Creating static content for the portal

WebSphere Portal allows you to create pages with portal content by using static HTML or other markup. Working with static content pages has the following advantages:

• You or your Web designers can create a portal page by using standard Web authoring tools. This can be HTML editors or even simple text editors. Creating an HTML portal page requires no knowledge of JSP.

• You have more control over the layout of the page than by using 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 by 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.

• You can deploy and manage your static content pages by using any of the portal administration tools.

• You can use portlet communication with static pages, for example by wires.

Compared to dynamic content pages based on the portal container model, static HTML pages also have the following characteristics :

• You create and administer static pages similarly as other portal pages. Some steps and options differ. For details, refer to the user interface and the portlet help of the Manage Pages portlet and its subportlets.

• To update a static page, you make the required changes in the HTML file, then you replace the portal page with the updated page by using the Manage Pages and Properties portlets or other portal administration tools. You can use the portal Page Customizer to update the static page layout if the static page contains portlet containers defined by the portlet container microformat.

• 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 easily 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.

• Using 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 the 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 you can use. When you have written the static page, you can include it in the portal by 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, delete the existing page and create a new page of the required type.

When a static page uses the Tab Menu - Page Builder theme, users can change the style of the page, but they cannot change the layout of the page or add content to it.

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.

• Defining and rendering a static portal page in HTML

  To include a new static portal page in the portal, first create an HTML file.

Parent topic:

Designing a portal site

Related tasks

Include static content pages in the portal

---