Considerations for Remote Content

When a menu item (content reference) from a content provider system is selected from the main menu, the information that is displayed comes from multiple sources as follows:

• The page header (Home, Sign out, and other links) plus the main menu come from the portal system.

• The target area content is fetched from the content provider system.

• The template for the target area content is also fetched from the remote system and is used to render the target content. However, if a content reference with the same name is registered in the local portal system, then the template for the local content reference is used to render the remote content reference. In addition, if the remote content reference is defined without a template, then the default template for the local portal system is used to render the remote content reference.

• When remote content is displayed, the New Window, Help, Customize Page, and other links invoke actions that are relative to the content provider system or the portal system, depending on which link is clicked:

  • The New Window link opens a new window redisplaying the current content—that is, the header and main menu come from the portal system and the content comes from the content provider system.

  • The Help link displays the help topic from the help system that is configured for the content provider system.

  • The Personalize Page link replaces the target area with the page personalization information from the content provider system.

  • The Copy URL icon button copies the URL of the current page—that is, a URL on the portal system that includes the content provider node and content reference.

Note:

Templates from the portal system or from the content provider system are not cached.

Remote Dashboards

Since dashboards are accessed through content references, remote dashboards defined in a content provider system can be accessed through a remote folder that is configured for unified navigation.

Note:

Because homepages (unlike dashboards) are displayed only when a user directly signs into a system, homepages from content provider systems are not accessible through unified navigation.

Remote dashboards are subject to the following limitations:

• A pagelet on a remote dashboard will not function properly if the pagelet performs a JavaScript document.write or document.writeln operation.

• When the portal system's main menu is used to navigate to the remote dashboard, then the menu breadcrumbs are updated properly. However, if the PeopleCode RedirectURL method is used to load the remote dashboard, then the menu breadcrumbs are not updated.