Deriving More Desktop Layouts

The Desktop Layout page provides a way for users to set the arrangement of the channels by moving them up or down, and right or left. The Desktop Layout page also provides users with the option to set column layout, where they can arrange columns by channel width.

Channel widths are defined as thin, wide, full_top, and full_bottom. A thin channel takes less Desktop area than a wide channel. A full_top channel spans the entire Desktop width above all the other channels. A full_bottom channel spans the entire Desktop width below all other channels. The available layouts, which use different combinations of channel widths, are:

thin-wide

Two columns

wide-thin

Two columns

thin-wide-thin

Three columns

full_top

One column spans the width of the Desktop at the top of the page

full_bottom

One column spans the width of the Desktop at the bottom of the page

You can derive more Desktop layouts from the existing layouts by modifying display profile properties and the JSPs for the table container, when one of the contained channel’s width is specified as either full_top or full_bottom.

For example, you could come up with the following:

full_top-thin-wide/full_top-wide-thin/full_top-thin-wide-thin
thin-wide-full_bottom
fulltop-thin-wide-full_bottom

The fulltop-thin-wide-full_bottom layout is a combination of the first two with full_top at the top and full_bottom at the bottom.

To do so involves modifying the appropriate display profile. That is, to derive more desktop layouts, use the appropriate display profile for the desired layout. After making a change to the display profile, load the display profile into LDAP by using the psadmin subcommand.

To use a full_top-thin-wide/full_top-wide-thin/full_top-thin-wide-thin layout, modify a channel’s width in the display profile as follows:

<Channel name="Search" provider="SearchProvider">
	<Properties>
		<String name="title" value="Search"/>
		<String name="description" value="This is a search provider example" />
		<String name="searchServer" value=""/>
		<String name=”width” value=”full_top”/>
	</Properties>
</Channel>

To use a thin-wide-full_bottom layout, modify a channel’s width in the display profile as follows:

<Channel name="Search" provider="SearchProvider">
	<Properties>
		<String name="title" value="Search"/>
		<String name="description" value="This is a search provider example" />  
		<String name="searchServer" value=""/>
		<String name="width" value="full_bottom"/>
	</Properties>
</Channel>

To use a full_top-thin-wide-full_bottom layout, modify the width of one of the channels as full_bottom and one of the other channels as full_top in the display profile.