Portal Guide

CHAPTER 17

Personalizing Your Portal

This chapter explains how to personalize your portal by creating personal pages, configuring content and layout, and applying themes. It covers the following topics:

• About the Portal Personalizer

• Starting the Portal Personalizer

• Creating personal pages

• Setting the theme for your portal

• Setting the default personal or shared page

• Setting the default container page

• Deleting a personal page

• Creating a wireless layout page

About the Portal Personalizer

The Portal Personalizer is a facility provided with the portal that allows you to create personal pages and customize your portal environment to show personalized content. All portal users can access the Portal Personalizer to perform the following tasks:

• Create personal pages

• Apply a theme to your portal

• Set a default personal page

• Set default container and shared pages

• Delete personal pages

• Create a portal wireless layout

Starting the Portal Personalizer

You can start the Portal Personalizer portlet directly in your browser or from the Portal home page.

Starting the Portal Personalizer in your browser

To start the Portal Personalizer directly in your browser:

1. Make sure your server is running.

2. Enter this URL in your browser:

     http://server/project context/portal/portlet/Personalize
   

   The exteNd Director Login portlet opens in your browser and prompts you to log in to the Portal:

   

3. Enter your user name and password, then click Login.

   The Portal Personalizer opens in your browser.

Starting the Portal Personalizer from the Portal home page

To start the Portal Personalizer from the Portal home page

1. Make sure your server is running.

2. Enter this URL in a browser to go to the Portal home page:

     http://server/project context/portal
   

   The Portal home page opens in your browser.

3. Click Login:

   

   The exteNd Director Login portlet opens in your browser and prompts you to log in to the portal:

   

4. Enter your user name and password, then click Login.

   Your authorized default page opens in your browser.

5. Click Personalize:

   

   The Portal Personalizer opens in your browser:

   

Now you are ready to create personal pages, assign default pages, apply themes, and create a wireless layout.

Creating personal pages

Any authenticated portal user can define a personal page. The process involves the following steps:

1. Create a new page using the Portal Personalizer, as described in Creating a personal page.

2. Add content—in the form of portlets—to the page using the Content Selector tool, as described in Adding content to a personal page. You may also want to delete content, as described in Deleting content from a personal page.

3. Choose a portal layout, as described in Modifying the page layout.

4. Arrange the order and position of content on the selected layout using the Layout Selector tool, as described in Arranging content on the personal page.

5. Display the new page right away, as described in Displaying a personal page.

Pages created with the Portal Personalizer are not tightly bound to portal layouts. That means users can switch layouts for their pages without disrupting the page contents. When the user applies a new layout to a page, any content that has been added to the page is automatically displayed using the new layout.

Creating a personal page

To create a personal page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Click New under the personal pages list box.

   

   An untitled personal page is created.

3. Enter a name for the page in the Page Name field and optionally enter a description in the Description field, as in this example:

   

4. Click Update.

Now you are ready to add content to the personal page. See Adding content to a personal page.

Adding content to a personal page

After creating a personal page, the next step is to add content by selecting portlets to place on the page. To add content to a new or existing personal page, you access the Content Selector from the Portal Personalizer. You select from a list that includes prebuilt portlets supplied with exteNd Director along with any custom portlets you have created and registered.

To add content to a personal page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select a page from the personal pages list and click Choose Content.

   

   The Content Selector opens in a new browser window.

   

3. If you want to display a specific category of available content, choose a category from the Filter dropdown menu.

4. Select one or more portlets from the list of Available Content.

   TIP:   Hold down the Control key to select multiple non-contiguous portlets from the list; use the Shift key to make multiple contiguous selections.

5. Click Add to move your choices to the list of Selected Content.

6. Click Close.

Now that you have chosen the content for your personal page, you can select a new layout as described in Modifying the page layout, or arrange the content on the current layout as described in Arranging content on the personal page.

Deleting content from a personal page

In the process of creating personal pages, you may want to delete content by removing portlets from a page. You can use the Content Selector or Layout Selector, as described in the following procedures.

To delete content from a personal page using the Content Selector:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select the page of interest from the personal pages list and click Choose Content.

   

   The Content Selector opens in a new browser window.

   

3. Select the portlet you want to delete from the Selected Content list and click Remove.

   The portlet is removed from the page.

To delete content from a personal page using the Layout Selector:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select the page of interest from the personal pages list and click Arrange Content.

   The Layout Selector opens in a new browser window, displaying the portlets you have added to your page, as in this example:

   

3. Click the X in the upper right hand corner of the portlet you want to remove.

   

   A message window appears, asking you to confirm your requested action.

4. Click OK to dismiss the window.

   The portlet is removed from the page.

Modifying the page layout

When you modify the layout of an existing page, the Portal shifts existing contents to accommodate the new layout. Although the Portal makes its best guess on content placement, you may need to fine tune the end result. For example, if you were to change the layout from 3 Columns to 2 Columns, you would probably want to make some adjustments to get the desired presentation.

To modify the layout of a personal page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select Choose Layout.

   

   A layout selection page opens in a new browser window.

   

3. Scroll through the choices and select the layout of interest.

4. Click Select Layout.

Arranging content on the personal page

After you have designated the content and layout for your personal page, you can position the content in the selected layout.

To arrange content on a personal page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select Arrange Content.

   

   The Layout Selector opens in a new browser window:

   

   The portlets that you have already added appear in the page layout. By default, portlets are added in top-to-bottom order within the first section.

3. If you want to add a portlet to the page, follow these steps:

   1. Click Add a Portlet in the desired layout frame.

      The Content Selector opens in a new browser window.

   2. If you want to display a specific category of available portlets, choose a category from the Filter dropdown menu.

   3. Double click the portlet of interest from the list of Available Content.

      The Content Selector window closes and the portlet you selected appears in the target layout frame in the Layout Selector window.

4. If you want to move a portlet to a different location in the layout, follow these browser-specific steps

   For:	Do this:
   Internet Explorer	Move your cursor over the title bar of the portlet until the cursor changes to a hand shape. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the portlet to the desired location in the layout.
   Netscape/Mozilla	Click on the portlet you want to move. Click inside the destination layout frame. The portlet moves to the destination.

5. If you want to remove a portlet from the layout, follow these steps:

   1. Click the X in the upper right hand corner of the portlet:

      

      A message box appears asking you to confirm the deletion.

   2. Click OK.

      The portlet is removed from the layout.

6. If you want to edit the preferences of a portlet, follow these steps:

   1. Click the pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner of the portlet:

      

      The Portlet Preferences portlet opens in your browser.

   2. Specify your preferences. The preference values you specify take effect for the instance of the portlet that appears on your page.

7. Click Save Layout to save your changes and close the Layout Selector.

Displaying a personal page

There are two ways to display a personal page:

This section describes each procedure.

To display a personal page using the Portal:

1. Select Portal from the Portal Personalizer, as shown below.

   

   NOTE:   To start the Portal Personalizer, see Starting the Portal Personalizer.

   The personal page is displayed in the context of the container page. The Page Navigation portlet on the container page highlights the personal page or shared page that appears in the content area.

2. If the personal page is not displayed in the content area of the container page, click the link to the personal page in the Page Navigation portlet, as in this example:

   

   As you can see, this container page displays the content of the shared page Corporate Home, shown highlighted in the page navigation links. Selecting the navigation link to MyPage will direct the Portal Aggregator to display the contents of that personal page instead. In the following example, the link to MyPage now appears highlighted in the Page Navigation portlet, and the contents of the personal page—the Weather Service and Google portlets—now appears in the content area of the container page:

   

To display a page directly using the personal page URL:

• Enter the following URL in your browser:

    http://server/project context/portal/pg/up_personal page name
  

  For example, if your server is localhost and your project context is MyWAR, you can access a personal page called MyPage by entering this URL in your browser:

    http://localhost/MyWAR/portal/pg/up_MyPage
  

  When you navigate to the personal page URL, the content of the personal page appears by itself in your browser. It does not include the container page, as shown in this example:

  

Setting the theme for your portal

You can change the theme for your portal using the Portal Personalizer. The theme applies to all pages—user, shared, and container pages—in your portal.

To set the theme for your portal:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Scroll down to the Portal Theme section and click Select another theme.

   

   exteNd Director displays the Portal Themes page in a new browser window.

   

3. Click the radio button for the theme you want to use.

4. Click Save.

   The new theme takes effect immediately.

Setting the default personal or shared page

In the Portal Personalizer, you can designate a specific personal or shared page to be the default page for your portal. The page you designate is then displayed by the default Container page.

To set a default page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select the page in the Default Page list.

3. Click Set as default.

Setting the default container page

In the Portal Personalizer, you can specify a default container page to wrap all of your personal pages and a default page to display in the content area of your container page if no other page takes precedence. The Portal Aggregator uses these settings to determine what content to display for each user request, as described in How content is determined for the current user.

To set a default container page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Scroll to the Container Page section and select a container page from the dropdown menu in the Default Container Page field.

   

   NOTE:   The dropdown menu shows only the container pages you are authorized to view.

Deleting a personal page

To delete a personal page:

1. Start the Portal Personalizer, as described in Starting the Portal Personalizer.

2. Select the page in the Personal Pages list.

3. Click Remove.

   A message box opens, asking you to confirm the deletion.

4. Click OK.

Creating a wireless layout page

From the Portal Personalizer you can access the Wireless Layout Manager, which allows you to a define a layout page containing wireless-enabled portlets that you can use when accessing your portal application from a wireless device.

    To learn how to create a wireless layout, see Using the Wireless Layout Manager.

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