13.1 An OracleAS Portal Page

   

OracleAS Portal presents information by the page. A page in OracleAS Portal has the same scope as a standard HTML page ”a page is what a browser holds at any one time.

In OracleAS Portal, though, pages can be assembled from many different sources. Most importantly, a page is a part of a structural hierarchy, as shown in Figure 13-1.

Figure 13-1. OracleAS Portal hierarchy
figs/oas_1301.gif

The top level in the hierarchy is known as an OracleAS Portal site ; it indicates a single installation of OracleAS Portal, referenced by a specific URL prefix.

The next level in the hierarchy is a page group . A page group contains a group of related pages, as well as any supporting objects required for the page group, such as styles or page templates, which are described in subsequent sections. The root page of a page group is typically the home page for that group. You normally organize your OracleAS Portal sites so that a user can remain within one page group.

Each page group contains pages, and each page can contain subpages. A subpage can be reached from its parent page. Whenever you copy a page with subpages, you have the option of also copying all subpages associated with the page. Whenever you delete a page group or page with subpages, you also delete its subordinate pages.

A page, or a portlet within a page (we'll describe portlets later in this chapter), can have parameters assigned to it, and the value of a parameter can be included in the calling URL for the page. This capability allows you to link to a subpage or portlet while maintaining some state information. For instance, a click on an item may act as a link to another page with more detail about the item. The parent page can pass the item identifier to the child page through a parameter.

Clicking a button is an example of a particular OracleAS Portal event . You can write code to execute in response to an event. Event code can be implemented in JSP code, to execute in response to user actions on the client.

13.1.1 Page Layout and Regions

Each OracleAS Portal page can contain one or more regions, as shown in Figure 13-2.

Figure 13-2. An OracleAS Portal page, with regions highlighted
figs/oas_1302.gif

The regions in a page provide the basic layout for the page. You can specify where a region goes on a page, in relation to other regions, and what percent of the width or height of a page a region occupies. A region can automatically have a banner, as can a grouping of items within a region.

A region contains one of two types of objects ”either one or more portlets or one or more items (we'll describe both of these later in this chapter). A region can contain tabs, each of which brings up its own set of portlets or items. You can also have a region automatically mark a new piece of content with an icon for a specified time after the content is initially added to the region.

There are two other specific types of regions:


Subpage region

This type of region automatically contains links to all the subpages for the owning page and nothing else. A subpage region can contain one or two levels of subpage links.


Tab region

This type of region can't contain anything other than objects but can be configured to include rollover objects for information about the tab.

A page can't contain another complete page, so if you want a page to appear within a region on another page, you have to publish the subordinate page as a portlet, and then add that portlet to the region.

13.1.2 Items

An item can do any of the following:

  • Contain content, such as text or an image

  • Be a URI that points to another piece of information

  • Be dynamically created based on a piece of PL/SQL code

You can also create a region that uses a search to automatically add items to the region.

An item can either point to a specific piece of content or be a way to navigate to another location, within the OracleAS Portal framework or outside of it. When you create an item that navigates you to another location, you can specify whether that location should appear within the physical boundaries of a region or in its own page or browser instance. When you create an item, you can assign it an expiration, which allows the item to be displayed for only a certain length of time or prevents the item from being seen on the site at a specific time.

Items within a region are either sorted by title or size , or simply displayed in the order in which they were added to the region. Items can be grouped within a region by author, date, category (which is described later in this chapter), or item type, as well as not grouped at all.

An item region, by default, automatically displays each item in the page on its own row. You can specify that a region has more than one column, which causes the items in the region to be evenly distributed across the columns. You can also assign both the number of columns and the number of rows. Doing so limits the display to the number of items that can be shown in the specified columns and rows.

For convenience, OracleAS Portal enables you to load a group of items at one time by uploading a ZIP file containing the group. Once the file is loaded, you unzip the items, which maintain the same directory structure they had in the ZIP file.

13.1.3 Page Appearance

As mentioned at the start of this chapter, OracleAS Portal presents a common interface to many different sources of data. If you had to create each individual page independently, it would be difficult to establish a standard look and feel to your OracleAS Portal site. OracleAS Portal has several features that give a standard look and feel to all the pages within a site: page templates, styles, navigation pages, shared objects, and translations.

13.1.3.1 Page templates

A page template assigns a standard arrangement of regions within a page. If a page is based on a page template, the template must contain all the regions that will be in the page. A developer or user, with the proper privileges, has the option to not display all the regions in a page template, but he can't add additional regions to a page based on a template.

If you make changes to a template, the changes ripple down to all the pages based on that template. You can remove the association between a page and a template, which stops the propagation of template changes to the page.

Many templates assign specific regions within a page to provide navigation within a page group or site. For instance, there may be a region at the top of the page that provides access to the home page for the page group, or to a login and logout page, as well as a region to the left of the page that provides navigation to different parts of the page group.

For convenience, OracleAS Portal allows you to create a page template from an existing page. A page template created in this manner doesn't include everything in the page but does represent the basic layout of regions in the page.

13.1.3.2 Styles

Styles define overall look-and-feel attributes for a page or region. A style defines the colors and fonts used within the page or region and can be applied to a single page, to a page group associated with a page template, or to a region within a page.

There are style properties for items, tabs, and portlets, as well as properties that apply to all of these groups. When a style is changed, the changes ripple down throughout the items, tabs, and portlets within the area controlled by the style.

When you create or modify a page, you can assign a style to the page or have the page take on the default style of the user accessing the page. A page template can require a particular style and not allow any changes in it. If a page isn't based on one of these restrictive templates, a user can select his own page style from a list of candidate styles. A user can select a default page style to be used when she views a particular page group or an individual page.

If you don't assign a specific style to a page, the page style uses a default style, either for the page group or, if there is no default style for the page group, the style defined as the default global style.

13.1.3.3 Navigation pages

Frequently, a page group will have a set of navigation pages that are used throughout the group. You can implement this functionality by creating a page with the navigation links. These navigation pages also can contain other prebuilt items, such as a login link; a search box; or an object map, which lists all the page groups and pages in the site.

13.1.3.4 Shared objects

Shared objects can be used in many pages and page templates. Typically, shared objects implement uniform look and feel (as with color and font definitions or images) or functionality (as with JavaScript form- and field-level validations).

13.1.3.5 Translations

OracleAS Portal can display in different languages, as well as allow users to enter information in different languages. You enable this capability by creating translations for a page group. Once a translation is created for a page group, a user can choose a language at sign-in , or by selecting a language with the built-in Set Language portlet. Once a user has selected a particular language, subsequent contributions of content are kept as part of the specific translation for the language he has selected.

The translation capability in OracleAS Portal requires manual translation and applies only to text defined for a portal page, such as category or perspective names or item display names .

13.1.4 Page Groups

A page group is basically a collection of pages, along with objects that support those pages. A page group is analogous to a root folder in a file system. Page groups represent the highest level in the hierarchy of OracleAS Portal organization, as shown earlier in Figure 13-1. Each page group contains a root page, which is the top page in the page hierarchy. A single OracleAS Portal site can have many different root pages.

The key to creating page groups is identifying business units that each should represent. For example, some companies create separate page groups for each region they serve. Others create page groups for each intranet their portal supports. Through the use of security, page groups can be hidden from one another. Each page group has its own security model, which can add administrative overhead to support more page groups.

You can share objects between page groups by either creating them in or promoting them to the Shared Objects page group. Objects (including page templates, styles, and navigation pages) within this group can be shared with other page groups to provide a wider scope of reuse and standardization across an entire site.

13.1.5 Types and Attributes

When you create either a page or an item, you must create the object based on a predefined object type . An object type does several things:

  • Helps you to classify the information based on its characteristics

  • Allows you to add information, or metadata, about a particular type of object

  • Enforces some basic requirements on the type

For instance, if you define a page as a URL page type, you must have a URL indicating where the content for the page is coming from.

OracleAS Portal comes with a set of standard types, which are associated with pages, items, and regions. You can also create your own customized types. These customized types can inherit the attributes of an existing page or item type. You can also include different types of procedures to a page or item type, which automatically adds the procedure to any page or item of that type.

The page type indicates the source of the information, such as a standard page type for items or portlets, a URL page type for displaying the contents of other pages on the Web, or a PL/SQL page for displaying the results of a PL/SQL procedure. The item type performs a similar function for items, specifying whether the item is text, a file, an image, a link, or one of several other item types.

The type of a page or item specifies some of the attributes associated with the object. An attribute is essentially metadata about the particular object, such as the name of the object and the author of the object. As with types, OracleAS Portal comes with a standard set of attributes, and you can also add your own attributes.

There are two classifications of attributes:


Content attributes

These attributes are stored pieces of information about an object. They are associated with page types and item types.


Display attributes

These attributes can be displayed to an end user and are associated with regions. Administrators can specify which display attributes are actually available for a particular region.

   


Oracle Application Server 10g Essentials
Oracle Application Server 10g Essentials
ISBN: 0596006217
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 120

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