Create static content for your portal
WebSphere Portal allows you to include static content in the portal.
Web designers can create a portal page using HTML editors or text editors. Knowledge of JSP is not required. There is more control over the layout of the page vs the portal layout model.
You can include portlets as dynamic elements and containers as placeholders for portlets in your pages. You can display these portlets using server side aggregation, AJAX, or iFrame techniques.
You can update an existing static page by uploading a modified HTML file while preserving the portlet customization on that page.
Static pages can be rendered in the portal by the following two ways:
- As standalone Web pages that control the complete browser area.
- As part of the portal content area. In this case the portal still controls the banner and navigation area.
Manage static content pages using portal administration tools.
You can use portlet communication with static pages, for example by wires.
- Make required changes in the HTML file
- Replace the portal page with the updated page using the Manage Pages portlet.
You provide national language support by bundling localized markup files into the a ZIP file, together with the HTML file that defines the static content.
At rendering time the portal globalization algorithms decide which locale will be rendered, based on the request, on settings, and on the locals that are available.
The portal defines a set of microformats for skins and portlet actions such as configuring the portlet settings, portlet communication, and navigation for rendering. These microformats are designed to be styled by CSS that the static page author provides.
Static pages can include drag and drop actions. These actions are defined via a microformat. Users with the appropriate access rights can drag and drop UI elements, such as portlets or pages.
You provide JS, CSS, or image files for static pages by bundling them into a ZIP file, together with the HTML file that defines the static content. These resources can then be referenced via relative links from the static page template.
You can have static pages rendered by server side aggregation or by client side aggregation.
Use skins and other graphic features with static content: When you write a static page and include it in the portal, the portal can render the page itself, but not with the visual features that you might have configured for your portal. For example, you cannot encode skins within static pages. When the portal renders such a page, portlets on the page are rendered without a skin. To have portlets on static pages rendered with a skin, you use CSS style sheets or JavaScript that later utilize the microformats at rendering time.
The following topics describe how you create static pages in HTML, and what features use.
When you have written the static page, you can include it in the portal using the Manage Pages portlet.Decision point: After you have included a page in the portal, you cannot change the page from static content to standard portal layout or from standard portal layout to static content. To change the page type after you have created it, you need to delete the existing page and create a new page of the required type.
Terminology
- Static layout
- The layout of a page that is based on a plain HTML page that may contain references to portlets. This is in contrast to the default representation of a dynamic portal page layout which is defined structurally in the database and managed by the page customizer.
- Static page
- A portal page that references a static layout. A static page can be part of the portal page topology (content model and navigation model) at any place.
Apart from the rendering, it behaves like a default portal page, for example with regards to Portal Access Control)
- Embedded Static Page
- A static page that is rendered in the content area of the portal. The portal engine renders banner, footer and navigation, but the content is exclusively rendered by the static layout
- Standalone Static Page
- A static page that renders the complete browser content. It is served by the portal servlet but as exclusive control over the complete page
- Dynamic Layout
- Standard portal layout that consists of rows or columns and is persisted in the database.
See
Include static content in the portal
Define and render a static portal page in HTML
Parent topic
Designing a portal site