A portal should reflect the style and culture of the organization that uses it. Content should be targeted for each specific audience and each group should have immediate access to the resources users need. Basic functionality should be intuitive and consistent.
AquaLogic User Interaction (ALUI), formerly called the Plumtree Application Suite, provides built-in customization tools that allow you to create a portal that fits the needs of all your company’s users. Using the frameworks and tools provided ensures that your customizations can be retained during future upgrades. These basic customizations require no custom Java or C# code.
For details on implementing your existing customizations in the G6 portal, see Upgrading Existing Customizations.
AquaLogic Interaction provides tools to support almost any portal customization. For details on advanced customizations, see Implementing Advanced Portal Customizations and Using Portal Component Replacement.
The portal UI is designed for customization. The portal includes a range of built-in solutions for customizing look and feel. For an introduction to the portal UI, see Portal Page Layout.
Add your logo and branding to the portal: Header and Footer portlets are displayed on most portal pages, and usually contain the company logo and contact information. These portlets can be modified easily using ALI Publisher, without writing any code. For more information, see the ALI Publisher online help. For details on building custom portlets, see Pagelet and Portlet Development.
Customize portal experiences for specific groups of users: Experience Definitions allow the portal to use different branding for different groups of users, including departments, product teams, or specific customers. By creating multiple experience definitions and communities, you can create focused pages and experiences for distinct groups of portal users. For an introduction to experiences, see Customizing Experience Definitions. For more information, see the Deployment Guide and Administrator Guide for AquaLogic Interaction (Plumtree Foundation).
Modify portal styles: The portal style sheets are fully customizable. The portal comes with a selection of different options to change the style of portal pages, including a range of color schemes, fonts, and other options. The default style sheets used for each experience definition can be modified using portal administration. You can also create custom style sheets using the CSS Style Mill. For details, see Modifying Portal Style Sheets.
Customize page layout and design: Starting in G6, the portal's CSS template file allows you to customize the layout of the portal page, including columns, navigation tabs, banners and footers. You can modify the look and feel of individual table controls and form elements, including text box sizing, button colors and fonts. You can also use style sheets to customize portlet content and style. For details, see Using Adaptive Styles (CSS Customization).
Change portal text: Any messages displayed in the portal can be customized easily by modifying the portal string files. This is a simple customization that is often overlooked in favor of more complicated methods. All text in the portal is stored in internationalized string files, including login instructions and error messages, with the exception of object names and text generated by portlets. For details and instructions, see Modifying Portal Text.
AquaLogic Interaction (formerly Plumtree Portal) also supports customizing and extending all aspects of portal functionality. Some of the most common options are detailed below.
Customize portal login: The portal login page can be customized for different groups of users. A common customization is to provide different branding on the login page based on the URL used to access the portal. This allows you to provide each group of users with a seamlessly branded portal, including pages viewed as the guest user. In G6, this can be implemented using Experience Definitions. You can also create a custom login page using Adaptive Tags. For information, see Customizing the Portal Login Experience.
Modify portal navigation: Navigation is a key element of the portal page. Experience definitions allow you to add custom links to the navigation pane that point to Community pages, documents, and Web pages without writing any code. In G6, you can use Adaptive Tags to quickly and easily create a custom navigation scheme.
Add new portlet functionality to existing portal pages: Portlets can always be used to add new functionality to a portal page. Basic portlets allow you to display custom HTML and content from other applications. You can also use portlets to access portal components, and build portlets that are updated dynamically based on user action and other events. For more information, see Pagelet and Portlet Development.
Customize and extend ALI search: ALI Search indexes and searches all the documents, information, applications, communities, discussions, Web sites and other content accessible through the portal. You can customize how search is implemented in the portal, and extend ALI search to include enterprise content. For details, see Customizing ALI Search.
Next: Portal Page Layout