Customize shared resources for notifications
We can customize the common style and structure documents used by notifications in Connections.
Important: Before making any customizations, first back up the original notifications folder. In addition, ensure that any customized files are backed up before performing a product upgrade or applying a cumulative refresh or fix pack, as we might need to merge the changes again manually after making updates.
The notifications used in Connections share common style and structure documents, and are stored in the same location, allowing you to write the customizations once for all notifications, except for email digests. For information about customizing the daily and weekly email digests sent to users, see Customize email digests.
We can customize notifications in Connections by updating the shared resources stored at this location:
app_server_root/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/cell-name/LotusConnections-config/notifications/resources
Resource Description images Folder containing all the shared images referenced in templates. nls Folder containing all localized strings shared between templates. commonEEStructure.ftl Template used for generating the Embedded Application MIME part. commonHeader.ftl Used in templates to import common .ftl files into scope. Uses acquisition look-up. commonStructure.ftl Holds the main FreeMarker macros and functions that make up the individual notification components. For example, action, metadata, header, and footer. commonStyle.ftl One CSS style file used in all individual notification templates. commonUrlUtil.ftl Specific utility functions for URL link handling. Contains the linkify function. commonUtil.ftl Provide a common set of utility functions.
Note on Freemarker acquisition: The template files that exist in the resources folder can also be stored in the notifications folders for specific applications. For example, to customize Activities templates, you place commonStyle.ftl at the following location:
app_server_root/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/cell-name/LotusConnections-config/notifications/activities/resources
Saving the style file in this location allows the Activities templates to pick up different styles that override the default shared ones. Acquisition look-up ensures that templates are imported to a directory that is local to the currently generated template. If the templates do not exist, the parent folders are scanned and the templates from the shared resources folder are loaded. Similarly, the images and nls resources can be stored in a directory that is local to an application folder. The notification framework ensures that local resources are checked and used first before checking the shared resources location.
To customize the content of a shared resource, complete one or more of the following steps.
- To customize the existing template files:
- Make the customizations to the templates as needed. For information about editing the templates, refer to the FreeMarker documentation on the following web page:
http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/docs/index.html
The FreeMarker version currently used is 2.3.15.
- Save the changes and then close the files.
- Synchronize all the nodes using the IBM WAS console.
- Synchronize all the nodes using the WAS console.
- To edit the text strings used in the notifications:
- Use a text editor, open the notification_language_code.properties files in the following directory, and make the changes:
app_server_root/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/cell_name/LotusConnections-config/notifications/resources/nls
where language_code is the locale of the language. For example, notification_fr.properties.
To see where each string that we are editing is used, look at the .ftl template files in the same directory, and check the statements with the following format:
u.resource("key")
where key is the key of a translated string in the resource bundle notification_language_code.properties files. Note the notification framework will look in the local application resource folder before moving to the shared strings in the shared resources folder.
- Save the changes and then close the files.
- Synchronize all the nodes using the WAS console.
- Stop and restart the News application.
- To customize the images used in notifications:
- Locate the images in...
app_server_root/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/cell_name/LotusConnections-config/resources/images
- Replace any image to customize with our own version using the same file name. The images are sent as MIME attachments to each email digest, so ensure the image size is small.
- Synchronize all the nodes using the WAS console.
- Stop and restart the News application.
- To customize notifications for a specific application:
- Move the resource to customize from the location app_server_root/profiles/Dmgr01/config/cells/cell-name/LotusConnections-config/notifications/resources to the resources folder contained in the application-specific notifications folder. For example, notifications/activities/resources.
- Save the changes and then close the files.
- Synchronize all the nodes using the WAS console.
- Stop and restart the News application.
Parent topic:
Customize notifications
Related: