Administering Portal and Portlet Attributes

WebLogic Portal provides you with a set of administration and customization tools that let you determine portal attributes such as the behavior, content, and user interaction of the portal Web site.

Working with attributes for your portal and portlets requires the use of two tools: the E-Business Control Center and the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. You use the E-Business Control Center to define the appearance and behavior of your portals and portlets. Once these resources are defined, you use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to configure these resources. For more information about how these tools work together, see How Do I Administer a Portal?.

This section documents how to modify an existing portal. Using the E-Business Control Center and Portal Administration tools, you can do the following:

• Modifying Portal Characteristics

• Modifying Portlet Characteristics

• Synchronizing the New Portal Data to the Application

• Establishing Portal Access Using Group Portals

 

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Modifying Portal Characteristics

Portal characteristics are the visual and behavioral aspects that a visitor experiences when accessing a portal. Examples of visual characteristics include portal page layouts, skins, and header graphics. An example of a behavior characteristic might be whether a portlet is viewed as a popup window or a smaller window within the page of origin.

Use the E-Business Control Center to define the desired portal characteristics. Using this tool, you can select and define the characteristics that then become available for administration by the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

Use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to administer the run-time characteristics that have been defined in the E-Business Control Center. Using this tool, you can determine which of the defined layouts, portals, and portlets can be viewed by the user.

• Modifying Portal Characteristic Definitions

• Modifying a Portal Look and Feel

Modifying Portal Characteristic Definitions

Use the E-Business Control Center to define the characteristics of your portal.

All of the procedures in this section are performed in the Portal Editor of the E-Business Control Center.

This section provides the following information:

• Modifying General Characteristic Definitions

• Modifying Availability of Characteristics for Portals

• Modifying Availability of Characteristics for Portal Pages

  
   

Modifying General Characteristic Definitions

General portal characteristics include header and footer graphics, content, and icon graphics.

You also set the portal defaults. Portal defaults are characteristics, such as color schemes and HTML layouts, that you determine the visitor will view if the portal has not yet been configured in the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

To modify the general characteristics definitions of a portal:

1. Open the E-Business Control Center. See Starting the E-Business Control Center.

2. In the Explorer window, click the Presentation tab at the bottom of the Explorer window, then click the Portals icon.

   Figure 7-1 Explorer Pane of the E-Business Control Center

   
    

3. Select the portal you wish to edit. The Portal Editor displays.

   Figure 7-2 The Portal Editor

   
    

4. In the Portal editor, click the General tab. The General pane of the Portal Editor appears.

   Figure 7-3 General Tab in Portal Editor

   
    

5. You can edit any of the following attributes in the General pane of the Portal Editor:

   Note: The URLs should be the file system directory path to the JSPs that are located on the WebLogic Portal server. When you synchronize this data, the appropriate JSP is inserted as an include to the portlet. The location of these directories is determined by your organization.

   Attribute	Description
   Description	A description of the portal.
   Content URL	A URL for the content that appears in the portal.
   Header URL	A URL to the JSP used as the portal's header content.
   Footer URL	A URL to the JSP used as the portal's footer content.
   Vertical Navigation Bar URL (Optional)	You enter a URL if you wish to display a vertical navigation bar for your portal.
   Horizontal Navigation Bar URL (Optional)	You enter a URL if you wish to display a horizontal navigation bar for your portal.
   Portal Webflow	When you create a Portal, you must associate the new Portal with a predefined Webflow; in most cases, you would select the portal Webflow.

Modifying Availability of Characteristics for Portals

Use the E-Business Control Center to select the skins, pages, layouts, and user profiles that you want to be made available for your portal. After you select these characteristics in the E-Business Control Center, you can use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to determine which of the selected characteristics are used in the portal.

To modify characteristic availability, do the following:

1. Open the E-Business Control Center. See Starting the E-Business Control Center.

2. In the Explorer window, click the Presentation tab at the bottom of the explorer window, then click the Portals icon.

3. Select the portal you wish to edit. The Portal Editor appears.

4. In the Portal Editor, click the General tab. The General Portal Editor pane appears.

5. In the General pane of the Portal Editor, click the Portlets tab.

6. The Portlets tab displays a list of Available and Selected portlets.

   Figure 7-4 Selecting Portlets

   
    

7. Select the portlets you wish to be made available to this portal. You can move these portlets by highlighting a portlet name in either window and using the Add and Remove buttons. Adding a portlet to the Selected category means that the portlet is available for use in the portal and can be configured in the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

8. Repeat these steps for each of the following tabs:

   • Skins: Select the skins that will be made available to this portal. Skins effect the visual style, for example, the icons and colors, of the portal as it appears to the visitor.

   • Layouts: Select the layouts that will be available to this portal for configuration.

   • User Profiles: Select the user profiles that will be available to this portal for configuration.

Modifying Availability of Characteristics for Portal Pages

You use the Portal Administration tools to select the images, layouts, and portlets that are available for each page in your portal. After you select these characteristics in the E-Business Control Center, you can use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to determine which of the selected characteristics are used in the page.

To modify characteristic availability, do the following:

1. Open the E-Business Control Center. See Starting the E-Business Control Center.

2. In the Explorer window, click the Presentation tab at the bottom of the Explorer window, then click the Portals icon.

3. Select the portal you wish to edit. The Portal Editor displays.

4. In the Portal Editor window, click the Pages tab. The Pages pane of the Portal Editor appears.

5. Select the page you wish to edit and click New. The Page Definition window appears.

6. You can edit any of the following attributes for the page:

   Attribute	Description
   Portal Page name	The name for the page.
   Default Image name	Path for a image that shows as the default.
   Rollover image name	Path for the rollover image that represents this page.
   Selected image name	Path for an image that shows if the page is selected.
   Available Layouts	List of layouts that can be used for this page.
   Available Portlets	List of portlets that can added to this page.

7. To delete a page, select the desired page and click Remove. The page is no longer available to the portal.

Modifying a Portal Look and Feel

Once your portal characteristics have been defined and made available using the E-Business Control Center, use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to configure these characteristics as you want them to be experienced by the portal visitor.

This section provides the following information:

• Selecting Skins

• Selecting and Ordering Pages

• Editing Attributes for a Page

• Editing Layouts for a Page

• Selecting and Arranging Portlets on a Portal Page

Selecting Skins

You can determine the appearance of your portal by selecting from the available skins that you have already defined in the E-Business Control Center. A skin is a collection of HTML code and graphics, that when applied to your portal, affect the appearance of your portal, for example, the colors and fonts used. The skins that you select for the portal are the skins that will be available for use by a visitor when they personalize their portal.

To use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to select skins for your portal, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. The Portal Administration Tools Home page appears.

   Figure 7-5 Portal Administration Tools Home page

   
    

2. Click the Portal Management icon. The Portal Management Home page appears.

   Figure 7-6 Portal Management Home page

   
    

3. Click the portal you want to edit. The Group Portal Management Home page appears.

   Figure 7-7 The Group Portal Management Home page

   
    

   
    

4. Click Select Skins. The Select Skins page displays a list of Unused and Available skins. The default skin is indicated by an asterisk (*).

   Figure 7-8 The Select Skins page

   
    

5. To view a thumbnail of a skin, highlight the desired skin. A thumbnail of that skin appears under the Preview Skin heading.

6. To set a new default skin (the skin that appears in the portal until it is modified by a visitor) highlight the desired skin and click Set as Default. The new default skin is marked with an asterisk (*).

7. You can move skins between the Available and Unused lists by selecting the skin and clicking the Left and Right arrows. Making a skin available means that visitors can select that skin when personalizing their portal.

8. Click Save when you are finished.

Selecting and Ordering Pages

Use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to select pages for your portal from the list of available pages.

Making a page available means that visitors may choose to order their pages, with clickable tabs representing a page, when personalizing their portal.

Figure 7-9 Tabbed pages as they might appear to a visitor

 

To select and order pages for your portal, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the Portal Administration Home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears (Figure  7-10).

   Figure 7-10 Pages and Portlets page

   
    

   
    

   1. Click Select and Order Pages. The Select and Order Pages page displays a list of available and unused pages (Figure  7-11). The Home (default) page is indicated by an asterisk (*).

      Figure 7-11 Select and Order Pages page

      
       

   2. To set a new default Home page, highlight the desired page and click Set as Home. The new default home page is indicated by an asterisk (*).

   3. You can move pages between the Available Pages and Unused Pages lists by selecting the page name and clicking the Left and Right arrows.

   4. You can reorder pages by selecting a page in the Available Pages list and using the Up and Down arrows. This determines the order in which the page tabs will appear to a visitor to the portal.

   5. Click Save when you are finished.

Editing Attributes for a Page

Page attributes are characteristics or behaviors that the page displays to a visitor to your web site. An example of an attribute is whether the user may remove that page from their personalized version of the portal.

To set page attributes, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the Portal Administration Home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Attributes. The Set Attributes page appears.

   Figure 7-12 The Set Page Attributes Page

   
    

6. Set any or all of the following attributes:

   Attribute	Description
   Available	The page is available to the visitor.
   Visible	The page should be visible to the visitor by default.
   Mandatory	The visitor always sees this page. That is, they cannot remove it from their personalized portal.
   Display Name	The display name for the page, this is the name that site visitors will see.
   Visitor Editable Name	If this box is checked, the page name can be modified by a visitor when they personalize their portal.
   Use Image	If this box is checked, an image will be used to display the page name, otherwise, the above display name will be used.

7. Click Save when you are finished.

Editing Layouts for a Page

You can modify the layout of a page by selecting from a list of layouts previously made available in the E-Business Control Center.

To change the layouts for a page, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Layouts. The Select Page Layouts page displays a list of Unused and Available Layouts.

   Figure 7-13 The Select Page Layouts Page

   
    

6. Use the arrows to move the selected layouts between the Unused and Available categories.

7. Click Save when you are finished.

Selecting and Arranging Portlets on a Portal Page

You can select the portlets you wish to display in your page, then you can arrange where they display within the page.

To arrange portlets in your page, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the Portal Administration Home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Position Portlets. The Position Portlets page displays portlets that are available for the page in the Available Portlets column and portlets that are currently visible in your page in the Visible Portlets section.

   Figure 7-14 The Position Portlets page

   
    

6. To select portlets for your page or remove visible portlets, click the desired portlet and use the Left and Right arrows to move them between the Available and Visible sections.

7. To rearrange the way portlets appear on your page, select the desired portlet in the Visible section and use the arrows at the bottom of the page to move them left, right, up, or down.

   Figure 7-15 Use the Move Portlets arrows to rearrange portlets in a page

   
    

   
    

8. Click Save when you are finished.

 

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Modifying Portlet Characteristics

Like portal characteristics, portlet characteristics are the visual and behavior aspects that a visitor experiences when accessing a portlet. Examples of portlet characteristics are the default content that appears to a visitor, or whether online help will appear in the portlet.

Use the E-Business Control Center to define the desired portal characteristics, selecting and defining the characteristics available for administration by the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. You then use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to administer the run-time characteristics that have been defined in the E-Business Control Center.

This section describes how to modify the characteristics of your portlets and contains the following information:

• Modifying Portlet Characteristic Definitions

• Modifying the Portlet Look and Feel

Modifying Portlet Characteristic Definitions

Use the Portlet Editor in the E-Business Control Center to define and modify the resources that will be available for your portlet. You can also set the portlet defaults. Defaults are characteristics, such as whether a portlet can be minimized, that the visitor experiences if the portlet has not yet been configured by the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

To modify portlet definitions, do the following:

1. Open the E-Business Control Center. See Starting the E-Business Control Center.

2. In the Explorer window, click the Presentation tab at the bottom of the Explorer window, then click the Portlets icon.

3. Select the portlet you wish to edit. The Portlet Editor appears.

   Figure 7-16 The Portlet Editor

   
    

4. You can edit the information in any of the following fields:

   Attribute	Description
   Description	This is a simple description of the portlet.
   Content URL	The URL to the JSP that appears by default.
   Header URL	The URL to the header JSP you wish to appear by default.
   Alternate Header URL	The URL to the header that should be used by default when the page is maximized.
   Footer URL	The URL to the default footer JSP
   Alternate Footer URL	The URL used for Maximized state
   Titlebar URL	The URL to the default titlebar JSP
   Banner URL	The URL to the banner JSP
   Icon URL	The URL to the image for titlebar icon
   Edit URL	The URL to the portlet editor JSP
   Help URL	The URL to the portlet help JSP
   Maximize URL	The URL to the maximized body JSP
   Webflow	Portlet Webflow, if one is used.
   Enable Editing	Check this checkbox if portlet content will be editable by the visitor in the portal.
   Enable Help	Check this checkbox if the portlet will have a separate help file available to visitors.
   Login Required	Check this checkbox if this portlet should not be displayed in the default group portal.
   Mandatory	Determines whether this portlet must be included in the visitor experience and cannot be removed by the visitor.
   Maximizable	Determines whether this portlet can be maximized by the visitor.
   Floatable	Determines whether this portlet can be opened as a floating window.
   Minimizable	Determines whether this portlet can be minimized by the visitor.
   Defaults minimized	Determines whether this portlet appears minimized by default when the visitor views the page.

5. Click Save when you are finished.

Modifying the Portlet Look and Feel

Once your portlet characteristics have been defined and made available using the E-Business Control Center, you can use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to configure these characteristics as you want them to be experienced by the portal visitor.

This section provides the following information:

• Editing Portlet Attributes

• Selecting and Arranging Portlets on a Portal Page

Editing Portlet Attributes

Using the list of portlets selected for the page in the E-Business Control Center, you can select how you want the portlets to appear in your page.

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the home page. The Portal Management Home page for that group portal appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Edit Portlets. The Edit Portlet Entitlements and Attributes Page appears.

   Figure 7-17 The Edit Portlet Entitlements and Attributes page

   
    

6. Select the desired portlet and click Set Attributes. The Set Portlet Attributes page appears.

   Figure 7-18 The Set Portlet Attributes page

   
    

7. You can set the following attributes:

   Attribute	Description
   Available	Determines whether the portlet will be available to the visitor.
   Visible	Determines whether the portlet should be visible to the visitor default.
   Minimizable	Determines whether the portlet can be minimized by the visitor.
   Maximizable	Determines whether the portlet can be maximized by the visitor.
   Default Minimized	Determines whether the portlet is minimized for the visitor by default.
   Mandatory	Determines whether the visitor will always see this portlet when they come to this page. That is, they cannot remove it from the page.
   Display Name	The display name for the portlet that the visitors will see by default.

8. Click Save when you are finished.

 

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Synchronizing the New Portal Data to the Application

When you make changes to your portals and portlets in the E-Business Control Center, metadata is created that represents your newly defined characteristics. In order to apply your changes to the portal, you must synchronize the data to the application.

Note: Any modifications performed in the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools are performed at run time and update immediately.

Use the following procedure to synchronize E-Business Control Center data to a production server:

1. With your host server started, open the E-Business Control Center. See Starting the E-Business Control Center.

2. From the top menu of the E-Business Control Center, click Tools and select Project Settings.

   Figure 7-19 Connection Details

   
    

3. Verify your connection details as shown in Figure  7-19 and click OK.

4. Synchronize the new portal to your server by clicking the Synchronization icon at the top menu of the E-Business Control Center.

   Figure 7-20 Synchronizing

   
    

5. The E-Business Control Center validates the files within the application, and then displays a synchronizing progress bar, as shown in Figure  7-21.

   Figure 7-21 Synchronization progress bar

   
    

6. When the data synchronization is complete, click Close.

 

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Establishing Portal Access Using Group Portals

Create group portals to establish visitor access to your portal. By assigning groups to your portals and then establishing entitlements for that group, you determine which users can access which aspects of your portal.

For more information about creating a group portal and defining entitlement segments, see Creating and Managing Group Portals.

Once you have created groups assigned to your portal and defined entitlement segments, you can use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to determine entitlement segments for portals, pages, and portlets.

Set Entitlements for Portal Pages

Use the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools to set different levels of permissions and authority for predefined entitlement segments. For example, you might want to give the entitlement segment "Developer" the authority to delete a page, but restrict the entitlement segment "Administrator" to view-only access of the same page.

To determine entitlements for pages, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

   Figure 7-22 The Pages and Portlets page

   
    

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Set Entitlements. The Set Entitlements page appears.

   Figure 7-23 The Set Page Entitlements page

   
    

   
    

6. To add or remove an entitlement segment for a page, click Add or Remove Entitlement Segments. The Add or Remove Entitlement Segments page displays all available entitlement segments in the All Entitlement Segments column and the selected segments in the Selected Entitlement Segments column.

   Figure 7-24 The Add or Remove Entitlement Segments page

   
    

7. Select the desired segment and use the Left and Right arrows to add or remove a segment.

8. Click Save when you are finished. The Set Entitlements page appears.

9. You can edit the following authorities for selected entitlement segments:

   Authority	Definition
   Can See	Check the radio buttons to grant or deny availability of this page to the entitlement segment members.
   Can Remove	Check the radio buttons to grant or deny the entitlement segment members the ability to remove the portal page from their view.

10. Click Save when you are finished.

Set Entitlements For Portlets

As with pages, you can set different levels of permissions and authority for predefined entitlement segments.

To set entitlement segments for portlets, do the following:

1. Start the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools. See Starting the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools.

2. Click the Portal Management icon in the home page. The Portal Management Home page appears.

3. Click the Group Portal you wish to edit. The Group Portal Management home page appears.

4. In the Group Portal Management Home page, click Manage Pages and Portlets. The Pages and Portlets page appears.

5. In the Pages and Portlets page, select the page you wish to edit and click Edit Portlets. The Edit Portlet Entitlements and Attributes Page appears.

   Figure 7-25 The Edit Portlet Entitlements and Attributes page

   
    

6. Select the desired portlet and click Set Entitlements. The Set Portlet Entitlements page appears.

   Figure 7-26 Set Portlet Entitlements Page

   
    

7. You can set any of the following entitlements for each group:

   Authority	Definition
   Can See	Check the radio buttons to grant or deny availability of the portlet to the entitlement segment member.
   Can Edit	Check the radio buttons to grant or deny the entitlement segment members the ability to edit the portlet.
   Can Remove	Check the radio buttons to grant or deny the entitlement segment members the ability to remove the portlet from their view.

8. Click Save when you are finished.