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Oracle® Fusion Middleware Configuration Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository
11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7)

Part Number E16580-10
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2 Customizing Oracle Enterprise Repository

This chapter provides information about customizing the Oracle Enterprise Repository Homepage and other interfaces for your organization.

This chapter contains the following sections:

2.1 Overview

Organizations can customize the look and feel of Oracle Enterprise Repository. The Oracle Enterprise Repository color palette can be modified. In addition, the Oracle Enterprise Repository home page can be customized by role or by department. This allows organizations to promote governance and specific assets to a subset of Oracle Enterprise Repository users.

You can access the Oracle Enterprise Repository homepage and customize it with the your company logo and company specific information. This section contains the following topics:

2.1.1 Accessing the Oracle Enterprise Repository Home Page

To access the Oracle Enterprise Repository home page, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to http://<host>:<port>/<oer_instance_name> where you have installed Oracle Enterprise Repository. Alternatively, you can also log in to http://<host>:<port>:/<oer-app-name>.

  2. On the login screen, enter the appropriate information in the Username and Password boxes.

    Note:

    If your organization requires a user name and password each time you log into Oracle Enterprise Repository, ensure that the Enable Automatic Login box is unchecked.

  3. Click Login. The Login Status dialog displays a welcome message that includes the date and time of your login.

  4. In the Login Stats dialog, click Close.

    The Oracle Enterprise Repository home page is displayed.

Note:

If your OER installation is behind a firewall, you may need to set a proxy in your browser to view the OER Homepage.

2.1.2 Customizing the Oracle Enterprise Repository Home Page

To customize the Oracle Enterprise Repository home page with the your company logo and company specific information, perform the following steps:

  1. Log into the Oracle Enterprise Repository home page.

  2. Set the cmee.enterprisetab.homepage setting to any Web site of your choice. By default, this system setting is set to http://localhost:8080/oer/custom/home.jsp.

  3. Alternatively, you can also create a Web page and add it to the Custom directory in the Oracle Enterprise Repository installation. The Custom directory path depends on the application server that Oracle Enterprise Repository is installed on.

For more information about the Oracle Enterprise Repository home page, see Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.

2.2 Rebranding Oracle Enterprise Repository

This section describes how to rebrand Oracle Enterprise Repository and how to customize skins in Oracle Enterprise Repository. It contains the following topics:

2.2.1 Start with CSS

Oracle Enterprise Repository uses CSS (cascading style sheets) that can be edited to control colors and other visual aspects of the application. Oracle Enterprise Repository is built on a mostly-neutral color palette and is branded around a single color. You can edit the color and type faces from the CSS, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1 Cascading Style Sheets

Description of Figure 2-1 follows
Description of "Figure 2-1 Cascading Style Sheets"

Oracle Enterprise Repository ships with the following skins:

  • Blue -- #0066CC

  • Green -- #669933

  • Neutral -- #999999

Oracle Enterprise Repository ships with the Oracle skin as the default.

The skins also include these colors:

  • White -- #FFFFFF

  • Grey -- #EEEEEE

2.2.2 Customizing Skins

This section describes how you can customize the skin in Oracle Enterprise Repository. It contains the following topics:

2.2.2.1 Choosing a Skin

Oracle Enterprise Repository ships with the Oracle skin as the default, but you can change the active skin. The file that controls the skin is the WEB-INF/classes/skin.properties file. In the skin.properties file, you can change the skin.name.org property to either "green", "blue", or "neutral" for the skin you want to use and restart the server, then new color palette for the application is displayed.

2.2.2.2 Creating a Skin

If you want to create your own custom skin for Oracle Enterprise Repository, you must create a new folder for the skin and add it to the skins folder. A good way to get started is to copy an existing skin folder and rename it. Oracle has designed the interface of Oracle Enterprise Repository around a single color. A recommended best-practice is for a new skin's color palette to be in a similar, mid-tonal range as the default palettes shipped with Oracle Enterprise Repository.

To update the CSS with your new color, do a search and replace on the hex number of the color you want to replace. For instance, if you copied the Blue skin, replace 0066CC with the new color. Do this for the settings.css and style.css files. The following CSS files are located in the <Oracle_home>/ user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-web\skins directory:

  • settings.css

  • style.css

  • tabs.css (ignore this file)

  • tree.css (ignore this file)

2.2.2.3 Images

You can complete rebranding by updating the default images. The images are stored in two different places, but the paths look the same. As a best-practice, your new images should be the same size (width and height) as the images they replace. The following images are located in the <Oracle_home>\user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-web\skins\blue\images\menu directory:

  • smalllogo.gif (271 X 21)

  • wave.jpg (306 X 31)

  • oracleicon.gif (68 X 51)

  • logo.gif (414 X 28)

  • menuLogo.jpg (423 X 54)

  • login_splash.jpg (338 X 508)

    This location on "skins" folder has all the color skins including default oracle. The folder also has all the .css and other folders.

2.2.2.4 Activating Your Custom Skin

After completing the previous steps, you should have a custom skin that looks much like one of default skins in the skins folder. The final step is to create a new skin.properties file for your new skin. This is accomplished by copying and editing an existing skin.properties file. There are two items in the properties file that need to be edited: the name and the color values.

  • In the line skin.name.org=blue, replace blue with the name of the new skin.

  • Replace any hexadecimal color values with the values for the colors in the new skin's palette.

Once these changes are made, the new skin is activated by restarting the server.

2.2.2.5 Installing a Oracle-supplied Custom Skin in Oracle Enterprise Repository

To install a Oracle-supplied Custom Skin:

  1. Obtain the custom skin ZIP file from OTN.

  2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file into a temporary directory. Be sure to retain the directory paths for each of the files within the ZIP file.

  3. Make a backup copy of the existing Oracle Enterprise Repository <Oracle_home>\user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-app\WEB-INF\classes\skin.properties file.

  4. Copy the new skin.properties file from the custom skin ZIP archive to the Oracle Enterprise Repository <Oracle_home>\user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-app\WEB-INF\classes directory.

  5. Replace the existing Oracle Enterprise Repository <Oracle_home>\user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-app\WEB-INF\classes\skin.properties file with new file.

  6. Move the extracted custom skin directory containing the images and CSS files into the <Oracle_home>/ user_projects\applications\base_domain\applications\oer_11.1.1.4.0\oer-web\skins directory. The skin.properties file points to this directory to find the skin resources.

  7. Restart the application server to apply the changes.

2.2.2.6 Using the Directory Structure

This section describes how to use the directory structure for creating skins. It contains the following topics:

Creating a New Skin

To create a new skin:

  1. Create a your_skins_folder under /skins.

  2. Change CSS and images as needed.

  3. Edit the skins.properties file so the entry skins.org.name reflects your_skins_folder.

  4. Restart the application server.

You must follow the naming conventions as shown in the example below:

/skins/your_skins/folder/style.css
/skins/your_skins/folder/images/logo.gif
/skins/your_skins/folder/buttons/all_the_buttons
/skins/your_skins/folder/icons/the_other_icons

Using the Custom Tag Library

A skintags custom tag library is used to point CSS and image references to the proper /skins folder. Currently, there are two skin tags: css and image. Existing JSPs have been updated. Any new JSPs must use the skintags library.

Using the Skintags Library Tags

To use any of the skin tags, add the following to the JSP:

<%@ taglib uri="/skintags" prefix="skin" %>

(The prefix can be anything you like because it is a reference within the JSP only).

CSS

Tags for cascading style sheets resemble the following example:

<skin:css element='the_relative_path_to_the_style_sheet'/>

To use it within a stylesheet:

<LINK HREF="" REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css">

Image

An image tag resembles the following example:

<skin:image element='the_relative_path_to_the_image'/>

The example below illustrates the use of an image tag within an HTML IMG tag:

<IMG SRC="" WIDTH="182" HEIGHT="32" BORDER="0" ALT="Geneva">

(where the relative_path starts from the skin folder (as defined in the skin.properties file.)

2.3 Role/Department-based Homepage Display

This feature displays a specific homepage based on user role or department assignment. This section contains the following topic:

2.3.1 Installation

You can customize the Oracle Enterprise Repository homepage by role or by department. Perform the following steps:

  1. Create a file named homepages.xml. See Example 2-1.

  2. Add the homepages.xml file to the application classpath. The Oracle Enterprise Repository application's WEB-INF/classes directory is recommended.

  3. Set the Homepage property cmee.enterprisetab.homepage to http://SERVER/APP/custom/autoselect.jsp, where SERVER is the name of the server and APP is the context name of the Oracle Enterprise Repository Web application.

Homepage selection is defined by the contents of the homepages.xml file.

Example 2-1 Example homepages.xml File

The following provides an example of the contents of a homepages.xml file:

1 <HomepageSelector>
2 <select criteria="roles">
3 <option value="Admin">http://www.oracle.com</option>
4 <option value="Architect">architect.jsp</option>
5 <option value="Developer">developer.jsp</option>
6 <option value="User">generaluser.jsp</option>
7 <defaultLocation>homepageDefault.jsp</defaultLocation>
8 </select>
9 </HomepageSelector>

Note the following line numbers:

  • Lines 2:

    • Sets the value for criteria. Valid values are

      • roles

      • departments

  • Lines 3-6:

    • The option value is indicated by the name of the role or department used for selection.

    • The node value is a relative path or absolute path to the page to which the user is redirected. The path for a home page hosted on the Oracle Enterprise Repository application server is relative to the custom/autoselect.jsp file. In the above example, the architect.jsp file is also located in the custom directory.

    • Order is important. Users with multiple roles or memberships in multiple departments are directed to the first matching selection.

  • Line 7

    • Identifies the default homepage for users who do not meet any of the selection criteria.

Note:

After configuring homepages.xml, if you encounter a "404 Not found" error when redirecting to a custom jsp, then delete all the cached data in <domain directory>/servers/<server name>/tmp folder, and then redeploy.

2.4 Install Oracle Enterprise Repository Solution Packs

This section describes the install instructions for the base data pack and harvester solution pack.

Base Data Pack

Base data pack is installed as part of the Oracle Enterprise Repository database installation. The Base data is not available by any other method. It is not delivered during any upgrades from one version of Oracle Enterprise Repository to the next.

The asset types delivered as part of Base Data are largely considered templates. The creation of a new asset type originates by cloning something that already exists. It is recommended that two best practices are applied to these asset types.

  1. The base data asset types must not be deleted until at least one asset type is created, which is specific to the new Oracle Enterprise Repository application.

  2. If enhancements are desired to a base asset type, it is recommended to clone that base asset type, consider the clone to be the real type for all future operations, and inactivate the base asset type to avoid confusion.

Harvester Solution Pack

The Harvester is available in 11.1.1.x.x-OER-Harvester-Solution-Pack.zip, which is bundled with the Oracle Enterprise Repository 11g installation.

The installation of the Harvester Solution Pack requires use of the Import /Export tool. This tool is available from the Admin tab of Oracle Enterprise Repository in the Import Export option. The asset types delivered as part of the Harvester Solution Pack are required by the Harvester tool. For information about the Import/Export tool, see the Import/Export Tool chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Enterprise Repository.