> I must say that your comments and Brendan's have given me insight into how > this thing works that could have taken me days of digging on my own to > find. Thanks a lot for that.
Your welcome ;) > I still don't understand exactly what controllers are? Think of a controller as a layout for how a set of portlets is rendered. For example the multicolumn controller lays out portlets within an arbitrary number of columns (50/50, 33/33/33, etc.) a row controller would place all of the portlets in a set into a single row. A control is a little more open. Take for instance the jetspeed-tab.vm conntrol. It is responsible creating tabs when the tab "Tab Pane" controller is selected the same goes for jetspeed-menu.vm when the layout controller is "Menu pane". The Jetspeed.vm is a little different as it serves as the basic place holder for portlets and panes(read controller). Something to think about is that controllers can contain other controllers. For example, you could be using a "Tab Pane" which is a controller and have each tab layout it's portlets with another controller like the "Two columns (50/50)" which is actually a multicolumn controller that uses the WEB-INF/templates/vm/html/multicolumn.vm velocity template to generate the html. Take a look at the registry files controls.xreg and controllers.xreg, they will point you to which Velocity templates render them. > How easy is it to write a velocity template (never used velocity before), > can it be done by web designers? Velocity is the page designer best friend. It was designed to be simple yet elegant and has a much shorter learning curve than JSP or even Cold Fusion or ASP for that matter. http://jakarta.apache.org/jetspeed Scott > -----Original Message----- > From: Tarek M. Nabil [mailto:Tarek.Nabil@;itworx.com] > Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 9:32 AM > To: Jetspeed Users List > Subject: RE: Changing the templates > > I must say that your comments and Brendan's have given me insight into how > this thing works that could have taken me days of digging on my own to > find. Thanks a lot for that. Well, it's not that I'm lazy or anything, but > to tell you the truth, my manager doesn't really think that Jetspeed is > the solution to our problem, and it's me who needs to convince him besides > doing my job tasks which makes things pretty hard. > > I still don't understand exactly what controllers are? How do I make a new > controller? Is it just about writing that velocity template? > > How easy is it to write a velocity template (never used velocity before), > can it be done by web designers? > > I really appreciate the help :) > > Thanks, > > Tarek Nabil > > -----Original Message----- > From: Weaver, Scott [mailto:Sweaver@;rippe.com] > Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 3:24 PM > To: 'Jetspeed Users List' > Subject: RE: Changing the templates > > > > It seems a lot of the HTML on the site is produced in the source code of > > the components by jakarta ECS (element constuction set) > > http://jakarta.apache.org/ecs/ > > I which is fine for JAVA developers that don't know HTML but is (i > think) > > clunky for anyone who is experienced in hand-coding HTML for web sites. > > (on the ECS page I find the first example far more readable!) > > 99% of Jetspeed's content is generated using Velocity templates not > through ECS. > > Location of templates: > > Controllers: WEB-INF/templates/vm/contollers > Controls: WEB-INF/templates/vm/controls > Jetspeed's default layout: WEB-INF/templates/vm/layouts/html/default.vm > Jetspeed's default page: WEB-INF/templates/vm/screens/html/home > > You can use the existing controls and controllers as examples to write > your own. > > After creating your own controls and/or controllers, you will need to add > entries for them to the local-controls and/or local-controllers > respectively in WEB-INF/conf. Neither of these files come with Jetspeed > as they are to be used for user-defined entries, so you will need to > create them. You can use controls.xreg and controllers.xreg as examples > on how to structure local-controls.xreg and local-controllers.xreg. > > Once you have your custom controls and controllers registered, re-start > tomcat and they should be available for selection. > > Scott > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:brendan.richards@;draftlondon.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 8:54 AM > > To: Jetspeed Users List > > Subject: RE: Changing the templates > > > > From what I can tell there isn't a single global template that controls > > site look and feel. > > > > A page is built from a number of portlet objects embedded into a > heirachy > > of controller objects. > > > > the simplest portlet will just display a chunk of html code from a file > so > > you can get your web designers to produce these. > > For example, the fist portlet displayed when logging in as Tommy Turbine > > just shows some HTML with a "Welcome to jetspeed" message. > > > > The skins system allows you to apply stylesheets to these portlets. > > > > What I don't know is how the HTML from a controller is built. > > For example, if you use a tabbed pane controller you get a tab- > navigation > > system (login as admin to see this). > > Is the HTML for those navigation buttons hard coded into the controller > > code or is it customisable in some form? > > > > My guess is that to fully customise every visual aspect of the page, you > > would have to build your own or modify existing controllers. > > > > It seems a lot of the HTML on the site is produced in the source code of > > the components by jakarta ECS (element constuction set) > > http://jakarta.apache.org/ecs/ > > I which is fine for JAVA developers that don't know HTML but is (i > think) > > clunky for anyone who is experienced in hand-coding HTML for web sites. > > (on the ECS page I find the first example far more readable!) > > > > > > As far as web design is concerned, I'd do the following: > > 1) Look at page architecture with your designers - divide up into left > > nav, top bar etc. > > 2) use PSML to layout the page to this structure > > 3) get your web designers to deveolop HTML components to fit within this > > framework. > > > > > > > > Brendan Richards > > > > > > > > > > > > "Tarek M. Nabil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > 23/10/2002 13:22 > > Please respond to "Jetspeed Users List" > > > > > > To: "Jetspeed Users List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > cc: > > Subject: RE: Changing the templates > > > > > > Does that mean I have to know PSML to change the template? I think our > web > > designers won't like that :( > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:brendan.richards@;draftlondon.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 9:59 AM > > To: Jetspeed Users List > > Subject: Re: Changing the templates > > > > > > Tarek, > > > > As far as I can tell, the site can be fully customised using the "site > > markup" features of PSML. > > using this you can specify the layout of controller objects (menu, > tabbed > > pane etc.) > > > > I think the customiser interface provides a way to easily change the > PSML > > via point-and-click but to get full control you could edit the PSML for > > yourself. > > > > The customisation works by allowing differnt PSML files for different > > users, groups etc. > > > > go to http://jakarta.apache.org/jetspeed/site/psml.html > > > > that's my take on it anyway. could someone please correct me if i'm > > mistaken.... > > > > Brendan Richards > > > > > > > > > > > > "Tarek M. Nabil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > 22/10/2002 20:58 > > Please respond to "Jetspeed Users List" > > > > > > To: "Jetspeed (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > cc: > > Subject: Changing the templates > > > > > > Hi everyone, > > > > I just downloaded Jetspeed today to evaluate it, and it looks pretty > good > > to me so far. I've worked with a similar product before - Plumtree, but > it > > > > wasn't an open-source one. > > > > Now, to the question, I've been looking around in the documents, and it > > seems like the documentation about how to change the whole look of the > > site is hidden somewhere I can't find. I need to make new templates and > > change the whole look of the site while retaining its main > > functionalities. I also wonder whether they way gadgets are laid out can > > be changed, I mean, does the page always have to be divided into > columns? > > > > I appreciate your help. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Tarek M. Nabil > > > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > > > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:jetspeed-user- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
