Work with portal navigation
Learn how to implement navigation in a portal theme. You should be familiar with the portal structure, the Page Customizer, and the Managing Pages portlet.
If you are using the Page Builder theme, please note that:
The theme that is shipped with WebSphere Portal provides buttons (for example, Main Menu) and other navigational aids to let you access various screens (for example, Login and Administration). The theme also provides navigation to nodes in the portal hierarchy of the home page, breadcrumb trails, and Quick Links.
- The information in this section for implementing portal navigation is not completely applicable to the Page Builder theme. The Page Builder theme implements portal navigation using the Navigation and Breadcrumb widgets. There are two instances of the Navigation widget in the Page Builder theme, one for banner and another for tab level, and one instance of the Breadcrumb widget.
- The Page Builder theme does not use side navigation. Therefore, if a user of a portal with the Tab Menu - Page Builder theme hides the top navigation, for example by selecting SideNavOnly and turning the theme style into side navigation only, then the navigation will disappear.
- The Implementing a single level of navigation and Implementing side navigation subsections are not applicable to the Page Builder theme. The Create custom links to portlets and pages subsection may, however, still be useful when using the Page Builder theme.
Quick Links can be used to access major areas of a portal site. Quick Links are also accessible from any location within the site, and you can customize them for the portal. Quick Links are displayed at the bottom of the site and can be customized as well as provide one-click access to major areas of the site.
In conjunction with the theme, the theme policy assigned to a page either through the Page Context Menu's Edit Page Properties, Managing Pages' Edit Page Properties or the XML configuration interface is used to help control the display. Depending on a page's theme policy, some of these items will or will not be displayed. Theme Policy will also control if page links will be located on the top or side of the page.
The nodes in this hierarchy can be described by the number of levels below the content root in which they are placed. After installation, the portal theme along with the theme policy control how these nodes are displayed. The following JSPF files handle navigation within the portal:
Navigation levels are designated by the startLevel and stopLevel attributes of the <portal-navigation:navigation/> tag. The JSPFs that are provided by WebSphere Portal do not provide access to all level 1 nodes. Therefore, nodes that are created directly under content root cannot be accessed unless a direct link is created using the <portal-navigation: URLGeneration/> tag.
- banner_crumbtrail.jspf – Uses the selection model API. Provides a quick way to move back to previous selected nodes. The rendering of the breadcrumb trail is controlled by the theme policy value renderBreadCrumb. The number of trails listed is controlled by the theme policy value breadCrumbMaxLevels.
- footer.jspf – Controls the quick links. Initial OOB links are provided. The rendering of quick links is controlled by the theme policy value renderFavorites.
- mainmenu.jspf – Handles the main menu. The rendering of the main menu is controlled by the theme policy value renderMainMenu. The nodes listed are based on the theme policy values rootNavigationStartLevel and rootNavigationStopLevel.
- sideNav.jspf - Displays page links at the side of the site. The nodes displayed are controlled by the theme policy value topNavigationStartLevel and topNavigationStopLevel.
- topNav.jspf – Displays page links at the top of the site. The nodes displayed are controlled by the theme policy value topNavigationStartLevel and topNavigationStopLevel.
The <portal-navigation:navigation/> tag is used to create the navigation menu. The content of this tag includes internal Java scriptlets that should not be modified. You can, however, customize the navigation by changing images, HTML and JSP tags, and the classes in themeStyles.jspf.
- Implementing a single level of navigation
- Implementing side navigation
- Create custom links to portlets and pages
Parent
Customize the portal
Portal style classes
Use JSTL tags in the portal JSPs
Related tasks
Import a theme
Deploy the theme
Create a new skin
Enable automatic JSP reloading
Add support for new clients
Add support for new markup languages
Change banner text
Work with Page Builder
Use the color palette in themes
Performance guidelines for themes and skins
Submitted by siva r vaka on Feb 17, 2011 5:52:32 PM Re: Working with portal navigation: wp7
sideNav.jspf - Displays page links at the side of the site. The nodes displayed are controlled by the theme policy value topNavigationStartLevel and topNavigationStopLevel.
Is this statement correct?