Last week IBM announced v8.5 for their Digital Experience system. This has been known in the past as WebSphere Portal, but with all the additions to the platform over the years, its become much more than just a portal. My colleague Brendon Jones listed a few of the new features included in v8.5. Its often interesting to see what has been removed from the platform, so lets take a look at what IBM has removed or deprecated in this version:
Unsupported Features and Theme Changes:
- Web Clipper Portlet is no longer supported. IBM suggests using the Virtual Web Application Manager portlet instead.
- Non-modular themes are not supported. Non modular themes include: Portal, PortalWeb2, and Tab Menu – Page Builder, or any theme prior to v7. Interestingly, IBM says these themes will be migrated to v8.5, but they won’t work.
- Composite Applications are not supported. If you have a composite application and try the migration to 8.5, the migration will fail.
- ODC Editor must be uninstalled as it is no longer supported. This editor is the old Rich Text Editor in WCM and has been replaced by the Ephox editor.
- CAI/TAI Portlets are no longer available. These portlets were used with Virtual Portals and references to them in your theme must be removed before migrating to v8.5.
- Dynamic Person Tag Portlet has been removed and references to it in your theme must be removed before migrating to v8.5.
Deprecated Features:
- Shared Pages
- Enabler Component
- Full and Base Installation options – by default a full install is performed by installation manager
- Likeminds and Feedback database domains
- Standalone user registry – only a federated registry is supported
- Parallel Portlet Rendering – I wonder how this will affect performance.
- Active Credentials in the credential vault – only Passive Credentials remain
- LPTA Version 1 Token – you must use LPTA Version 2. If you connect with another application via LPTA, make sure the other application is using LTPA v2 as well.
- Tagging and Rating dialog and inline widgets have been replaced by new widgets
- URL Mappings can still be used in 8.5 if you upgrade from 8.0, but you can’t create new mappings. Use the new Vanity URL feature instead.
- Remote Rendering Portlet for WCM content. Use the WCM JSR286 portlet.
- Web2Bookmarks Portlet is not installed by default, but can be downloaded from the IBM Solutions Catalog.
- WebSphere Page Builder 7.x Theme
- WebSphere Integrator Portlet for SAP is gone. IBM recommends using the Web Application Bridge feature instead.
Additional information on these changes can be found in the IBM Knowledge Center.
