The various gear components and style elements that make up the portal are added to the portal repository using manifest files. A manifest file is an XML file containing descriptions of one or more portal components, as well as links to any necessary resource files for those components. The component descriptions themselves can vary greatly, depending on the types of components they describe. Gear descriptions contain XML describing the size, shape, content, repository and functionality of the gear component. Layout descriptions contain XML describing the placement of the various gears in the portal. Color palette descriptions contain XML describing the various colors present in the page background and text of the portal.

You must import a manifest file into the portal repository before you can use the gears or style elements that it describes. To update a component in a repository, import a manifest file using the same component name as the existing setting. The new information overwrites the existing component description.

You can add component descriptions as a group by including them within the same manifest. When you upload a manifest to the Portal Administration Pages, only those components that match the type expected by the current administration page are added to the repository. For example, if you import a manifest from the Page Templates page, only page templates are added to the repository, even if the manifest contains descriptions of other components. Manifest files are discussed in depth in the Creating a Custom Portal chapter of the Portal Development Guide.

You can see examples of gear manifest files in the module directory for each baseline gear included in ATG Portal. For example, the manifest file for the Calendar Gear is:

<ATG11dir>/Portal/calendar/calendar-manifest.xml

You can see examples of manifests for style elements in:

<ATG11dir>/Portal/paf/starter-portal/paf-dar/portal/templates

We recommend that you save your manifest files after you have imported them into the PAF as they simplify the process of upgrading gears or moving them to another portal.