYPE> tag does not have an end tag. It is not case sensitive.

The <!DOCTYPE> declaration must be the very first thing in HTML5 document, before the <html> tag.  As In HTML 4.01, all <! DOCTYPE > declarations require a reference to a Document Type Definition (DTD), because HTML 4.01 was based on Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). WHERE AS HTML5 is not based on SGML, and therefore does not require a reference to a Document Type Definition (DTD).

16. What are the New Media Elements in HTML5?

New Media Elements in HTML5 are :

<audio> For multimedia content, sounds, music or other audio streams
<video> For video content, such as a movie clip or other video streams
<source> For media resources for media elements, defined inside video or audio
elements
<embed> For embedded content, such as a plug-in
<track> For text tracks used in mediaplayers

17. What is the major improvement with HTML5 in reference to Flash?

Flash is not supported by major mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone and universal android applications. Those mobile devices have lack of support for installing flash plugins. HTML5 is supported by all the devices, apps and browser including Apple and Android products. Compared to Flash, HTML5 is very secured and protected. That eliminates major concerns that we have seen with Flash.

18. What is the sessionStorage Object in HTML5 ? How you can create and access that?

The HTML5 sessionStorage object stores the data for one session. The data is deleted when the user closes the browser window. We can create and access a sessionStorage, created “name” as session

<script type=“text/javascript”>
sessionStorage.name=“mySessionStorage”;
document.write(sessionStorage.name);
</script>

19.  What is the use of localStorage in HTML5?

Before HTML5 LocalStores was done with cookies. Cookies are not very good for large amounts of data, because they are passed on by every request to the server, so it was very slow and in-effective. 

In HTML5, the data is NOT passed on by every server request, but used ONLY when asked for. It is possible to store large amounts of data without affecting the website's performance.and The data is stored in different areas for different websites, and a website can only access data stored by itself.

And for creating localstores just need to call localStorage object like below we are storing name and address

<script type="text/javascript">
localStorage.name="myLocalStorage";
document.write(localStorage.name);
</script> 
<script type="text/javascript">
localStorage.address="The Professionals Point.";
document.write(localStorage.address);
</script>

20. How many new Markup Elements you know in HTML5?

Following are the new markup elements introduced in HTML5:

<article> Specifies independent, self-contained content, could be a news-article, blog post, forum post, or other articles which can be distributed independently from the rest of the site.

<aside> For content aside from the content it is placed in. The aside content should be related to the surrounding content

<bdi> For text that should not be bound to the text-direction of its parent elements

<command> A button, or a radiobutton, or a checkbox

<details> For describing details about a document, or parts of a document

<summary> A caption, or summary, inside the details element

<figure> For grouping a section of stand-alone content, could be a video

<figcaption> The caption of the figure section

<footer> For a footer of a document or section, could include the name of the author, the date of the document, contact information, or copyright information

<header> For an introduction of a document or section, could include navigation

<hgroup> For a section of headings, using <h1> to <h6>, where the largest is the main heading of the section, and the others are sub-headings

<mark> For text that should be highlighted

<meter> For a measurement, used only if the maximum and minimum values are known

<nav> For a section of navigation

<progress> The state of a work in progress

<ruby> For ruby annotation (Chinese notes or characters)

<rt> For explanation of the ruby annotation

<rp> What to show browsers that do not support the ruby element

<section> For a section in a document. Such as chapters, headers, footers, or any other sections of the document

<time> For defining a time or a date, or both

<wbr> Word break. For defining a line-break opportunity.

21.  Do you know New Input Type Attribute in HTML5?

Yes, we can use below new input type Attribute in HTML5:

tel The input is of type telephone number
search The input field is a search field
url a URL
email One or more email addresses
datetime A date and/or time
date A date
month A month
week A week
time The input value is of type time
datetime-local A local date/time
number A number
range A number in a given range
color A hexadecimal color, like #82345c
placeholder Specifies a short hint that describes the expected value of an input field

22. What does a <hgroup> tag do?

The <hgroup> tag is used to group heading elements. The <hgroup> element is used to group a set of <h1> to <h6> elements.

<hgroup>
<h1>Hello</h1>
<h2>How r u?</h2>
</hgroup>

23. Which video formats are used for the video element?

Internet Explorer 9+: MP4
Chrome 6+: MP4, WebM, Ogg
Firefox 3.6+ : WebM, Ogg
Safari 5+ : MP4,
Opera 10.6+ : WebM,Ogg

IBM Websphere Portal Interview Questions and Answers for Developers

IBM Websphere Portal Interview Questions and Answers for Developers

Below is the list of IBM Websphere Portal basic interview questions and answers. These IBM Websphere Portal interview questions and answers are meant for freshers as well as for experienced developers. So, If you going for an interview on IBM Websphere Portal,  I suggest you to must give a look at following IBM Websphere Portal interview questions. These IBM Websphere Portal interview questions are based on basic introduction to IBM Websphere Portal,  why we need IBM Websphere Portal, Dynacache, Websphere Portal Life Cycle, PortletContext, PortletSession, Websphere Portal Architecture, Trace and logging for WebSphere Portal, LDAP, ReleaseBuilder tool in WebSphere Portal, Authoring and Presentation Templates  etc. So lets have a look on following basic IBM Websphere Portal interview questions and answers.

1.What is Portal?

Portal is nothing but a web/J2EE application installed on an application server. Portal provides content aggregation, personalization, authorization and authentication.

2.What are Portlets?

Portlets are applications managed by portal container which generate fragment of portal page rather than complete page as generated by servlet.

3. Differences between a Portlet and servlet?

Portlets generate only fragment of the portal page rather than entire page
Portlets have more refined request cycle than servlet
Portlets have predefined modes and window states
Portlets are can be only invoked using portlet URLs

4.What are different phases of portlet life cycle?

Portlet life cycle has following phases

Initialization(init method)
Process action
Process event
Resource serving
Render
Destroy

5. What are the different types of Portlet URLs and their use?

There are three types of portlet URLs

Action URL- used for submitting forms
Render  URL- used for links
Resource URL – used for ajax calls and serving documents (pdf files).

6. Difference between JSR 168 and JSR 286 specifications?

The major changes in JSR 286 are events, public render parameters, resource serving and portlet filter.

7. How is the inter portlet communication carried out in JSR 168 portlet?

The inter portlet communication for JSR 168 in websphere portal can be done using dyna cache or shared library. We can create a hash map or any data structure, where we can store an object that need to be transported with unique key and retrieve it from the receiving portlet

8. Can you create a DB connection in render phase? Explain reason?

Yes we can create DB connection in render phase of portlet. But it is not suggested to create one in render phase because it will called every time any other portlet on the page is changed and may result in stale DB connections.

9. What are different modes supported by JSR 286?

Different modes supported by JSR 286 are view, edit and help. A portlet should define its supported mode is portlet.xml file.

10. What are different States supported by JSR 286?

Different  portlet states supported are normal, maximized and minimized.

11. What is Dynacache?

Dynacache is disturbed map used to store and retrieve objects from memory. IBM provides API to create, store retrieve the objects.

12. What is CSA?

Client-side aggregation (CSA) is a new method of rendering a WebSphere Portal page that moves the rendering workload from the server to the client. It is made possible by the Representational State Transfer (REST) services introduced in WebSphere Portal 6.1.

In the traditional server-side aggregation (SSA) rendering, the page and each of the portlets is completely rendered on the server, using JSPs, and returned to the client in one big response. 

In contrast, in CSA, we request only the pieces of information from the server that are required to update the page as a result of the user’s interactions with the page.

For example, if a page contains four portlets and the user clicks a link in one of the portlets, only that portlet is updated. This means the server must render only one portlet, instead of four portlets plus the theme for an interaction with a single portlet.

The REST services also take greater advantage of caching. Since each individual artifact can be independently cache-able, the client ends up retrieving a greater number of responses directly out of cache, further reducing the server workload.

13. What are different modes available in Websphere Portal?

A part for standard modes ( view, edit, help) it provides edit_ defaults and configure mode.

14. What can you do with XML access scripts?

Xml access is command line utility used for exporting and importing portal configurations. It can be used for backing up the configuration of certain environments, for loading new configurations (for new portlets or pages, for example), or for updating existing portlets when a new WAR file is provided by development. There are few samples C:\IBM\WebSphere\PortalServer\doc\xml-sample

15. What is model spi and what is it used for?

Web sphere uses different model for providing content aggregation and navigation The available models are Content model, navigation model , navigation selection model and layout model. These models are provided using model spi.

16. What is Navigation model? 

Navigation model is used to get topology of the navigation available to a user.

17. How do you solve problems related to themes and skins?

We can debug theme and skin problems by client side logging and using firebug for javascript problems

18. What is Web Content Management System (WCMS)?

Web Content management system is a software system that helps build and manage a Web entities (html pages, documents etc.) Once setup is complete it provides templates for authoring, workflow management to the content.  It is easy to use for non technical user.

19. What is syndication?

Syndication, (Web syndication in particular) is a ability to provide users updates of the content from the site. The most popular formats of web syndication are RSS and ATOM feeds.

20. What is local rendering and remote rendering?

The web content management portlets can be rendered local or remotely. A local rendering portlet displays content on the same portal as the instance where the web content manager is installed. A remote rendering portlet displays Web content on a different portal server than the instance where Web Content Manager is installed.

21. What are different steps in creating content for WebSphere portal WCM?

The following are different steps involved in creating the content for the WebSphere portal WCM

Create Library
Create Workflow
Create Site area (Sites are removed in WebSphere Portal 7.0)
Create Authoring templates
Create Presentation templates
Map authoring and presentation templates

22. What are workflows?

A workflow is a sequence of steps that are followed in creating approved content. In WebSphere portal, A workflow contains one or more stages. Every stage contains one or more actions, the following are different Workflow actions available in WebSphere Publish, Expire, Email, Scheduled Move, Custom Actions.

23. What are Authoring and Presentation Templates?

Authoring Template- This template is defined using authoring portlet, where we define the access information,  form properties and default content. It does not contain any information for presentation and The elements in this form are linked to presentation template.

Presentation Template- This allow to change the look of a page without having to update what is being displayed on a page. It will allow to define Page style, Page layout and map element to the authoring templates.

24. What is the difference between personalization and customization?

Personalization-   It means to serve the user or consumer with user specific data depending on his interests collected over a time. A real world example would be google serving ads basing on the recent search you made.

Customization-  It is ability provided to the user to change the layout, styling of the page and save it.

25. What is the difference between Application Server and Portal Server?

Application servers extend the ability of a Web server to handle Web application requests, and enables a server to generate a dynamic, customized response to a client request. A portal server extends the application server by providing a portlet container that can run portlets and to create portal a website that provides users with a single point of access to Web-based resources by aggregating those resources in one place.

26. What are the steps involved in deploying themes and skins in a clustered production websphere portal environment ?

Export the WebSphere wps.ear (Portal EAR) using wsadmin.
Use EarExpander tool to expand the exported wps.ear file.
Copy the updated themes and skins into ../themes/html, ../skins/html folder.
Use EarExpander tool to collapse the EAR directory into an EAR file.
Use wsadmin to update the wps.ear to complete the deployment of updated themes and skins.

27. What changes needs to be done to view changes to your theme and skins JSPs without restarting the portal server?

You need to enable automatic JSP loading by setting reloadingEnable property to true in ibm-web-ext.xmi file of the wps.ear.

28. What are the 3 different ways of installing a portlet application in WebSphere Portal?

Install a portlet using the portal administration page using Web Modules portlet.
Install a portlet using xmlaccess tool.
Pre-deploy a portlet as a standard EAR by installing the portlet WAR file in WAS console and then registering the portlet using xmlaccess.

29. What is the purpose of XMLAccess configuration file Export.xml & ExportRelease.xml? What is the difference & When will you use one over the other?

Export.xml exports the complete portal configuration and useful when transferring configurations between development installations.

ExportRelease.xml exports the complete portal configuration from the release domain as required by the portal ReleaseBuilder tool and useful when tranaferring different release configurations between staging and production environments.

30. List me the steps involved in building a release in WebSphere Portal?

If you have a completely new installation of the staging server and the production server:

Install the staging server, then install the production server.
Develop a release on the staging server.
Build the release on the staging server.
Empty portal contents on the production server by running the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import that release onto the production server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.

If you already have a production server without a staging system:

Export the release of your production server.
Install an empty staging server using one of the following two methods:
Install the staging server with the flag -W emptyPortal.active=True.
After installing and configuring the staging server, run the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import the production release onto the staging server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.
Develop and build a new release on the staging server.
Export that new release from the staging server.
Use ReleaseBuilder to generate the differential between the two releases.
Import the differential onto the production server.

31. What is the purpose of ReleaseBuilder tool in WebSphere Portal?

ReleaseBuilder enables management of release configurations independent of user configurations and used during staging of follow-on releases of WebSphere portals, configurations, and artifacts need to be moved between systems.

32. What are the steps involved in editing WebSPhere Member Manager (wmm.xml) files on a federated node?

On the primary node of the WebSphere Portal cluster, check out the files using ./WPSconfig.sh check-out-wmm-cfg-files-from-dmgr task.
Make any changes to the Member Manager files. The files can be edited in the portal_server_root/wmm directory on the WebSphere Portal node.
When you have completed your changes, check the files back in using ./WPSconfig.sh check-in-wmm-cfg-files-to-dmgr.

33. List different types of user registry supported by WebSphere Portal?

LDAP (includes LDAP with an optional database user registry).
Database user registry.
Custom User registry, (non-LDAP, non-database).

34. What is LDAP realm support and why would I want to use it?

A Realm allows you to group users from one or more LDAP trees of one user registry and expose them as a coherent user population to WebSphere Portal; this is also referred to as horizontal partitioning. Realms allow a flexible user management with various configuration options; for example, you can combine principals from one or more corporate LDAP tree. A realm must be mapped to a Virtual Portal to allow the realm's defined user population to login to the Virtual Portal.

35. What is an Application group and why would I want to use it?

Application groups is a concept that allows you to define user groups within the database user registry with members (users or groups) contained in the LDAP user registry you configured. 

The benefit of application groups is that you can create Groups that are only used in WebSphere Portal particularly in scenarios where there is Read-only LDAP or special group setup specific to the portal.

36. What are the two methods to install the empty staging WebSphere portal server?

Empty portal contents on the staging server by running the ./WPSconfig.sh action-empty-portal.
Install portal with the ./install.sh -W emptyPortal.active="True" option.

37. How do you stop portal traffic to the node being upgraded in 24x7 cluster upgrade process ?

Locate the cluster member being upgraded, and change the value in the Configured weight column from a value to zero and make sure the plugin config information is propagated to webserver to stop traffic.

38. How to set limits on searches for users and groups?

Setting a maximum number of search results maximumSearchResults="200" in wmm.xml

39. What portal resources are scoped for virtual portal?

Portal pages.
Portlet instances.
Portal Search Engine search services and search collections. This includes the search content sources.

40. What portal resources can't be seperated for virual portal?

Themes and skins.
Vault segments and vault slots.
Supported clients and markups.
Composite applications and templates.
Policies.

41. How do you enable temporary and extended trace logging for WebSphere Portal?

Temporary traces can be set for a temporary period by using the administration portlet Enable Tracing or the IBM WebSphere Application Server administrative console and also using the Enable Tracing portlet in the portal administration page.

To enable extended trace settings for a longer period of time, that is, for more than one session, switch them on in the WebSphere Application Server configuration, save the updates and restart the portal server.

42. What are the different states of the syndication process?

Idle: No syndication is occurring.
Pending: A request has been made to the syndicator, but it has yet to initiate a request to the syndication application.
Queued: The syndicator has sent a request to the syndication application, but syndication is not yet active.
Active: Syndication is occurring between the syndicator and subscriber.
Disabled: Syndication is currently disabled.

43. What are the two types of rendering portlets?

Local rendering portlet and Remote rendering portlet

44. Explain Portal architecture.

The core implementation of the portal is UI, hosted by a Portal server. The HTTP requests, HTML responses, and returning appropriate portal pages are handled by the Portal UI. Enterprise Web application also can be handled by the Portal Server.

The portal architecture has the following:

Automaton Server: This server performs the management of job scheduling and implementation of a portal. It accesses all remote crawlers and profile services retrieved and stored from a remote database.

Image Server: This server hosts images and other web page content used by web services and a portal. With this configuration, large static files are to be sent directly to the browser without portal server impacts.

Search Server: This server indexes and searches all the information, applications, communities, documents, web sites through portal.

Collaboration Server: Web content publication and management for portals and web applications are supported by this server. Its functionality can be accessed by a remote web services through Enterprise Web Development kit.

Content Server: Publication and management of web content for portals and web applications along with form based publishing, branding, templates, content expiration is allowed by this server.

Authentication Server: This server handles the portal authentication for users and remote services can be accessed through EDK.

Remote Servers: Web services written using the EDK are hosted by remote servers. The servers can be in different countries, on different platforms and domains. 

45. What is PortletSession interface?

User identification across many requests and transient information storage about the user is processed by PortletSession interace. One PortletSession is created per portlet application per client.

The PortletSession interface provides a way to identify a user across more than one request and to store transient information about that user.

The storing of information is defined in two scopes- APPLICATION_SCOPE and PORTLET_SCOPE.

APPLICATION_SCOPE: All the objects in the session are available to all portlets,servlets, JSPs of the same portlet application, by using APPLICATION_SCOPE.

PORTLET_SCOPE: All the objects in the session are available to the portlet during the requests for the same portlet window. The attributes persisted in the PORTLET_SCOPE are not protected from other web components. 

46. What is PortletContext interface?

The portlet view of the portlet container is defined by PortletContext. It allows the availability of resources to the portlet. Using this context, the portlet log can be accessed and URL references to resources can be obtained. There is always only one context per portlet application per JVM. 

47. How to change the default portal URI /wps/portal after installation?

Set the property WpsContextRoot to the new URI and run ./WPSConfig.sh modify-servlet-path task.

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