# Step 1: Start WebLogic Workshop, Open an Application, and Start WebLogic Server

In this step, you will start the development environment for building a portal.

The tasks in this step are:

- Start WebLogic Workshop
- Open the Sample Portal Application
- Start WebLogic Server

Start WebLogic Workshop

- Windows - Choose Start-->Programs-->BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1-->WebLogic Workshop. The start script is located in the <BEA_HOME>/weblogic81/workshop directory.

Open the Sample Portal Application

The portal application you open contains all the necessary portal resources to complete the tutorial. In Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) terms, this application is an enterprise application that contains Web applications and related resources. Each Web application can contain multiple portals.

1. In the WebLogic Workshop menu, choose File-->Open-->Application.
2. In the Open Workshop Application dialog, select the <BEA_HOME>\weblogic81\samples\portal\portalApp\portalApp.work file and click Open.
   The portalApp application directory tree appears in the Application window.

Start WebLogic Server

To develop portals and portal applications in WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Server must be running on your development machine. For this tutorial, you will start the domain server used by the WebLogic Portal samples. The portalApp application you opened in the previous step contains all the necessary server configuration settings. To start WebLogic Server:

- In the WebLogic Workshop menu, choose Tools-->WebLogic Server-->Start WebLogic Server.
  On Windows systems, you can bring up the command window from the Windows task bar to watch the startup progress. When the server starts, the WebLogic Workshop status bar shows the message "Server Running."

Click one of the following arrows to navigate through the tutorial: