Portal structure
WebSphere portal is composed of a hierarchical structure of nodes, starting from the content root.
The following types of nodes exist...
- page
- 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 we 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. This is only a partial list.
- Home
- A label containing the Welcome and Getting Started pages. By default, this is the first page displayed after login.
- Administration
- A label containing pages with portlets used by portal administrators. A link is provided on the Welcome page and also in the Main Menu to allow users with administrative privileges to access this content. For more information, refer to Portal administration portlets.
- Embedded product site areas
- These labels are children of content root. They contain pages and portlets that relate to specific functions or products available in portal. They are peers of the Home and Administration labels, and they are accessible via the Launch Main Menu icon in the portal theme. Each site area contains a Welcome page that describes the function or product as well as one or more content pages that show the function or capabilities of the site area. Examples of the site areas that are shipped with portal are: News, Documents, Messaging, Domino Integration, Personalization, Search, and Templates.
- Utility pages
- These pages are hidden from the portal navigation and not rendered in the theme. They are accessed programmatically by explicitly creating URLs to call them, for example through page context menus to edit page properties or layout. Some commonly used utility pages are:
- 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 the page menu available on the tab. To see the drop-down menu, place the mouse pointer anywhere on the tab.
- 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 the Manage Pages portlet in Administration or from the drop-down menu on the page tab. To see the drop-down menu, place the mouse pointer anywhere on the tab.
The portal navigation trees are collapsed by default, except for Administration, where this setting is overwritten to be expanded. We can configure the default state of the portal navigation trees to expand all nodes by setting the Portal Configuration Service property navigation.expansion.defaultstate to true. For details about the portal service configuration and how to set configuration properties refer to Portal service configuration.
Related information
- Users and groups
- Manage Access Control
- Adding custom links to the toolbar
- Language support
- Portal administration portlets
- Cooperative portlets
Parent topic:
Manage pages, layout, and content