Configuration Guide for Siebel Offline Client for Life Sciences > Overview of the Offline Client for Life Sciences >

Offline Client for Life Sciences User Interface

The user interface of the Offline Client for Life Sciences consists of metadata that defines the specific information and content displayed in a given application page, and the display-layout definition within its component applications, for example, the Sales application. The Offline Client for Life Sciences combines the information content definition and the display-layout definition with data from the local database to display the user interface at run time.

The user interface consists of a series of related containers and definitions:

• Application. The top-level container for the Offline Client for Life Sciences application, for example, the Sales application. Each container defines the pages available in the Sales application and the header and footer banners. Each page defined in the Sales application works independently of the other pages. You can define an application with up to three pages for the Offline Client for Life Sciences. The Sales application uses a three-page layout: Home, Today's Plan, and Quick Access. For each container, a series of pages can be defined which can be changed with each other.
• Pages. The second-level container that defines where to display different information in a given area of the Offline Client for Life Sciences application. A page can contain a single applet or sections that contain applets. Applets can also be switched between other applets in the same page.
• Applets. The third-level container that defines the information displayed in a specific area.
• Toolbars. An independent container defining the toolbars and buttons used in all of the other containers in the Offline Client for Life Sciences application.

The separate XML metadata definition files for each container in the Offline Client for Life Sciences define the content of each container level (for example, Home Page, or Contact list). For more information about XML metadata definition files, see Key Configuration Files.

A series of generic, display-layout templates for each application container level defines how information must be laid out and displayed for multiple definitions of the same type (for example, a list applet). These layout templates are defined as Adobe Flex MXML files. Each layout template contains a series of placeholders. The content in the metadata definition files maps to these placeholders.