8.5 Placing One Page Onto Another

Oracle Portal provides ways to place one page onto another:

  • Publish the page as a portlet

  • Display the page through the Page portlet

When you publish a page as a portlet, it is accessible from the Portlet Repository where it can be selected for placement on other portal pages. When you use the portlet named Page, you can display any page—even one that has not been published as a portlet.

Both of these are ways to share content on multiple pages simultaneously while having only one page to maintain.

This section describes how to publish a page as a portlet and display a page through the Page portlet. It contains the following subsections:

8.5.1 Publishing a Page as a Portlet

Publishing a page as a portlet makes it accessible from the Portlet Repository, where it can be selected for placement on other portal pages. In default portal installations, you can find pages published as portlets under the Published Portal Content node of the Portlet Repository.

You can publish the following types of pages as portlets:

  • Navigation pages

  • Standard pages

  • Custom pages based on the Standard page type

To publish a page as a portlet:

  1. Log in to Oracle Portal.

  2. Click the Build tab to bring it forward.

  3. From the Page Groups portlet Work In drop down list, select the page group that owns the page to be published as a portlet.

    In default portal installations, the Page Groups portlet is located on the Build tab of the Portal Builder page.

  4. In the Layout & Appearance section, under the Pages heading, click the link to the page to be published as a portlet.

    This opens the page in Edit mode.

  5. Click the Page: Properties link in the toolbar a the top of the page.

  6. On the resulting page, click the Optional tab to bring it forward.

  7. In the Publish as Portlet section, select Publish As Portlet.

  8. Select Use Style Of Page On Which Portlet Is Placed, if you want the portlet to use the style that is applied the target page rather than its own applied style.

    If you do not select this check box, the page portlet uses its own applied style (see the following Note). An exception to this is when the source page is provided through the Federated Portal Adapter. In such cases, the setting to use the style of the containing page is ignored. The page portlet uses whatever style is applied to its source.

    Note:

    Regardless of whether a page portlet or navigation page uses its source page's style, once the page portlet or navigation page is placed on a page, its headers and borders always use the style of the target page. This is true even if you do not select the Use Style Of Page On Which Portlet Is Placed option on the source page.

    If you do not care to use the target page's header and border colors on a page portlet or navigation page, you can turn off the display of headers and borders at the region level on the target page. If the page portlet or navigation page also contains its own portlets, you must also turn off the display of headers and borders for portlet regions on the source page.

    To ensure that a page portlet or navigation page uses its own background color, rather than the one specified for its host page:

    1. Do not select the option Use Style Of Page On Which Portlet Is Placed for the page or navigation page that you are publishing as a portlet.

    2. In the style used by the target page, clear any value from the Portlet Body Color style element and click Apply.

  9. To use a heading for the portlet other than its source page's display name, enter the heading in the Portlet Display Name field.

    By default, the page display name is displayed in the portlet header.

  10. Click OK to save your changes and return to the page.

The portlet is published to the Portlet Repository. Use the Search feature in the repository to search for the portlet display name. You can also find it by clicking the Published Portal Content node, then the page group name to drill down through the repository to your new page portlet.

Note:

Edit the page portlet's default settings to hide any unwanted page portlet regions. In page edit mode, click the page portlet's Edit Defaults icon.

8.5.2 Displaying a Page Through the Page Portlet

Use Page portlets to display the content of any page, even though the page has not been published as a portlet.

  1. Log in to Oracle Portal.

  2. Click the Build tab to bring it forward.

  3. From the Page Groups portlet Work In drop down list, select the page group that owns the page on which to place the Page portlet.

    In default portal installations, the Page Groups portlet is located on the Build tab of the Portal Builder page.

  4. In the Layout & Appearance section, under the Pages heading, click the link to the page on which to place the Page portlet.

    This opens the page in Edit mode.

  5. Go to the region in which to add the Page portlet, and click the Add Portlet icon (Figure 8-3).

    Figure 8-3 Add Portlet Icon

    Add Portlet icon

    This opens the Portlet Repository.

  6. In the Portlet Respository, enter page in the Search field, and click Go.

  7. In the search results list, click the Page portlet to add it to the Selected Portlets list, and click OK.

  8. While still in Edit mode, click the Edit Defaults icon for the Page portlet (Figure 8-4).

    Figure 8-4 The Edit Defaults Icon

    Edit Defaults icon
  9. On the Edit Page Portlet Defaults page, click the List icon next to the Page field (Figure 8-5).

    Figure 8-5 The List Icon

    List icon
  10. On the resulting page, locate the page to display through the Page portlet, and click the Return Object link next to it.

    Drill down to a page by clicking the Expand icon next to the page's parent page or page group.

  11. Under Page Regions, select from:

    • Display All Regions, to display all the regions on the selected page.

    • Display Selected Regions, to display only those regions whose check box you select in the page model.

      When the page displayed through a Page portlet has sub-pages with different layouts, and you navigate to those pages through the Page portlet, the Display Selected Regions setting is ignored for the sub-pages.

  12. To display an Edit link on the page that is displayed through the Page portlet, select the Display Edit Link check box.

    Displaying an Edit link enables privileged users to edit the page in place, that is, within the Page portlet. Changes made to the page through the Page portlet, are made simultaneously to the source page. For example, if you delete an item from the page through the Page portlet, the item is also deleted from the source page.

    Page portlets support View mode and minimal Edit mode. This means you can perform only a limited set of operations on the page when you edit it through the Page portlet. This also limits the various Edit mode views. For example, the Page portlet provides no Pending Items Preview edit mode. Consequently, users with the page privilege Manage Items With Approval cannot see items with the status Pending when they view the page through the Page portlet.

    Such users can edit the source page or add the My Approval Status portlet to the same page as the Page portlet. Users can use the My Approval Status portlet to track the progress of pending items. All the items that are not otherwise visible in the Page portlet are visible in the My Approval Status portlet until they are approved or published.

    For information on which users can view items in what state, see Section 17.9.3, "Item URL Security".

  13. Click OK to save your changes and return to the page.

Note:

The Page portlet includes a parameter that, if used, requires a value in the format PAGEGROUPID_PAGEID. To make use of this on a regular container page, you must either:
  • Assign a constant value, such as 6_1, directly to the Page portlet's parameter.

  • Create a page parameter mapped to the Page portlet's parameter, then assign a value, such as 6_1, to the page parameter.

To obtain values for PAGEGROUPID and PAGEID, enter page Edit mode and display page properties by clicking the Page Properties icon in the toolbar at the top of the page.

When the Page parameter is specified, it overrides the page selection you made at step 10 or on the Personalize Page Portlet page. If the Page parameter is specified, any page you select when you Edit Defaults/Personalize the Page portlet are ignored.

8.5.3 Selecting Page Portlet Regions for Display

When you publish a page as a portlet, you are not restricted to displaying all regions on the source page. Once you place the portlet on a page, you can edit its default settings to specify which regions from the page portlet's source page to display.

When you choose to display selected regions, the setting applies only to the page for which you make your selection. This becomes relevant when you display selected regions on a Page portlet. For example, imagine that you publish a page through a Page portlet. The page includes a Sub-Page Links region. Within the Page portlet, when you use the Sub-Page Links region to navigate from the selected page to its sub-pages, the Display Selected Regions setting is ignored and all regions display. The Display Selected Regions setting is enforced again when you navigate back to the originally selected page through the Page portlet.

To select page portlet regions for display:

  1. Log in to Oracle Portal.

  2. Go to the page that contains the page portlet.

    For information on locating a page, see Section 8.1, "Locating Pages in Oracle Portal".

    If you do not see the page that you want to work with, you may not have the appropriate page access privileges. See your page group administrator to gain access.

  3. Click the Edit link at the top of the page.

    This displays the page in Edit mode.

  4. In page Edit mode, click the page portlet's Edit Defaults icon (Figure 8-6).

    Figure 8-6 Page Portlet Edit Defaults Icon

    Edit Defaults icon
  5. Select Display Selected Regions.

  6. Select only those regions that should be displayed in the page portlet.

  7. Click OK.

Note:

If a Page portlet or a page that has been published as a portlet displays blank, it is likely that the portlet was edited or personalized to display a restricted number of the source page's regions. Then some change was made that broke the rule of restriction, for example, regions were added or removed from the source page's underlying template, or you navigated to a sub-page with a different region layout.

No matter the cause, you can resolve this situation by editing or personalizing the Page portlet, and selecting to Display All Regions.