Developing a custom HTML User Inbox involves using the Web Application Toolkit and/or developing your own JSP pages, EJBs (Enterprise JavaBeans), servlets, modifying the XML schema, using the Process Java APIs to log in to the Process Engine and establish a session, etc. As previously indicated, the advantages of an HTML User Inbox over a Java User Inbox are that the HTML User Inbox requires no download to the client and that it can be readily accessed by most standard browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.). Note that all User Inboxes, whether HTML or Java, must at a minimum, perform certain basic operations. For information on the basic operations a User Inbox performs, see the Basic User Inbox Operations topic.
To create a custom HTML User Inbox, you can use the Web Application Toolkit to customize a copy of the Workplace User Tasks page or you can create your own application. For general information on developing web applications, see the Web Application Toolkit Developer's Guide. Basic sample web applications to help get you started with the Web Application Toolkit are also available on the FileNet P8 Documentation CD. In addition, the FileNet eXtra Web site provides samples that illustrate a range of Web Application Toolkit functionality.
The following table provides a summary description of general guidelines that summarize some, but not all, of the various ways that you can customize a User Inbox.
Customize |
Changes |
Description |
---|---|---|
User Interface | Modify the basic appearance of the User Inbox. Modify colors, logos, graphics, fonts, and banners to fit your organization's "look and feel". |
Modify/customize the "View" UI JSP, UI Module (JavaBean), XSL stylesheet, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). Remember to verify that the "Event" JSP redirects control to the appropriate corresponding UI JSP page, consisting of static HTML and calls to the render methods (to transform the XML data into HTML) of the UI modules. |
Modify the page layout or structure of the User Inbox to match your organization's forms, documents, web design, etc. |
Create/use an object (in the HTML header section) for the HTML page. In the layout section, the WcmUI.render method is called for each UI module that generates HTML output from XML. The WcmUI.render method in turn calls the individual render methods of the UI modules. Override the base UI module methods to customize the presentation. In addition, you can create custom tab bars, tool bars, and other UI elements and place them into a containment module using the appropriate UI module's methods. |
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Add new User Controls, modify existing Controls, or hide existing Controls. |
See previous description above to add/customize controls for the user interface. Modify/customize the "Event" JSP page to call the controller methods to handle user actions invoked from an HTML page and redirect the control to the corresponding UI JSP page. |
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Build From Scratch | Create User Inbox from scratch using a framework that incorporates a custom user interface and Process Engine services. |
An HTML User Inbox is built within the framework of the J2EE MVC model, where the "C"ontroller layer includes a controller bean and an event JSP (to instantiate and connect the UI modules, data providers, and the controller bean) that maps events to the "M"odel, which includes data provider beans (gather data from the Content Engine Java APIs and the Process Java APIs) and data store beans (persist session state data) that provide data to the "V"iew component, consisting of a UI JSP and module (bean) that render the XML data from the Process Engine that is returned to the UI module. An XSL transformation object applies an XSLT stylesheet to render the XML and return an HTML page in response to the client browser's HTTP request. For additional information, see the Web Application Toolkit Developer's Guide. Note that all User Inboxes must, at a minimum, perform certain basic operations. For information on these, see the Basic User Inbox Operations topic. |