Display Profile Properties

The display profile properties are contained in a properties “bag.” A bag is simply a grouping mechanism for display profile entities such as channels, providers, and properties. The property itself does not have a properties bag associated with it.

You can associate properties with the following display profile objects:

• <Properties> definition

• <Provider> definition

• <Channel> definition

• <Container> definition

There are four basic categories of properties; they are:

Global

Global properties are accessible to all channels. You set global properties, which are shared by all channels, in the <Properties> </Properties> definition. Themes are an example of a global property. You define the theme data globally to share it among all channels. See “Display Profile Global Properties” on page 46 for more information.

Do not use global properties as defaults for all channels. Instead, use the <Provider> definition, as it sets the property interface used by the provider object that will use the <Provider> definition.

Provider

Provider properties serve two purposes:

• They define a property template or schema, defining the properties that will be used by all channels based on the provider.

• The specific values in the provider serve as default values for channels.

If the property is not defined in channels based on this provider, the default value is used. If the default value is overridden by setting the value within the channel definition, then that value is used. By customizing a provider’s property values, you can customize all channels that the provider generates.

Channel

Channel properties are available to the channel in which that properties are associated with. By customizing an individual channel’s properties, you customize that particular channel.

Properties set in the <Provider> definitions are defaults for channels based on that provider. Properties set in <Channel> definitions override the defaults in the provider definition to customize the channel. For example, URLScaperProvider defines a url property. A default does not make sense here, thus a channel would naturally override this value.

Container

Containers are simply channels that generate the majority of their content by executing other channels (or containers). Many of the properties defined for containers pertain to how to gather and arrange content from other channels. For example, properties set in the <Container> definition can describe how to display the contained channels in the container, including: the layout of the container (thin-wide, wide-thin, or thin-wide-thin), a list of the contained channels, the position of the channel (the row and column number), and the window state of the contained channels (maximized, minimized, or detached).

Lower priority display profile documents can overwrite properties of higher priority display profile documents using merge locking. That is, the lock stops the merge on a particular property or value. See Chapter 17, Merge Semantics for a complete discussion of the semantics of the display profile merging.