Chapter 18 Display Profile Properties: Overview

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Introduction

• Display Profile Properties

• Display Profile Property Types

Introduction

Display profile properties control all aspects of a channel, including:

• Content (available and selected channels)

• Position in the Desktop

• Controls

Display profile properties specify the per-channel configuration in the portal Desktop. Such properties define the visual representation of a channel in so much as the visual representation of the channel is affected by a display profile property.

The sample portal makes use of the following display profile definitions in the PortalServer-base/SUNWportal/samples/desktop directory:

d p-org.xml

Contains the display profile definitions for channels and containers.

d p-providers.xml

Contains the display profile definitions for providers.

d p-anon.xml

Contains the display profile definitions for channels and containers for the authlessanonymous and anonymous users in the default organization.

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.

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Note –

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.

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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.

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Note –

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.

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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.

Display Profile Property Types

This section lists the property types for provider definitions. These can be used with leaf and container providers. This three column table lists the property types in the first column, a brief description in the second column, and an example in the third.

Table 18–1 Display Profile General Property Types

Property Type	Definition	Example
Boolean	An atomic object representing a Boolean value.	<Boolean name="removable" value="true"/>
Collection	An object representing either a list or hash table. A collection is a type of property, or named bag, in which to put other properties.	<Collection name="channelsRow"> <String name="App" value="5"/> </Collection>
ConditionalProperty	Defines the filtering criteria. The most common conditions are locale and clientType, but the API is generic in that it allows you to define and base properties on any sort of condition. condition and value are required attributes. In the administration console, the conditional properties are displayed as condition-value and can be edited like collections. The conditional properties can be nested and can be added to a channel or inside another conditional property. Use the Add Property page to add a new conditional property.	<ConditionalProperties condition="locale"> <String name="en_US" value="English (United States)"/> </ConditionalProperties>
Integer	An atomic object representing an integer value.	<Integer name="numberOfHeadlines" value="7"/>
Reference	An object representing a pointer to a channel definition (that is, to a channel name in a container’s selected and available channel lists.) Reference is an unnamed string useful for design tools to be able to distinguish such things from strings.	<Reference value="UserInfo"/>
String	An atomic object representing a string value.	<String name="title" value="Table Container Channel 1"/>