Designing Portal Desktops

Administrators use the Portal Server Desktop Design Tool, which is available on the management console, to construct and manage Desktops for portals. The tool uses a wireframe modeling technique to allow administrators to view the Desktop tab and channel layout structure and what channels are available in each tab.

The tool enables administrators to work with the following:

• Layouts, which control how channels are arranged on a Desktop page

• Themes, which control the general appearance and user interface features of channels and containers on a portal's Desktop

Administrators can use the tool to create and edit any Desktop that uses a parent container based on any of the following:

• JSPTabContainerProvider

• JSPTableContainerProvider

• AJAXTableContainer

The Desktop Design Tool does not support customized containers that are not based on one of these providers or containers.

Administrators use the Desktop Design Tool to work on new or existing Desktops:

• New Desktops – The Desktop Design Tool performs the following functions:

  • Identifies that the selected DN has a new organization

  • Assigns desktop service attributes to the Desktop

  • Sets up a new parent container and the first tab for the Desktop

  • Sets up and displays an initial Desktop tab

• Existing Desktops – The Desktop Design Tool displays the Desktop's tabs

Administrators can perform the following tasks to control to control and arrange elements on a Desktop:

• Edit channel and container properties

• Create, modify or remove tabs and pages from the Desktop

• Change the order of tab positions

• Add channels to or remove channels from the Desktop

• Move channels left and right or up and down

The Desktop Design Tool uses themes, which are based on cascading style sheets (CSS) properties, to define the general appearance and operation of the elements on a Desktop. Administrators can perform the following tasks to control the appearance of a Desktop:

• Select a theme from a list of deployed themes and assign the theme to a specific portal Desktop

• Delete a theme assigned to a specific portal Desktop

• Change theme name and menu control type for a specific portal Desktop

• Download theme archive (.skin) files to use the View Designer for Java^TM System Portal Server to modify the theme's CSS properties

• Upload theme archive (.skin) files and deploy them to specific portal Desktops