Use WebDAV to manage themes and skins

You can use WebDAV for WebSphere Portal to administer portal themes and skins by using the WebDAV standard OS tools. This way you can browse, read, and write themes and skins by using file explorers or editors.

You can work with folders as usual, for example by performing drag-and-drop operations with theme or skin resources. The folders in the administrative WebDAV entry points also contain property files that represent metadata, such as the title and description of the theme or skin. You can edit the property files to update theme and skin metadata. When you save the updated file, the updates are transferred and applied to the portal model directly. The provided folder and file structure is only simulated and is not a real file system structure.

Connect to WebDAV to administer portal themes and skins

The portal contains the WebDAV service and enablement layer. Before using WebDAV for WebSphere Portal, you need to set up WebDAV client. After you have set up the WebDAV client, you can connect to WebDAV and work with portal themes and skins. To connect to WebDAV for administering themes or skins, enter the WebDAV entry URL as follows:

Themes	Connect using WebDAV entry URL... http://server:port/wps/mycontenthandler/dav/themelist/ For a specific theme rather than the full list, add the friendly name, unique name, or object ID of the theme to the URL.
Skins	Connect using WebDAV entry URL... http://server:port/wps/mycontenthandler/dav/skinlist/ For a specific skin rather than the full list, add the friendly name, unique name, or object ID of the skin to the URL.

The WebDAV entry point requires user authentication via HTTP basic authentication. SSL access is not supported at this time. To use WebDAV, users log in to the portal with their portal user ID. Users can then access and work with portal pages according to their access permissions as set by Portal Access Control.

Virtual portals: Themes and skins are not scoped. Therefore you can work only with the themes and skins of a complete portal installation, not with the themes and skins of virtual portals.

Do not use the WebDAV entry point fs-type1 for administering themes and skins. The entry point fs-type1 is used for storing static resources.

If you have problems using the entry point /themelist/, try /themelist/all , as some WebDAV clients have issues with a URL without the appended suffix all .

You can perform the following tasks on the WebDAV themelist and skinlist entry points:

• Browse through the available themes and skins of a portal. Each theme or skin is represented as a folder. The name of the folder is the friendly name of a theme or a skin. Depending on the WebDAV client, this can also be the unique name or the object ID.

• Modify the friendly name of a theme or skin. The friendly name is stored in the metadata attribute com.ibm.portal.friendly.name . However, do not change the name by updating the metadata properties. To update the friendly name, change the name of the theme or skin folder.

• Retrieve globalization information of a theme or skin, such as its title or description. The globalization information is represented by properties files that are contained in the metadata subfolder of a theme or skin folder. Each available locale is represented by a separate file named localized_locale.properties .

• Change globalization information of the theme or skin. To do this, edit and save the related properties file. To create new locale information, you create a new file with the following file name convention: localized_locale.properties . To delete locale information, you delete the related file.

• Retrieve public and non-hidden metadata of a theme or skin. The metadata is contained in a metadata.properties file in the related theme or skin folder. Metadata that starts with the prefix com.ibm.portal is not displayed in this file. This metadata does in fact exist, but it is not exposed through the WebDAV interface. You can use the portal XML configuration interface to modify these metadata values.

• Change metadata of a theme or skin. To do this, you edit and save the metadata.properties file.

• Delete a theme or skin. To do this, delete the folder that represents the theme or skin. When you delete a folder, the artifacts of the folder are not deleted. You must manually delete the artifacts to remove them.

  The related model and all information, such as metadata or globalization information is deleted immediately.

You can perform the following additional tasks for special themes and skins or for themes and skins that you created by using WebDAV:

• Mirror additional resources, for example HTML files, JavaScript files or images in the theme or skin folder. This option is available if the theme has metadata with the parameter com.ibm.portal.theme.template.ref or the skin has the parameter com.ibm.portal.skin.template.ref defined, and the values of these parameters point to the file structure. The resources are mirrored in the theme or skin folder.

• Manage the mirrored resources. To do this, create, modify, or delete additional files in the theme or skin folder. This management option is available only if the reference metatada points to a portal WebDAV file store folder. If you create a new theme or skin by using WebDAV, this metadata points to a related theme or skin folder in the WebDAV file store after you created a new file in the theme or skin. Example: The theme link is generated with the name fs-type1/themes/name_of_the_theme . If you create, modify, or delete files through the entry point themelist , usually a portal restart is required. For working with theme files, use the entry point fs-type1 . For a description of the theme and skin folders in the WebDAV file store fs-type1 refer to Use WebDAV file store for the Page Builder theme and mashup integration.

  If you delete a theme or skin, the related base files in WebDAV are not deleted with it. This means that if you want to delete a theme or skin including the static resources, you need to delete the mirrored files in the WebDAV file store manually. For example, this is required if you want to recreate a theme with the same name as a previously existing theme; if you do not delete the files of the earlier theme, the files that exist from the previous theme are linked to the new theme with the same name.

Limitations of the WebDAV file structure that lists themes and skins

1. The metadata subfolder of a theme or skin allows only globalization information properties files with the following filename convention: localized_locale.properties .

2. The properties files are only simulated. They contain parameters and their values. You cannot save any additional information, for example comments.

3. These entry points do not support the copy action directly. If you encounter an error when you copy and paste theme folders within /themelist, do the following:

   1. Copy the theme folder to local file system.

   2. Give the theme a new title by editing the appropriate localized_locale.properties file under the metadata folder. If you do not change the theme title, the portal will show multiple themes with the same titles in selection lists.

   3. Copy the new folder to the /themelist folder.

Required access control permissions

• Users who want to browse or read the theme or skin WebDAV folder structure including resources need no additional access control permission.

• Users need managing access control rights to perform the following tasks:

  • to manage themes or skins

  • to modify metadata or resources

  • to create, modify, or delete resources in the linked portal WebDAV file store theme and skin folders.

• To give users the access rights for these tasks assign the users MANAGER role on the virtual resource THEME MANAGEMENT in Portal Access Control.

Design a site using Page Builder themes and skins

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Related reference

Use WebDAV file store for the Page Builder theme and mashup integration

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