1. Oracle WebCenter Portal Online Help
  2. Online Help Topics for Shared Assets
  3. Shared Assets
  4. Page Templates

Page Templates

On the Assets and Shared Assets pages, WebCenter Portal provides several built-in page templates. Alternatively, portal designers can create custom page templates to offer more ways to display pages on the screen. If a page template is a shared asset (available to all portals), it is shown on the Assets page of all portals along with portal-specific page templates. Within a portal, you can copy or customize an existing page template.

Note:

Creating and editing a page template is a fairly complex task. While you can develop page templates in WebCenter Portal, the editing capabilities are limited. Oracle recommends that developers use JDeveloper to develop page templates for portals. When fully developed, the developer can publish page templates directly to WebCenter Portal (the portal server) or to a specific portal for immediate use or for testing. Alternatively, the developer can export the page template to a file and upload the page template to WebCenter Portal later.

Every page in a portal has an associated page template that defines the structure and layout of the entire page. To ensure that all pages in a portal look and behave consistently, they all use the same page template, set as the default by the portal manager. In contrast, the page style defines the initial layout of the main content area and may be unique for every page.

Typical elements of a page template include:

  • Header, content area (different in each page), and footer. The header and footer commonly include brand-specific elements. For example, a header usually includes a logo and possibly a slogan, and a footer usually includes contact and copyright information. The layout of the content area is defined by the page style.

  • Portal navigation. For example, you might have global navigation in the header and additional navigation on the left side of the page.

  • Additional links and actions. Portal-specific links and actions may include log in/log out, pop-up menus, global links (such as to send an email to the web administrator or to display a privacy statement).

  • Conditional elements. For example, some elements on the page might differ depending on whether the user is public or authenticated or depending on the user's role and privileges.

A page template exposes the navigation for a portal along the top of the page, or down the side of the page:

  • A top navigation page template exposes the portal navigation in header area. Top navigation makes effective use of the horizontal space on the page, and is recommended when there are 7 or fewer top level pages in the portal navigation. This page template design generally has a header, page and footer sections that use panelGroupLayout components, and is an ideal starting point for sites that require a flowing layout (described below).

  • A side navigation page template exposes the portal navigation in a sidebar on the left side of the page. The vertical nature of side navigation allows for a more lengthy list of navigation items, and is recommended when there are more than 7 top level pages in the portal navigation. Choose a side navigation template for more complex navigations.

Both top navigation and side navigation page templates can have a flowing layout or a stretching layout:

  • A flowing layout is the most typical layout. Components are arranged side by side or one below the other, displayed using their natural size. When the content of the page extends beyond the size of the browser window, the browser displays scroll bars on the page.

  • A stretching layout may be a suitable choice when your page content fills a large area, or you want the page content to grow and shrink depending on the size of the browser window. For example, a stretching layout may be suitable when a page contains a table or graph that you want to fill up the whole content area, no matter what size it is. Another example is a page that contains an editing area, where you want the editor to be exactly as tall and wide as the space given to the content area. This layout has a region for the page content, and adds vertical and horizontal scroll bars to the region on the page when the content cannot be contained within the size of the browser window. When scroll bars are added to the page, the navigation area, page header, and page footer remain in view while the content area scrolls.

Each page template works together with a skin to determine the overall look and feel of the pages in your portal. While the page template controls the location and behavior of components on the page, the skin controls the visual appearance of those components, such as the colors, fonts, and various other aspects.

Each page template can define a preferred skin to identify the skin that works best with that page template. When the page template is selected as the default page template for a portal or as the system default, the default skin automatically updates to the page template's preferred skin.

By default, a portal inherits the page template defined for the portal template that you select when you create the portal.

Note:

If the portal template does not specify a page template, the portal uses the default page template specified by the system administrator.

You can optionally select a different page template for an individual portal, overriding the default page template settings.

Select icons and actions in the toolbar to work with page templates. Refer to the online help in the resulting dialogs for information and assistance.