WebCenter Spaces 11g PS2 Template Customization
- by javier.ductor(at)oracle.com
Recently, we have been involved in a WebCenter Spaces customization project. Customer sent us a prototype website in HTML, and we had to transform Spaces to set the same look&feel as in the prototype.Protoype:First of all, we downloaded a Virtual Machine with WebCenter Spaces 11g PS2, same version as customer's. The next step was to download ExtendWebCenterSpaces application. This is a webcenter application that customizes several elements of WebCenter Spaces: templates, skins, landing page, etc. jDeveloper configuration is needed, we followed steps described in Extended Guide, this blog was helpful too. . After that, we deployed the application using WebLogic console, we created a new group space and assigned the ExtendedWebCenterSpaces template (portalCentricSiteTemplate) to it. The result was this:As you may see there is a big difference with the prototype, which meant a lot of work to do from our side.So we needed to create a new Spaces template with its skin.Using jDeveloper, we created a new template based on the default template. We removed all menus we did not need and inserted 'include' tags for header, breadcrumb and footers. Each of these elements was defined in an isolated jspx file.In the beginning, we faced a problem: we had to add code from prototype (in plain HTML) to jspx templates (JSF language). We managed to workaround this issue using 'verbatim' tags with 'CDATA' surrounding HTML code in header, breadcrumb and footers.Once the template was modified, we added css styles to the default skin. So we had some styles from portalCentricSiteTemplate plus styles from customer's prototype.Then, we re-deployed the application, assigned this template to a new group space and checked the result. After testing, we usually found issues, so we had to do some modifications in the application, then it was necessary to re-deploy the application and restart Spaces server. Due to this fact, the testing process takes quite a bit of time.Added to the template and skin customization, we also customized the Landing Page using this application and Members task flow using another application: SpacesTaskflowCustomizationApplication. I will talk about this task flow customization in a future entry.After some issues and workarounds, eventually we managed to get this look&feel in Spaces:P.S. In this customization I was working with Francisco Vega and Jose Antonio Labrada, consultants from Oracle Malaga International Consulting Centre.
