Portal structure

 

Before making changes to the portal pages, it is helpful to understand the structure of the portal. The portal is composed of a hierarchical structure of nodes that can be represented in a parent-child relationship, starting from the content root of the portal. A node is an addressable element in the portal navigation tree belonging to one of the following types:

page

Pages display content in the form of portlets. Pages can contain child nodes, including other pages that provide content. A page can contain column containers, row containers, and portlets. Containers are columns or rows that you can use to arrange the layout of portlets or other containers on the page.

label

Labels do not display any content, but can contain other nodes. They are used primarily to group nodes in the navigation.

URL

URLs can launch any URL-addressable resource, including external Web sites or pages within the portal site.

Nodes are located in a level of the navigation hierarchy relative to the parent node in which they are created. The topmost node in the tree is the content root. After installation, the following nodes are created under the content root.

  • My Portal

    A label containing prepackaged portlets for general business or productive use. By default, this is the first page displayed after login.

  • Page Customizer

    A label containing child pages with portlets for manage page content and layout. Direct access to this node is hidden from navigation. Instead, the portlets in the page customizer are accessed through context-sensitive links in the portal toolbar.

  • Administration

    A label containing pages with portlets used by portal administrators. A link is provided in the banner to allow users with administrative privileges to access this content.

  • Page Properties

    A page containing the Properties portlet, used for editing the properties of a page, such as locale-specific titles and description. This page is always hidden from navigation. It is accessed through context-sensitive links in the toolbar or from the Manage Pages portlet in Administration.

  • Organize Favorites

    A page containing the Organize Favorites portlet, which allows users to create, edit, activate, order, and delete labels and URLs. Access is provided through the My Favorites drop-down list in the banner.

By default, users without administrative privileges can only access nodes under the My Portal node. Users with administrative privileges can use links in the toolbar to toggle between Administration and My Portal. If other nodes are created directly under the content root, links to these nodes are not seen unless they are specifically added to one of the theme JSPs.

 

See also