Special Edition Using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server By Robert Ferguson
Table of Contents
Chapter 14. Customizing Dashboards
With the deployment of multiple departmental SharePoint Portal Servers or with the introduction of personal dashboards, a new question arises within an organization: How can Coordinators easily find Web Parts that are suitable to their business? Web Partsexternally or internally developedcan originate from multiple sources, and you may wish to ensure a proper licensing or quality.
This is where Web Part Galleries come in, as they enable an organization to publish its own list of approved Web Parts. To create a Web Part Gallery, do the following:
Log in as Workspace Coordinator and open the dashboard that you want to customize in your browser.
In the Personal Dashboards section, click Create a new personal dashboard.
Give the dashboard a descriptive name, typing it in the name fieldfor example "Web Part Gallery".
Click Save.
Open a Web Folder to your workspace (http://<server>/<workspace>).
Navigate to the hidden Portal\resources folder.
Select the file "catalogs.xml" and copy it to the desktop.
Make a backup of your original "catalogs.xml" file before you make any modifications, such that you can restore the original configuration.
Open the copy of catalogs.xml in Notepad.
You will see that in the <DDF:WebPartCatalog> XML node, the Microsoft Web Part Gallery is defined. You can either copy this node (if you want your Coordinators to continue using the Microsoft Web Part Gallery) or replace this node with your own content. The node names are descriptive:
<DDF:CatalogName _locID="L_WebPartG allery_Text"> contains the text that is used in the Settings page
<DDF:href _cID="L_CatalogHREF_Text"> refers to the URL of the catalog. Use the URL of the Personal Dashboard that you just created, appended with the querystring ?cmd=catalog. In our example where the Personal Dashboard was called "Web Part Gallery", use http://<server>/<workspace>Web Part Gallery?cmd=catalog.
<DDF:Description _locID="L_GalleryDesc_Text"> contains a descriptive text shown in the Settings page.
Save catalogs.xml.
Copy catalogs.xml from the desktop back to the resources folder (See Figure 14.10).
Figure 14.10. The figure shows part of the XML file and the appearance on the dashboard settings page.
As soon as you add Web Parts to the "Web Part Gallery" dashboard, these Web Parts are displayed in your gallery.