Chapter 1 Introduction to Customizing the Desktop

This chapter provides an introduction to customizing the Sun Java System Portal Server software Desktop. It describes the different kinds of customizations and who should make those customizations. This chapter also provides an overview of the display profile, sample Desktops included with the product, and how you create and deploy a new Desktop and provider.

Types of Desktop Customizations

The Desktop can be customized by end users, administrators, and developers. Though this guide covers only administrator customizations, it includes an overview of end user and developer customizations, and where to go for more information on those customizations. This guide refers to administrator customizations such as changes and modifications made to the Desktop that involve modifications to the display profile, JavaServer Pages™ and template files, search provider, and online help.

End User Customizations

Setting the channel time out

Selecting column layout from the Layout page

Moving channels up and down, as well as side to side

Arranging channels by width

Resizing the channel window

Adding and removing certain channels from the Content page

Customizing channels by using the channel Edit page

Selecting theme from a set of preset themes or customize the theme by changing color scheme and font type for the Desktop channels

Creating, removing, and editing tabs

Users customize channels by using the Edit Channel icon for a particular channel (as long as the administrator has made it available). Users customize the look and feel of the Desktop through the Themes page. See the Portal Server software End User Desktop Online Help for more information.

Time zone, language, mail server, and password by using the User Info channel Edit page.

Personal and mail information by using the Sun Java System Access Manager software administration console. The URL to use is:

http://hostname:port/amconsole

Developer Customizations

Developers can also use the Provider Application Programming Interface (PAPI) and the Search service APIs to extend the Portal Server software. See the Portal Server Administration Guide for more information.

In addition, developers can create new portal services to integrate applications and enable Single Sign-on across multiple applications, as well as implement authentication modules, using the Access Manager software APIs. See the Access Manager Developer’s Guide for more information.

Administrator Customizations

Using supplied providers to define additional content channels.

Creating and customizing the display profile, which involves creating or modifying provider, channel, and container channel objects. When you modify the display profile, you use the appropriate XML tag definitions for providers, channels, and container channels.

Create new preset themes in the display profile.

Using supplied JavaServer Pages and template files to modify the user interface.

Customizing the search provider.

Customizing the Desktop end user online help.

A site-specific look and feel of the Desktop: whether it uses tabs or frames, what channels are available to users and how they are situated out on the Desktop, what applications are available to end users, what kind of online help is available, and so on.

Different Desktops for different LDAP roles or organizations.

Desktop behavior based on user roles.

What Are the Areas for Customizing the Desktop?

In general, the Portal Server software documentation divides Desktop interface customization into three areas:

You can modify the look and feel of the HTML authentication templates, including images, HTML structure, and color.



Note	Authentication screens are provided by the Access Manager software. This guide does not describe how to customize the authentication screens. See the Access Manager Developer’s Guide for that information.

You can modify the look and feel of the Desktop, customize the top container used by the organization, control Desktop themes, and so on. This chapter describes the Desktop customization tasks.

Files for dynamic content for providers, channels, and containers are located under the /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop directory; that is, the Base Desktop templates are in /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop/default and sample portal templates are in /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop/sampleportal directories.

Some other static resources are located in the web-container/portal directory. This includes images used on the Desktop, such as channel control buttons, and style sheets.



Note	References to the locations and contents of files in the web-apps directory are for information only. They do not represent the definition of an interface that you can depend on for any future release.

Using the Display Profile

Much of your work in customizing the Portal Server software involves creating or editing the display profile to provide the kind of Desktop you want for your site. The display profile is an XML document that defines the Desktop structure and content. The display profile Document Type Definition file (DTD) defines valid syntax for the display profile XML documents. See /etc/opt/SUNWps/dtd/psdp.dtd for more information.

The hierarchical structuring of the display profile document does not define the visual layering of channel on the portal Desktop. The display profile exists only to provide property values for channels on the Desktop.

The display profile contains definitions that enable you to construct the Desktop. These definitions include providers, channels, containers, and properties. Some of these definitions create the Desktop containers—the frames, tables, and tabs that arrange the content of the Desktop—and others create channels for the Desktop via the respective providers. A display profile provider definition is a template for building channels based on that provider.



Note	A provider is a Java class responsible for converting the content in a file, or the output of an application or service into the proper format for a channel. A number of providers are shipped with the Portal Server software. As the desktop is imaged, each provider is queried in turn for the content of its associated channel. Some providers are capable of generating multiple channels based upon their configuration.

The display profile documents themselves consist of display profile objects. The display profile DTD defines the XML tags that represent the allowable display profile objects.

Like display profile objects are grouped within their appropriate XML tag pairs. That is, providers are grouped within <Providers></Providers> tags, channels within <Channels></Channels> tags, properties within <Properties></Properties> tags.

For a complete discussion of the display profile, how the merging works, and a description of the display profile DTD syntax, see the Portal Server Technical Reference Guide.

Using JavaServer Pages and Template Files

To generate the rendered Desktop user interface (what the industry refers to as the “presentation”), The Portal Server software makes use of either JavaServer Pages (JSP™) or template files. JSPs are preferred because they enable a much easier customization process without having to change the provider Java classes. JSPs also provide a way to enable a strict separation of business and presentation logic. Specifically, this means having the business logic in the provider classes and presentation logic in JSPs.



Note	In general, a three-tier architecture consists of presentation logic, business logic, and the data. Tag libraries or Enterprise JavaBeans™ provide the business logic, a database contains the data, and JavaServer Pages (JSPs) or templates provide the presentation logic. However, this view is based on a “small” system where the entire system is contained in one server, or perhaps only the data is on another server. The Portal Server software takes the “larger” system view, where all of the product is presentation. The business logic resides in some back end resource server that a content provider accesses. The data is on yet another back end server. Because all of the Portal Server software is presentation, there really is no business logic in the product.

The default set of JSPs and template files are installed in /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop/default directory. The sample portal JSPs and template files are installed in /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop/sampleportal and /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop/anonymous directories. The Desktop Type attribute in the Desktop attributes page of the Access Manager software administration console specifies from what subdirectory to retrieve either the JSP or template files for the Desktop. For more information, see Portal Server Technical Reference Guide.



Note	How the JSPs and Template files are referenced by the providers is provider-specific. Some providers specify the file in the display profile, other providers specify fixed names. For example, for JSPProvider, there are display profile properties such as contentPage, editPage, and so on, that reference Desktop files under the /etc/opt/SUNWps/desktop directory. For other providers, such as BookmarkProvider, the name of the template file is fixed, for example, display.template and that name is mentioned in the display profile document for that provider.

Using the Desktop Tag Library

Desktops based on JSPs enable a customization process without the necessity of changing the provider Java classes. The implementation of the JSP-based Desktop uses a tag library which the Portal Server software supplies. Not all Desktop channels need to be JSP-based. There are also channels using HTML-based templates.

A tag library is exposed through Tag Library Descriptors (TLD) files, so tags are in their appropriate functional area. For more information, see the Portal Server Technical Reference Guide.

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Sun Java System Portal Server 6 2005Q1 Desktop Customization Guide