You do not necessarily need a portlet. Some of the content displayed appears because of the theme, and the stylesheet that governs the theme. In other words, you can easily put in common thematic elements that appear on multiple pages of the portal. But if you want to do something such as display content from a database, then you will need a portlet. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4159099#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...