10 New Theming Powers in WebSphere Portal 8.0.0.1

February 20, 2013 — 6 Comments

girlWithiPadPortal

As you may know by now, WebSphere Portal 8.0.0.1 released recently with a handful of exciting new features. With them are ten new concepts related to theming, which have been documented in the WebSphere Portal family wiki.

Knowledge is power, so feast your brain on these brand new articles from the IBM doc team…

 

Theme Concepts

Modules

Styles and Layout

Menus

Mobile

 

  • Sriram

    But I’ve always wondered why WP Theme development team is not thinking that a customer would like to use a different Dojo/Dijit theme, say Soria, and make it easier to switch to that theme!

    • Cody Burleson

      I hardly ever use Dojo, so I don’t know too much about it. But I thought theming Dojo was just a matter of including the right CSS and then adding a Dojo theme css class to the HTML body element. It sounds like you’ve tried and learned that it’s not so simple in terms of WebSphere Portal theming. I’d be interested to hear a little more about that if you ever get the time to share more from your experience.

      • Sriram

        Yes, theming Dojo is as simple as pointing to the correct CSS file. When modularized theme was first introduced in WP 7.0.0.2, Dojo was loaded from a separate war file and Dojo’s Tundra theme was used as default. It took a lot of time for me to figure out how to get it working (once you figure out, you won’t believe that its that simple!). Now in WP 8.x, the modularized theme still uses Dojo’s Tundra theme by default. But the CSS for this is loaded from a IBM One UI and the theme’s HTML Body has an additional class “lotusui30dojo”. And the profiles load a couple of One UI modules. I’m not sure if these can be removed or not. IBM Support says that don’t remove these One UI module. I can still use Soria theme without removing them, but it is going to be an additional load on the page.

        I wish there is just a Resource Environment Variable where I can set the Dojo theme for my Portal theme!

        • Cody Burleson

           That’s great commentary, Sriram – thanks! I really hope you will continue to share your thoughts and ideas.

          I think the reason why IBM may be suggesting to keep the IBM One UI stuff is because it is used in some of the core product pieces that you are expected to leave in your theme. Maybe some stuff in the portal toolbar that they expect you to leave in place (for Managed Pages functionality). At least, I see a similar toolbar in this older One UI example page. What version of portal are you working with now? I am kind of interested in trying some experiments now. Well, not exactly now, but at least after I’m finished with the time machine.

          • Sriram

            Sure, would be glad to share ideas & thoughts! I’m now working with WP 8.0.0.1. Well, actually be moving apps from WP 7.0.0.2 to 8.0.0.1 soon.

  • Joaquín

    We need consider Mobile navigation to our project Alpo!!