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/SUNWportal/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.

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.

Using the display profile mechanism, you can create a new portal desktop or modify the sample portal provided with the product. See Chapter 2, Modifying the Developer Sample Portal and Chapter 3, Creating a New Desktop for more information.

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 Sun Java System Portal Server 6 2005Q4 Tecchnical Reference Guide.