Use the IBM Connections Blogs portlet 

The IBM Connections Blogs portlet gives you access to your blogs from within IBM WebSphere Portal.

The Blogs portlet lets you interact with the IBM Connections Blogs feature so you can read or contribute to blogs without leaving the IBM Websphere Portal environment. You can also view and contribute to Ideation Blogs you can access. Ideation blogs, unlike standard blogs, are used to generate and promote ideas in a community.

The portlet has three views, Latest Entries, All Blogs, and My Blogs.

The Latest Entries view displays recent entries and comments posted to blogs. From this view you can:

The All Blogs view lists all blogs for your organization. From this view you can:

The My Blogs view lists blogs for which you are an owner or member. From this view you can:


Parent topic

Use the IBM Connections Plug-in for WebSphere Portal


Personalizing the Blogs portlet

Specify or edit the login name and password you use to access the Blogs service.


About this task

If you do not know the user name and password for accessing an IBM Connections service, consult with your IBM Connections administrator.

To personalize a portlet, do the following:


Procedure

  1. From the Portlet Menu, which is available from the down-arrow icon to the right, select Personalize.

  2. Enter a User Name and Password or update this information if it has changed.

  3. Click OK to save your changes or Cancel to return to the view without saving your changes.

Edit shared settings

Edit the settings shared across all the IBM Connections portlets.


About this task

You must have at least editor access for the page and for the portlet to be able to edit shared settings for Connections features. For more information on access levels, see the WebSphere Portal Information Center. Note that settings you enter on this page can be overridden by settings on the Personalize page for a portlet.

To edit shared settings...


Procedure

  1. From the Portlet Menu, select Edit Shared Settings.

  2. Enter a User Name and Password or update this information if it has changed.

  3. If you want to open a specific blog as the default, rather than the Blogs home page, check the option for Blogs URL and enter the Web address for the blog.

      You specify the blog URL with the following format: http://connections.server.com/blogs/ [blog_handle]. You can obtain this URL by opening the blog in the Connections Web UI and copying the portion of the URL specified above.

  4. Choose which views to display in the portlet.

  5. Click OK to save your changes or Cancel to return to the view without saving your changes.

Configure the portlet

If you are the administrator, you can specify or edit the server addresses for the IBM Connections features.


Before starting

You must have administrative access to the portlet to be able to configure it.


About this task

To configure the portlet...


Procedure

  1. From the Portlet Menu, select Configure.

  2. Specify a Homepage handle for Blogs.

    1. Log into Blogs as the Blogs Administrator.

    2. Click on the Administration tab.

    3. In the Configuration section, check the value set for Handle of blog to serve as Blogs Homepage. This is the Blog Homepage handle. This must be set in order for the Blog portlet to work properly. If the Blogs Homepage blog handle has not been set, please specify the handle of the blog to serve as the Homepage blog.

  3. Specify or change Web address for the Profiles server.

      The Profiles server is used to obtain the profile of the logged in user to determine access to certain actions in the blogs portlet.

  4. Specify the Web address of the server hosting the feature in the associated Service URL field.

      If you do not know the Web address for the feature, refer to the LotusConnections-config.xml file. This file is stored in the following directory of the system that hosts IBM Connections:

      • Windows™:

      • Linux™:

          /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/<profile_name>/config/cells/ 
           <cell_name>/LotusConnections-config/LotusConnections-config.xml 

  5. Optional: Clear the check box for Profile photos for Latest Entries if you don't want author pictures to appear next to blog entries.

  6. Optional: If you do not want to display an icon that users can click to open Connections in a browser window, clear the checkbox for Display icon to launch Connections.

  7. Optional: If you want links to open IBM Connections in a browser window, check Allow links to open Connections in a browser window.

  8. Optional: The option Display page controls only in bottom bar hides the page controls at the top of the window. Clear the checkbox to display paging controls at the top as well as the bottom of the page.

  9. Click Save to save your changes or Cancel to return to the current feature view without saving your changes.

Importing the IBM Connections certificate for your browser

Import the security certificate for IBM Connections to avoid warnings from your browser.


Before starting

In order to view bookmark and activity icons, import a security certificate. If you do not, your browser will put up security alerts when it displays IBM Connections icons.


About this task

Follow the steps for the browser you are using.


Procedure

  1. To install a certificate for Microsoft™ Internet Explorer version 6.x:

    1. Open the Internet Explorer browser and navigate to your Connections Server over https.

        For example: https://connections.acme.com:9443/activities .

    2. Click the Certificate Icon located on the bottom corner of the browser window.

    3. Click Install Certificate.

    4. Follow the steps in the Install Certificate wizard.

        Keep the default settings and respond "Yes" to the security warning.

    5. Follow the installation, log onto the IBM WebSphere Portal server running the IBM Connections portlets and verify you do not get the security warning when you use the Activities or Bookmarks portlets.

  2. To install a certificate for Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7.x:

    1. Open the Internet Explorer browser and navigate to your Connections Server over https.

        For example: https://connections.acme.com:9443/activities .

    2. Click the Certificate Error dropdown next to the Address bar at the top of the browser window.

    3. Click View Certificates.

    4. Click Install Certificate.

    5. Follow the steps in the Install Certificate wizard.

        Keep the default settings and ignore any security warning.

    6. Follow the installation, log onto the IBM WebSphere Portal server running the IBM Connections portlets and verify you do not get the security warning when you use the Activities or Bookmarks portlets.

  3. To install a certificate for Firefox Mozilla version 3x:

    1. Open Firefox Mozilla browser and navigate to your Connections Server over https.

        For example: https://connections.acme.com:9443/activities . You will be prompted with a security warning.

    2. Click the Or you can add an Exception link on the security dialog box.

    3. Click Add Exception.

    4. Click Get Certificate.

    5. Follow the steps in the Install Certificate wizard.

    6. Follow the installation, log onto the IBM WebSphere Portal server running the IBM Connections portlets and verify you do not get the security warning when you use the Activities or Bookmarks portlets.



   

 

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