You can test one or more portlet projects locally using a WebSphere® Portal Test Environment.
In this scenario, the server runs against the resources that are in the workspace. Therefore, you can add, change, or remove a resource from the portlet project and the server will pick up these changes without being restarted or republished.
When you test a portlet on the local test environment server, the default theme and skin are used. To use a customized theme or skin, refer to Customizing portal sites
When portlets are published to a test environment server, a Test Environment page is created. Each portlet is placed on its own page under the Test Environment page. Each portlet page has the same name as the associated portlet project.
To test a portlet project on a local server: