Customize pages

 

Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Access the Page Customizer
  3. Edit layout and content
  4. Set Permissions
  5. Set appearance of portlets
  6. Set up wires
  7. Choose themes and skins
  8. Show tools
  9. Context-sensitive tasks
  10. See also

 

Overview

The page customizer contains portlets for editing the layout, content, and appearance of pages. It also provides the Wires portlet, which allows users to set up connections between cooperative portlets on a page. You can configure the settings for these portlets to show a certain set of functions, restricting basic users from performing more advanced tasks.

Editing a shared page can have different results, depending on the role assigned to the user editing the page.

  • Users with the Editor role for a page can make changes that affect all users of the page.

  • Users with the Privileged User role for a page can only make changes to a private copy, or layer, of the page. The changes do not affect the other users of the page. The page must have an initial layout with at least one container before users with the Privileged User role can make any changes to the page.

  • Users with the User role for a page cannot edit the page at all.

A page is deactivated when you start making changes to it. While editing the page, all changes are effective immediately and cannot be undone or cancelled. Other users will not be able to access the page and icons that launch the edit mode of portlets on the page are deactivated until you commit the changes by clicking Done.

 

Access the Page Customizer

By default, the Page Customizer is hidden. However, users can access portlets in the Page Customizer through one of the following methods.

  • Navigate to the page you want to change and select New Page from the portal toolbar. The Edit Layout portlet opens the current page for editing.

  • After creating a new page, you are directed to the Edit Layout portlet to edit the layout and content of the new page. Other portlets in the Page Customizer are available if you have appropriate access.

 

Edit layout and content

The Edit Layout portlet allows you to define the layout and content of a portal page. This portlet is located on the Content page in the Page Customizer.

Use the following methods to access this portlet to edit the layout and content.

  • Navigate to the page you want to change and select Edit Page from the portal toolbar. The Edit Layout portlet opens the current page for editing.

  • Select New Page from the portal toolbar. After creating the new page, you are directed to the Edit Layout portlet.

Some of the options you can select on the page include:

Layout template You can select from one of several preconfigured page layouts.
Add portlets Allows you to select portlets from a list that you can add to containers on the page. This might require that you enter search criteria for portlets rather than listing all available portlets.
Show layout tools Shows advanced layout tools for creating and editing page containers. This options overrides the preconfigured layout templates.

If the Show layout tools option is not displayed by the Edit Layout portlet, you can display it by clicking the edit icon and checking the option, Show toggle link for "Show layout tools/hide layout tools".

 

Set Permissions

Use the Locks portlet to set permissions for moving containers or content, or for deleting portlets. This allows you to lock content to certain locations on a page. If a user has appropriate access rights, the user can determine what other users are able to do with a page. Any element on the page, such as a row container, a column container, or a portlet, can be locked or unlocked for many variations that give a user control of what can be modified. On a page where content and layout should be preserved, both can be locked, preventing other users from altering the arrangement of containers or portlets on the page.

To lock or unlock content on a page, access the Page Customizer and select the Locks portlet.

Notes:

  • If you want to lock a portlet so that a user cannot delete it from the page, also lock the parent container and the content of the parent container.
  • The locks specified for a certain page do not apply to users with editor role on that page.
  • Be aware of the effect that locks and access permissions can have on pages that inherit content from a shared page.

For additional information, see the help for Locks.

 

Set appearance of portlets

Skins represent the border around a portlet, including its title bar. Users with appropriate access can select skins for individual portlets using the Appearance portlet of the page customizer.

To set a skin for portlets, access the Page Customizer and select the Appearance portlet. See the portlet help for further information.

 

Set up wires

The Portlet Wiring Tool allows you to configure connections, or wires, between cooperative portlets. Cooperative portlets can exchange information, or properties, with each other through the property broker. Properties are exchanged either by prompting the user with a Click-to-Action menu or automatically using preconfigured wires. As a result, portlets on the page can react in an integrated and unified manner to the user's actions.

The Portlet Wiring tool can be accessed by clicking through...

Edit Page | Wires

Set up wires between portlets allow users' transfer selection choices to be saved. The wire may be used to automatically transfer properties to target portlets when specific interactions are performed without displaying the pop-up menu prompting the user for more information. Portlet Wiring Tool allows you to view the properties that portlets on the page can send or receive. If a match is available between two portlets, you can create a wire between the two portlets. Existing wires may also be deleted using the tool.

As an alternative to the Portlet Wiring Tool, wires can also be creating interactively in the portlet. Users with sufficient permissions can create wires by holding the Ctrl key and clicking an icon or hotspot in the portlet. A dialog is displayed that allows the user to create a wire to other portlets on the page.

The wiring tool allows wires to be created in situations which are not handled by the interactive approach. For example, the tool does not require the existence of Click-to-Action menus to initiate wire creation, and can be used to create multiple wires from a single source property (using the interactive approach, a single source can be wired to a single target or all targets, not an arbitrary subset). Wire creation or deletion is subject to the access control checks as described below.

In order to view the tool itself, users must possess at least "User" role permissions on the page and the portlet. Further access checks are performed before allowing the user to view, create, or delete wires between portlets. The user must possess at least "User" role permissions on a page and the wired portlets on it to be able to view wires for the page. Users may also be able to create or delete personal wires, which affect their view of the page, or create or delete global wires, which affect all users' view of the page. Users must possess at least "Privileged User" role permissions on the page and "User" permissions on the portlets to be able to create or delete personal wires, while at least "Editor" role permissions are required on the page and "User" permissions on the portlets to be able to create or delete global wires.

 

Choose themes and skins

A theme determines the global appearance of a page. The purpose of this is to ensure visual consistency. Themes affect the navigational structure, the banner, the colors and fonts, the available portlet skins, and other visual elements of a page. A skin determines the frame that is displayed around a portlet.

Use the Themes and Skins portlet to do the following:

  • Set the portal default theme

  • Set the portal default skin

  • Associate skins with a theme

  • Set the default skin for a theme

  • Add new themes and skins to the portal

  • Delete themes and skins from the portal.

You find this portlet under Administration, Portal User Interface.

See the respective portlet helps for additional instructions.

For more details about themes and skins see Layout of the portal page.

When a theme is removed, all references from pages that have previously been set to this theme are deleted. When a skin is removed, all references to a page or portlet that have previously been set to this skin are deleted.

Notes:

  1. If you remove a theme, the references to that theme and the links between that theme and the related skins are also deleted. If you want to remove the skins related to the removed theme as well, apply special care to remove only skins that are related to no other theme than the deleted one. The skins are associated to the portlets. Therefore, if you have a skin related to several themes, and you delete one of those themes, then the skin will still show under the other themes.

  2. Delete a theme or skin does not remove the /theme or /skin directory from the server.

  3. Some of the theme and skin titles might not appear correctly if your language preference uses DBCS characters. To correct the display of these titles, change the character set used by your language preference for HTML markup to UTF-8.

 

Show tools

The portal banner can display an icon that toggles the display of additional controls in the portlet title bar or page tabs. The additional controls allow users to move portlets or delete them from the page or to edit the page itself. The additional portlet controls and page edit icons are not visible all the time. They only appear on the screen if the user clicked the icon. The portlet controls are displayed only if the user has a User role on the portlet and the Privileged User role on the page. The page control is displayed only if the user has the Privileged User role on the page.

In addition to access rights, settings in the Page Locks portlet can affect whether users can move or delete content in a container.

Clicking the edit icon for a page allows users to change the layout and content of the page. After completing this task, users return to the page from which they launched the edit.

 

Context-sensitive tasks

WebSphere Portal provides context-sensitive links in the toolbar that allow users to perform tasks for the page from which they click the link. These links are added to each theme so that users can access these tasks from any point of origin in the portal. Only those links the user can use are shown. The following links are provided by default:

  • New Page

    Allows the user to create a page that belongs to the same parent as the page from which the task is launched.

  • Edit page

    Allows the user to edit properties or the layout and content of the page from which the task is launched.

  • Assign permissions

    Allows a user with Security Administrator role for the page to open the Resource Permissions portlet for that page.

After completing the task, the user is returned to the original page.

 

See also

 

WebSphere is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

 

IBM is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.