Chapter 4 Managing the Mobile Portal Desktop

Portal Server Mobile Access software uses the Portal Server administration console to manage the mobile Portal Desktop.

In order to understand the information provided in this chapter and manage the mobile Portal desktop, you need to know the Portal Server administration console.

This chapter provides the following topics:

• Understanding the Wireless Desktop Dispatcher

• Wireless Desktop Dispatcher Properties

• Conditional Properties

• Channel State Properties

• JSPRenderingContainer Properties

Understanding the Wireless Desktop Dispatcher

Once you install Mobile Access software, your Portal Server site provides a mobile Portal Desktop and a voice Portal Desktop as well as a standard Portal Desktop. At the time a user logs in to Portal Server, the wireless desktop dispatcher, which is a component of Mobile Access software, determines which Portal Desktop is the appropriate one to route user requests to.

The wireless desktop dispatcher uses an XML Display Profile configuration to determine which Portal Desktop—standard, mobile, or voice—is the appropriate one to route user requests to. The wireless desktop dispatcher:

• Determines the client type of the desktop request

• Uses a display profile configuration to match that client to the appropriate container

• Routes the request to the appropriate container

The default channel for the mobile Portal Desktop is the WirelessDesktopDispatcher. Follow the steps to edit the WirelessDesktopDispatcher container from the Portal Server 7.1 administration console to support other containers for particular devices.

To Edit the Parent Container in Portal Server 7.1 Administration Console

1. Log in to the Portal Server 7.1 Administration Console as administrator.

2. Click the Portals tab.

   The available Portals are displayed.

3. Click on the name of the Portal, which you want to manage.

4. Choose the Org option from the Select DN drop down list box.

   The Desktop Tasks and Attributes page is displayed. The Parent Container attribute is available under the Desktop Attributes. The top level container value in the display profile for the selected DN is displayed in the Parent Container text box.

5. Edit the value in the Parent Container text box to support other containers for particular devices.

6. Click Save.

Wireless Desktop Dispatcher Properties

This section describes the properties listed for the WirelessDesktopDispatcher container. Follow the steps to navigate to the WirelesDesktopDispatcher container properties page.

1. Log in to the Portal Server 7.1 Administration Console as administrator.

   The Common Administrative Tasks page appears.

2. Under Configuration, click the Manage Channels & Containers button.

   The Data Collection pop up window appears.

3. From the Select Portals drop down list box, choose the Portal you want to manage.

4. From the Select DN drop down list box, choose the DN.

5. Click OK.

   The WirelessDesktopDispatcher container tasks and properties are listed in the right frame. You can modify the values of these properties in this page.

6. Edit the value in the eitContainerName text box, to suit the appropriate device.

The wireless desktop dispatcher properties include:

• desktopContainer

  The desktopContainer property maps mobile devices to appropriate containers. This mapping identifies how requests are routed.

  By default, HTTP requests from devices that display native content (for example, Nokia devices that use WML) are routed to the JSPNativeContainer. HTTP requests from devices that display rendered content are routed to the JSPRenderingContainer.

• selectedClients

  The selectedClients property tracks the mobile devices used to access your portal site. Whenever anyone uses a new device to access your portal site, the client type of that device is added the selectedClients property s collection.

  This property is also used to display a list of devices on the Mobile Devices edit page in the standard Portal Desktop. Individual users can view what devices they have used, and they can add to the list simply by logging into the mobile Portal Desktop with other devices.

Conditional Properties

Conditional properties for client types enable administrators to specify properties for a channel or container channel that are specific to a client type. Conditional properties for client types can also be hierarchical, just as client data is hierarchical.

The syntax for a conditional property is client=clientType. For example, client=WML is the name of the conditional property for WML client types.

The desktopContainer property for the wireless desktop dispatcher is an example of a client conditional property for the client type client=WML. By default the definition for this property is desktopContainer=JSPRenderingContainer.

Here is a hierarchical representation of the default desktopContainer property for Nokia devices:

client=WML -> desktopContainer=JSPRenderingContainer
client=Nokia -> desktopContainer=JSPNativeContainer

Devices within the WML client style use the JSPRenderingContainer. The subset of WML clients defined by the Nokia client style use a different desktopContainer definition, however. They use the JSPNativeContainer.

Channel State Properties

These properties indicate the state of a channel to both the JSPNativeContainer and the JSPRenderingContainer. They allow an end user to display only a channels title bar on a mobile Portal Desktop instead of loading a channels content inline.

On the standard Portal Desktop, you can provide buttons on a channel so that the user can minimize or maximize its content. This is not currently supported with the mobile Portal Desktop.

These properties include:

• defaultChannelIsMinimizable and defaultChannelIsMaximizable

These properties determine whether the Load Channels with desktop check box is to be displayed on the user’s Mobile Devices edit page in the standard Portal Desktop. The default value of both properties is true. The check box thus is displayed. If either property is false, the check box is not displayed.

To display the Load Channels with desktop check box, both values must be true. If either is false, the check box is not displayed.

• defaultChannelIsMinimized

  This property determines whether the Load Channels with desktop check box is to be checked on the user’s Mobile Devices edit page in the standard Portal Desktop. The default value for this property is true. The check box thus is not checked, and all channels in the container have a window state of minimize.

  When this property is set to false, the check box is checked, and all channels in the container have a window state of normal.

JSPRenderingContainer Properties

Two advanced properties for the JSPRenderingContainer specify how error pages and edit pages are displayed. These properties are:

• errorChannel

  This property indicates what channel is used to render an error page in case of a desktop error when using the JSPRenderingContainer and the rendering engine.

• editContainerName

  This property indicates what channel is used to render an edit page for a channel that is marked editable for a particular client.