51 Adding Personal Notes to a Portal

This chapter provides general information about personal notes and includes details about adding the Notes task flow to a resource catalog and page.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Permissions:

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you need the portal-level permission Manage Security and Configuration or Manage Configuration. A portal moderator has this permission by default.

To add the Notes task flow to a page, you need the portal-level permission Basic Services: Edit Page Access, Structure, and Content (simple permissions) or Create, Edit, and Delete Pages (advanced permissions).

To manage access to notes, you need one or more advanced permissions:

  • Create, Edit, and Delete Notes

  • Create Notes

  • Edit Notes

  • Delete Notes

  • View Notes

For more information about permissions, see Section 29.1, "About Roles and Permissions for a Portal."

51.1 Prerequisites for Working with Notes

For notes to work in a portal, the portal moderator or anyone with Manage Security and Configuration or Manage Configuration permission has to perform the following tasks:

Note:

For information on using the functions and features of notes, such as creating notes, editing notes, and so on, see Section 51.5, "Working with the Notes Task Flow."

51.2 About Notes

Notes provides useful features for writing yourself reminders in the form of personal notes. You can add notes by using the Notes task flow, which displays the personal notes of the currently logged in user (Figure 51-1). Only the notes that you create are displayed in the Notes task flow. No other user sees your notes, and you do not see any other user's notes.

Figure 51-1 A Notes Task Flow

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Description of ''Figure 51-1 A Notes Task Flow''

You can filter your Notes list by note titles. Filtering enables you to narrow the focus of your Notes to just the notes that match your filtering criteria. Consider devising a naming scheme for your notes to make the most of filtering.

You can link a note to an asset like a document, a list, or an announcement. While you can link to a new note (Figure 51-2), you cannot link to existing notes. All users who have access to the asset can view the linked note too. See the "Adding and Linking to a Note" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Figure 51-2 Linking an Announcement to a New Note

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Description of ''Figure 51-2 Linking an Announcement to a New Note''

51.3 Adding the Notes Task Flow to a Page

For the steps to add the Notes task flow to a page, see Section 14.2, "Adding a Component to a Page."

Note:

The presence or location of the Notes task flow in the resource catalog depends on how the resource catalog is configured. For example, the Notes task flow is not available in the Default Portal Catalog provided with WebCenter Portal, so you will only see an entry for it if it has been added to a custom resource catalog that has been made available to the page.

For more information, see Section 23.5.1, "Adding a Resource to a Resource Catalog" (in the Add Resource Catalog Item dialog, select Task Flows, then Design Time, then Notes). To use the custom resource catalog for editing portal pages, make sure it is Available, and set for use by pages in the portal, as described in Section 7.3.5, "Changing the Resource Catalogs for Pages and the Page Template for a Portal."

To add the Notes task flow to a page, you need to click Add next to the Notes task flow in the resource catalog after you add it to the resource catalog, as shown in Figure 51-3.

Figure 51-3 Selecting the Notes Task Flow from the Resource Catalog

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Description of ''Figure 51-3 Selecting the Notes Task Flow from the Resource Catalog''

51.4 Setting Notes Task Flow Properties

The Notes task flow has associated properties, which users with sufficient privileges can access through the Component Properties dialog in Composer (Figure 51-4). Many properties are common to all task flows, and the method for accessing task flow properties is the same from task flow to task flow. Common task flow properties and how to access them are discussed in Section 14.3, "Modifying Component Properties."

Figure 51-4 Notes Task Flow Component Properties

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Description of ''Figure 51-4 Notes Task Flow Component Properties''

To access the Component Properties dialog, see Section 14.3, "Modifying Component Properties."

The Notes task flow does not have any unique properties, and therefore no Parameters tab in the Component Properties dialog.

Changes to the properties on the Display Options, Style, and Content Style tabs affect the appearance and behavior of the task flow for all users. These properties are common to all task flows. For more information, see Section 14.3.4, "Working with Component Display Options." and Section 14.3.6, "Working with Style and Content Style Properties."

The contents of the Events tab depend on the events supported by the task flow. For more information, see Section 14.3.7, "Working with Component Contextual Events."

All properties on the Parameters and Display Options tabs provide access to an Expression Language (EL) editor, which you can use to select or specify a variable value instead of a constant value. Click the Expression Editor icon icon next to a property, then select Expression Builder to open the editor.

Note:

When you enter EL on the generic Display Options tab in the Component Properties dialog, the parser reports an error only if it detects invalid syntax, such as a missing closing bracket. Validation is performed only on syntax, not on the expression value. Generic Display Options are those cataloged in Table 14-1, "Display Options Properties".

EL validation is not performed on non-generic display options.

If you need EL assistance, an application developer can provide an EL expression; see the "Expression Language Expressions" appendix in Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

WebCenter Portal

51.5 Working with the Notes Task Flow

WebCenter Portal offers a way for you to keep track of useful, sometimes vital, bits of information through notes.

For information about using the functions and features of notes, such as creating notes, editing notes, and so on, see the "Managing Your Notes" chapter in Using Oracle WebCenter Portals.