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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com
Web Client Customization
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Introduction
The Sidebar component was introduced in the 2.0 release of the Web Client.
The sidebar replaces the shelf component with an extensible, customisable sidebar component which is made up of a collection of configurable 'sidebar plugins'.
Sidebar
The sidebar component takes care of displaying a list of available plugins and the respective actions for the currently active plugin.
The list of plugins is driven from web client configuration files and is therefore overridable and extensible. The configuration for the out-of-the-box plugins is shown below.
<config evaluator='string-compare' condition='Sidebar'>
<sidebar>
<plugins>
<plugin id='navigator' label-id='navigator' description-id='navigator_desc'
page='/jsp/sidebar/navigator.jsp' actions-config-id='navigator_actions' />
<plugin id='shelf' label-id='shelf' description-id='shelf_desc'
page='/jsp/sidebar/shelf.jsp' />
</plugins>
<default-plugin>navigator</default-plugin>
</sidebar>
</config>
The set of attributes available for each plugin are shown below:
- id : The unique identifier for the plugin.
- label-id : The I18N message id of a string to use for the label of the plugin.
- label : Textual label for the plugin.
- description-id : The I18N message id of a string to use for the description/tooltip of the plugin.
- description : Textual description of the plugin.
- page : The JSP snippet that represents the contents of the plugin.
- actions-config-id : The id of an action-group definition providing a set of actions to show in the sidebar header area when the plugin is active.
The default-plugin element allows one of the defined plugins to be designated as the default i.e. the one the application shows when a user logs in. If this element is omitted the first plugin in the list is selected as the default.
Plugins
A sidebar plugin is basically a JSP snippet page (much like dashlets and dialogs/wizards) and an optional action group definition. The JSP contains the component(s) that make up the plugin.
If an action group id is configured for the plugin the action will be displayed in the sidebar header area when the plugin is active as shown in the screenshot below.
Sidebar-actions.gif
NOTE: The use of the f:verbatim tag is problematic in sidebar component JSP snippets, it causes various other components to behave in an erratic manner. Plugin JSP snippet pages should therefore only contain JSF tags.
Navigator
Uses a task pane approach (accordion style) to house a tree for the main areas of the repository i.e. My Home, Company Home and Guest Home. A panel also exists for the My Alfresco area, this doesn't provide a tree but does give another way to return to the dashboard view.
Navigator.gif
Shelf
This plugin currently simply contains the shelf components that were present in previous releases i.e. the Clipboard, Recent Spaces and Shortcuts. These may be split into separate plugins in a future release.
OpenSearch
This plugin issues queries against a registered search engine that supports the OpenSearch protocol. The component issues the requests using AJAX and updates the search results without the need for a full page refresh.
Opensearch.gif
