The portlets properties file, partitionNamePortlets.properties, lists the portlets affected by the phase provider for a specific partition. For development or testing purposes, you can override the phase provider for individual portlets.

The structure of the portlets properties file is simple. Each portlet resides on a separate line, followed by the = sign, as shown in this example:

A portlets properties file is not required for a partition in which all portlets are enabled. In this case, you can omit the initFile and initFileComponentsEnabled attributes in the phase provider file, which would otherwise manage use of the portlets properties file.

For development or testing, you can temporarily override the default behavior of the phase provider for an individual file by prefixing a + or - sign to the = sign, as follows:

Say, for example, the initFileComponentsEnabled attribute is false, which causes all portlets listed in the portlets properties file to be disabled. To enable any portlet in the list above, change = to +=, such as this:

When you later remove the + sign, the portlet will be disabled along with the other portlets in the list.