Chapter 3. Manage Your Organization

This chapter covers the following topics:

  • About Administration bar is a brief introduction of the main bar and its navigations which allow you to do most actions in eXo Platform.

  • Manage users and groups represents actions related to management of users, groups and memberships.

  • Manage permissions instructs you how to set permissions on a portal, page, category and portlet.

  • Manage portals/websites gives steps on how to create/edit/delete a portal, and how to switch between various portals.

  • Manage navigation nodes includes actions which can be done on a navigation, such as adding/editing/copying/pasting/cloning/cutting/deleting a node, or changing the node orders.

  • Manage pages provides you step-by-step instructions to create a new page by using Page Creation Wizard or Page Manager, to edit/delete a page and to manage types of page navigations.

  • Manage applications represents actions which can be done on applications inside a portal and a Desktop.

The Administration bar is a toolbar which allows users and administrators to execute tasks within the portal quickly and easily.

My Sites

This navigation contains different sites available in eXo Platform and allows users to directly edit the navigation tree.

Dashboard

This navigation is used to create your own pages of gadgets.

Desktop

This navigation allows you to store and perform all applications and actions in one bar that is similar to working on a desktop.

Edit

This navigation allows you to manage content, page and site (for example, editing the content, adding new pages to the current portal, editing properties of a page, or changing a page's layout).

User Menu

You can use the main menu (located under your display name) to change your account information, the portal language or to sign out, and more.

As an administrator, you can easily add users, edit their information, manage users, groups and memberships easily and effectively.

To perform these actions, you first need to hover your cursor over at the top right of the site, then select User.

  1. Click Add Users from the drop-down menu.

    The Create New Account window will open with two tabs: Account Settings and User Profile.

  2. Fill all fields in the Account Settings tab which must be completed. For more details on these fields, see here.

    Further information about the user, such as nickname, or birthday, can be added in the User Profile tab that is not required.

  3. Click Save to accept your new account. If you want to refresh the input information, simply click Reset.

By clicking Groups And Roles, you will see the Organization form which allows you to manage users, groups and memberships.

As an administrator, you can easily find, edit information of users, and even remove them from the system via the User Management tab. By default, all registered users will be shown in this tab.

Via the User Management tab, you also can define each user belonging to user groups and his memberships (roles) in these groups. You cannot add users to a group but can remove them from the group.

You can search for specific users by username, first name, last name or email address.

  1. Type the search term related to the user you want to search. You do not need to enter an exact term.

  2. Select the information type you want to search against.

  3. Click , or hit the Enter key to perform your search.

  1. Locate the user you want to edit his information.

  2. Click corresponding to the user with the information you want to edit.

  3. Select the Account Info tab to edit main information of the user, including First Name, Last Name, or Email Address.

    Username

    The Username cannot be changed.

    Change Password

    The Change Password option allows an administrator to set a new password for the selected user. When the Change Password option is unchecked, New Password and Confirm Password are hidden. Passwords must contain at least 6 characters, including letters, numbers and punctuation marks.

    For more details on these fields, see here.

  4. Select the User Profile tab to edit the personal information of the selected user, including Profile, Home and Business. You may also switch the default display language for that user by selecting another language from the Language field where all available languages are displayed in the alphabetical order.

  5. Select the User Membership tab to see the group membership information of the user.

    The User Membership tab displays which groups the selected user belongs to.

    To remove the user from a group, click .

  6. Click Save to accept your changes.

  1. Locate the user you wish to delete.

  2. Click corresponding to the user you want to delete in the main User Management form.

  3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

Select the Group Management tab in the Organization form. This tab is used to add, edit or delete a group. You can also add or delete a user to a group and edit the user membership in the group.

By default, all existing groups will be displayed on the left pane. The right pane shows information of the selected group and of its members with the Add Member form.

  1. Select the path to create a new group by clicking the group from the left pane or by clicking if you want to create a group at a higher level. The selected path is displayed in the breadcrumb bar.

  2. Click in the left pane.

    The Add Group form will be displayed in the right pane.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Group Name Name of the group that is required and unique within the portal with its length from 3 to 30 characters. Only letters, numbers and underscore characters are allowed for the Group Name field.
    Label The display name of the group with any length from 3 to 50 characters.
    Description A description of the group with any length from 0 to 255 characters.

  3. Fill in the required fields. Once being saved, the Group Name cannot be edited.

  4. Click Save to accept creating the new group.

Note

The creator will automatically become the manager of that group. The creator's username will be added to the created group with the "manager" membership.

  1. Click the group you want to edit in the left pane.

  2. Click in the left pane to show the Edit Current Group form of the selected group.

  3. Make changes on the fields, except Group Name.

  4. Click Save to accept your changes.

  1. Click the group you want to delete in the left pane.

  2. Click in the row of the membership type you want to delete.

  3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

Note

After being deleted, all information related to that group, such as users and navigation, is also deleted. You cannot delete the mandatory groups, including Platform, Platform/Administration, Platform/Guests, Platform/Visitors.

  1. Select the group to which you want to add a new user in the left pane.

  2. Enter the exact Username of the user that you want to add to the selected group (you can add many usernames separated by commas);

    Or, enter at least one character if you are not sure about the exact spelling and do the further followings:

    i. Click to search by your entered characters.

    After you have clicked , there will be a list of all existing users whose Usernames include the entered characters. For example, if you enter 'o', you will get the following result.

    ii. Select the checkboxes corresponding to users you want to add to the group.

    After clicking Add, you will see the complete Usernames in the Add Member form.

  3. Select the membership for the users from the Membership list. You can click to update the memberships list in case of any changes.

  4. Click Save to accept adding the selected users to the specific group with the specified membership type.

Note

By default, the "manager" membership has the highest right in a group. A user can have several membership types in a group. To do that, you have to use the Add Member form for each membership type. The user's membership information is hereafter updated. You can check it by opening the User Management form and editing the user you just added.

  1. Click corresponding to a specific user with a membership in the Action column in the right pane.

  2. Change the membership of the selected user by selecting another value in the Membership list.

  3. Click Save to complete your changes.

The role of a user in a specific group is managed by using the Membership Management tab.

By default, eight membership types available in eXo Platform include Member, Author, Editor, Manager, Redactor, Validator, Webdesigner, and Publisher. The "Manager" has the highest right in a group.

  1. Enter values into the fields of the Add/Edit Membership form. The Membership Name field is required, and only letters, digits, dots, dashes and underscores are allowed without ANY SPACES.

  2. Click Save to accept adding a new membership, or Reset to clear entered values.

  1. Click corresponding to the membership type you want to edit in the Action column. Information about the selected membership type will be updated automatically in the Add/Edit Membership form.

  2. Make your desired changes on the Description field. You cannot change the Membership Name.

  3. Click Save to accept your changes.

  1. Click in the Action column.

  2. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

Permissions play an important role in accessing and performing actions in eXo Platform. Depending on these permissions assigned by an administrator, users can gain access to various components and another actions, such as editing portals, pages, or portlets.

Details about permission types and levels can also be found in the Permission section.

You can set the portal permissions (Access permission and Edit permission) for a specific user via the Permission Settings tab.

The Permission Settings tab can be opened in some various ways, depending on the following approaches.

For new portals:

  1. Hover your cursor over in the Administration bar, then click Portal --> Sites.

  2. Select the Add New Portal button to open the Create New Portal form.

  3. Click the Permission Settings tab.

For existing portals:

The first way

  1. Hover your cursor over in the Administration bar, then click Portal --> Sites.

  2. Select Edit Portal's Config, then select the Permission Settings tab.

The second way

  1. Hover your cursor over My Sites on the Administration bar, then select your desired portal from the drop-down menu.

  2. Select Edit --> Site --> Layout on the Administration bar.

  3. Click Site's Config in the Edit Inline Composer window, then select the Permission Settings tab.

Note

To access a portal, you must belong to one of the groups that have access permission to that portal.

After entering into the Permission Settings tab, you first need to select the Access Permission Settings sub-tab to set the access permissions on a portal.

  • If you want to assign the access permission to users in the public mode (without signing in), simply select the Make it public (everyone can assess) checkbox.

  • If you do not want everyone to access the portal, first deselect the Make it public (everyone can access) checkbox, and do the followings:

    1. Click the Add Permission button to open the Select Permission form.

    2. Select one group in the left pane, and one membership type in the right pane. In the list of membership types, the asterisk (*) means that any membership types of the selected group are allowed.

    3. Click Save to finish your settings.

  • After you have selected a membership type, the selected permission is displayed in the access permission list.

  • You can select only one group with one membership type at each time. If you want to add more, click the Add Permission button and select again.

Note

Only members under the Editor group can edit that portal. Access rights can be given to several groups but edit rights can only be given to a group with a membership type. To assign an edit permission to a user, you must add him/her to the editors group of the relevant portal.

After entering into the Permission Settings tab, you first need to select the Edit Permission Settings sub-tab to set the edit permissions on a portal and do the followings:

  1. Click the Select Permission button to open the Permission Selector form.

  2. Select one group in the left pane and one membership type in the right pane. You can select * if you want to assign all available membership types to the selected group.

  3. Click Save to finish your settings.

Before setting permissions on a page, you need to pay attention to the following cases:

To set permissions on a page, you first need to go to the Permission Settings tab via different ways:

Via Edit Page:

  1. Hover your cursor over My Sites on the Administration bar, then select the page you want to configure from the drop-down menu.

    You will be directed to your selected site.

  2. Continue hovering your cursor over Edit on the Administration bar, then select Page --> Layout from the drop-down menu.

  3. Click View Page Properties in the Page Editor window.

  4. Select the Permission Settings tab.

Via Page Management:

  1. Hover your cursor over on the Administration bar, and select Portal --> Pages to open the Pages Management page.

  2. Locate the page you want to edit using the Page Id column, then click in the Action column. You will be taken to the Page Editor window.

  3. Select the Permission Settings tab.

Note

To be able to access a page, you have to be in one of the groups that have access permission to that page.

To assign the access permission on a page, simply follow steps as stated in the Access permission section.

Note

Only users under the page's editors group can edit it. The access permission can be set for several groups but the edit permission only can be set for one group.

To give users the edit permission, you must add them to the editors group of that page via Permission Settings and follow steps as stated in the Edit permission section.

Setting the access permission on categories allows these categories to be listed when a page is edited to add portlets or widgets.

  1. Hover your cursor over in the Administration bar, then select Applications from the drop-down menu to open the Manage Applications page.

  2. Select one category from the list of available categories in the left pane, then click .

  3. Select the Permission Settings tab.

  4. Set access permissions on a category that is similar to the Access permission section.

  1. Go to the Manage Applications page.

  2. Select the category containing the portlet you want to set the access permission, then click the relevant portlet under your selected category.

    The selected portlet will be highlighted in grey in the left pane with its detailed information in the right pane.

  3. Follow steps stated in the Access permission section to assign access permission on your selected portlet in the Default Permission Settings form.

You can perform this action only when you are a member of the /platform/administrators group.

  1. Hover your cursor over on the Administration bar, then select Portal --> Sites from the drop-down menu.

  2. Click the Add New Portal button.

    By default, the Create New Portal window, which contains the Portal Settings tab, will open.

  3. Enter a string into the Portal Name field. This field is required and must be unique. Only alphabetical, numerical and underscore characters are allowed for this field with the length from 3 to 30 characters.

  4. Select the default display language for the portal from the Locale field.

  5. Click the Properties tab to set the properties of a portal.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Keep session alive Keep the working session for a long time to avoid the time-out. There are 3 options:

    Never: The session will time out if the logged-in user does not do any action after a given period. In this case, there will be a message which asks the user to log in again.

    On Demand: The session will time out to the application's requirement. If there is no request from the application, the session will time out after the given period that is similar to that of Never.

    Always: The session will never time out even if the logged-in user does not do any action after a long time.

    Show info bar by default Tick the checkbox to show the info bar of the porlet by default when the portlet is used in a page of the portal.

    The "Show info bar by default" option only takes effect on new porlets as from the time you select the checkbox rather than all portlets of the portal. In particular, after creating your new portal with the "Show info bar by default" option checked, newly created portlets of the portal will be displayed with the info bar by default. However, if you deselect the "Show info bar by default" option when editing the portal's configuration, the former portlets with the shown info bars are remained; meanwhile new portlets, which are created after this option is deselected, will be shown without the info bars.


  6. Click the Permission Settings tab to set permissions on the portal.

    The list of access permissions for the portal is empty by default. You have to select at least one or tick the Make it public (everyone can access) checkbox to assign access permission to everyone.

    Note

    For more details on how to grant permissions on the portal, see the Set permissions on a portal section.

  7. Click the Portal Templates tab to select the template for your portal.

  8. Click Save to accept creating your new portal.

This function enables you to select and use another portals (gateway, starting site). You can perform this action only when you are assigned the appropriate permission by the administrators.

To switch between portals, hover your cursor over My Sites on the Administration bar for a list of all portals in which you have at least access rights, then click the desired portal. You need to wait a few seconds to be switched to your selected portal.

Note

The function allows you to edit layouts, navigations and properties of a portal. To do this, you must have the edit permission by contacting your administrator.

When you have the edit permission, follow either of two ways below to go to the relevant form that allows you to do actions related to editing a portal.

The first way

  1. Hover your cursor over My Sites on the Administration bar and select the portal you want to edit from the drop-down menu.

    You will be switched to your selected portal just after a few seconds.

  2. Continue hovering your cursor over Edit on the Administration bar to open the drop-down menu.

    i. Select Site --> Layout.

    You will be directed to the Edit Portal page. From here, you can make changes on the layout of your selected portal, or on its configurations by selecting Site's Config at the bottom of the Edit Inline Composer form.

    ii. Select Site --> Navigation.

    From here, you can edit your selected portal's navigation.

The second way

  1. Hover your cursor over to open the drop-down menu.

  2. Select Portal --> Sites to show the list of active portals.

  3. Specify your desired portal, and do the following actions:

To edit your selected portal's layout, your first need to follow one of ways above to open the Edit Layout form.

New applications, containers or gadgets can be dragged and dropped from the Edit Inline Composer window to the main portal body.

You can rearrange elements in the portal body by dragging and dropping them into your desired positions. Also, you can edit or remove any element by hovering your cursor over it and selecting , or respectively.

Note

For more details on how to edit elements, see the Edit a specific portlet section.

To edit your selected's navigation, your first need to follow one of ways above to open the Edit Navigation form.

The Navigation Management form appears.

Note

For more information about actions, which can be done in the Navigation Management form, see the Manage navigation nodes section.

Configurations of a portal include settings, properties and permissions that can be set by following one of ways above to open the Edit Configurations window.

In this window, you can make changes on fields in the various tabs, except the Portal Name in the Portal Settings tab.

Note

For more details on these fields, refer to the Create a new portal section.

Note

To delete a portal, you must be in the group that has the Edit Permission on that portal.

  1. Open the list of existing portals by following steps as stated in the second way.

  2. Click Delete corresponding to the portal you want to delete.

  3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

If you are the portal administrator or the portal administrator has granted you the appropriate permission privileges, you can execute some special actions related to portal nodes, including copying, editing, cutting, cloning, deleting, adding existing nodes. To do so, you first need to go to the nodes list by following steps described in the Edit navigation section, then right-clicking your desired node to open the drop-down menu.

  1. Select Add New Node to create a node as a sub-node of the selected node.

    The Add/Edit Page Node form appears.

  2. Enter values in the Page Node Settings tab.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Asterisk (*) This mark next to each field means that it is required to enter values in the field.
    Uri An identification of the node that is auto-created after the new node has been created.
    Node Name The node name which must be unique. Only alphabetic, numeric and underscore characters are allowed with its length from 3 to 30 characters and without ANY SPACES.
    Extended Label Mode Tick this checkbox to activate the extended label mode for your page node's label. If this checkbox is deselected, the Language field will disappear.
    Language Select your desired language for the node label from the drop-down menu.
    Label The display name of the node on the screen in the selected language. This field is not required and may be changed. Its length must be between 3 and 120 characters, including SPACES. For example, if you want to create a French label for your node, first select the Extended Label Mode checkbox. Next, from the Language drop-down list, select your desired language and enter your French label into the Label field.
    Visible This checkbox enables the page and its node to be shown or hidden at the navigation bar and sitemap.
    Publication Date & Time This option enables this node to be published for a given period. Two fields, including Start Publication Date and End Publication Date only display when this option is checked.
    Start Publication Date The start date and time to publish the node.
    End Publication Date The end date and time to publish the node.

    Note

    You can set date and time by clicking Start Publication Date and End Publication Date and selecting a date from the calendar pop-up.

  3. Select a page for this node in the Page Selector tab if you want.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Page Id The identification string of the page which is created automatically.
    Name The selected page's name.
    Title The selected page's title.
    Clear Page Remove the inputted page information from fields.
    Create Page Create a new page with the inputted name and the title.
    Search and Select Page Search and select an existing page.

    You do not need to enter values in these fields. They are automatically recorded after you have selected an existing page by clicking Search and Select Page.

    The Select Page form appears.

    This window lists all existing pages of Portal or Group with basic information for each page.

    You can select a page for creating a node by simply clicking , or search for a specific page as follows:

    i. Enter your page title into the Title field to search by title;

    Or, enter the site name into the Site Name field to search by the page's site name;

    Or, enter values into both fields to further limit your search results by both Title and Site Name.

    ii. Select the area in which you want to search into the Type field.

    iii. Click to perform your search. All pages matching your search criteria will be listed.

    iv. Click on the row of the page to select.

    After selecting a page, the details of this page will be displayed in the Page Selector form.

  4. Select one icon in the Icon tab if you want.

  5. Click Save to accept the new node page, or X to close the form.

Note

To select a page, you must be a member in the Access Permission or Edit Permission list of the selected pages. When the page type is 'User', you cannot select a page of another users.

If you do not have the access permission for any page in the list, please contact your administrator to get appropriate permissions.

This function is used to edit the node settings and reselect a page for a node.

  1. Select Edit this Node from the drop-down menu to open the form with all similar fields when you Add a new node.

  2. Change values in fields of the current node, except the Node Name.

  3. Click Save to complete your changes.

These functions are used to reproduce a node in another place.

  1. Select Copy Node from the drop-down menu.

  2. Right-click the position you want to paste this node and select Paste Node.

  3. Click Save to accept your changes.

Note

Two same node names in the same place are NOT allowed.

The Clone Node function allows you to copy a node. The difference between cloning and copying a node is that the cloned node has its own page with the same content as the selected node. Therefore, there will be a new page that has the same name as the cloned node's page shown in the pages list when you access the Pages Management page.

  1. Select Clone Node from the drop-down menu.

  2. Right-click the position that you want to paste this node and select Paste Node.

    The cloned node will be reproduced in a new place.

  3. Click Save to accept your changes.

This function enables you to change the position of a specific node, such as changing the page path.

  1. Select Cut Node from the drop-down menu.

  2. Select the position that you want to paste this node and click Paste Node.

  3. Click Save to accept your change.

    The cut node will be moved to your newly selected place.

Note

Two same node names in the same place are not allowed.

This function is used to remove a node linking to a page. After the node has been removed, the page has been still existing.

  1. Select Delete Node from the drop-down menu.

  2. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

  3. Click Save to accept your change.

You can easily move the position of nodes up or down in the navigation bar following these steps:

  1. Select Move Up or Move Down from the drop-down menu.

  2. Click Save to accept your changes.

The Page Creation Wizard is available to the portal's administrators and facilitates them to create and publish portal pages quickly and easily. The whole process to create a new page can be divided into 3 specific steps:

In the first step, you have to set Node Name and Display Name of your page. You are also able to decide the pages visibility and the publication period of the page.

  1. Hover your cursor over My Sites and click one portal/site to which you want to add a new page from the drop-down menu.

    You will be switched to your selected portal only after a few seconds.

  2. Hover your cursor over Edit on the Administration bar.

  3. Select Page --> Add Page from the drop-down menu to open the Page Creation Wizard form.

    The wizard is divided into two sections.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Selected Page Node The path of the selected node to add a new sub-page.
    Node Name The node name of the added page. This field is required with its length between 3 and 30 characters.
    Extended Label Mode Tick the checkbox to show the Language field for you to select another language for your created node's display name. It means that if this checkbox is deselected, the Language field will be deactivated.
    Language Select your desired language for the node's display name from the drop-down menu.
    Display Name The display name of the node which contains the added page and must have a length between 3 and 120 characters.
    Visible

    This checkbox toggles the global visibility of this page.

    If this option is checked, the page or the page node appears on the navigation bar, the page navigation and the sitemap. If "Visible" is checked, the visibility also depends on the Publication Date & Time option.

    If not being unchecked, the page is hidden under any circumstances, even if the publication period is valid.

    Publication Date & Time This option allows the page to be published for a given period. If this option is checked, Start Publication Date and End Publication Date will be shown.
    Start Publication Date The start date and time to publish the page.
    End Publication Date The end date and time to publish the page.

  4. Click Next or number '2' of the wizard steps to go to Step 2.

  1. Select Empty Layout or click the down-arrow icon in the right pane to see more templates.

  2. Click Next or number '3' of the wizard steps to go to the last step.

In this step, you can arrange the page's layout as follows:

Note

Click in the Page Editor window to save all changes, or to close without saving your changes.

  1. Hover your cursor over to open the drop-down menu.

  2. Select Portal --> Pages to go to the Pages Management page.

  3. Click Add New Page to open the Add New Page form with the Page Settings tab.

    Details:

    Field Description
    Page Id The page's identification string which will be automatically generated when the page is created.
    Owner Type

    • If Owner Type is "portal", the page is created for a portal. Therefore, only users who have the edit permissions at the portal level can create this page type.

    • If Owner Type is "group", the page is created for a group. Therefore, only users who have the manager permissions for that group can create this page type.

    Owner Id The identification name of the page's owner which will be automatically created after you have selected Owner Type.

    • When the owner type is set to "group", a list of groups will allow you to select one user as the 'owner'.

    • The name of the current portal is automatically selected for Owner Id, ensuring the edit permissions are assigned to users who can edit the current portal.

    Page Name The page name which is required and must be unique. Only alphabetical, numerical and underscore characters are allowed with its length from 3 to 30 characters.
    Page Title The page title which is optional with its length from 3 to 30 characters.
    Show Max Window The option enables the page to be shown at the maximum size or not.

  4. Define the page layout in the Page Layout template.

  5. Define permissions in the Permission Settings tab.

  6. Click Save to accept creating a new page.

  1. Open the Page Properties page by following one of the two ways:

    The first way

    i. Open the Navigation Management form by doing the steps in the Edit navigation section.

    ii. Right-click your desired node and select Edit Node's Page from the drop-down menu.

    The second way

    i. Hover your cursor over and select Portal --> Pages to open the Pages Management page.

    ii. Click corresponding to the page you want to edit.

    The Edit Page form will be displayed in the Page Properties window.

  2. Click View Page Properties in the Page Editor window to edit page properties.

    i. In the Page Settings tab, you cannot change values in Page Id, Owner Type, Owner Id, and Page Name.

    ii. In the Permission Settings tab, you can change or add more access and edit permissions. This form is only supported for pages of a group or a portal. Because the user's page is private, noone can access or edit it, except the creator.

    Note

    For more details on how to assign permissions on a page, refer to the Set permissions on a page section.

  3. Click Save, then select in Page Editor for all changes to take effect, or to abort.

  1. Hover your cursor over and select Portal --> Pages to open the Pages Management page. You will see a list of all existing pages.

  2. Click in the row of the page you want to delete.

  3. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

Navigation types in eXo Platform are outlined in the Manage navigation nodes.

The /platform/administrators group can do actions related to the page navigation of a portal, including adding/deleting portals, editing the layout/navigation/portal configuration.

Note

The page navigation of portal is created automatically when a portal is created.

The navigation will be deleted automatically after its portal has been deleted.

Actions related to the page navigation of users include adding a new page, editing a page/page layout. These actions are based on permission settings set to a page.

Note

The page navigation of a user will be created automatically when the user is created (registered).

Only the user who is the owner of the user page navigation can edit it.

Noone can create a user page navigation so that no one can delete it. The navigation will be deleted automatically when its user is deleted.

Each group has only one page navigation. Only managers of the navigation group and users of the administrators group can add/list/edit/delete the navigation or edit properties.

To manage the group's page navigation, hover your cursor over on the Administration bar, then select Portal --> Group Sites from the drop-down menu.

The Group Navigation Management page will appear.

Click Edit Navigation corresponding to the group navigation you want to edit. The Navigation Management form will appear.

In this form, you can edit the group's page navigation through doing many actions, such as adding a new node to this group, cloning, moving up/down, and more. To learn more about specific actions, refer to the Manage navigation nodes section.

Note

Only users who are "managers" of a group can create new pages for that group, while others in this group cannot.

  1. Select Add Navigation at the bottom of the Group Navigation form. The groups list will be displayed with the Add Navigation buttons.

  2. Click Add Navigation corresponding to the group you want to add the new page navigation.

    After being added, the new group navigation will be displayed in the Group Navigation page.

Each group has only one navigation. If you add a new group navigation that has been existing, there will be a message, informing that you cannot create the navigation.

This function is to change the priority of a navigation. Only users who have the right can take this action.

  1. Click Edit Properties corresponding to the navigation you want to edit.

    The Page Navigation Form will appear.

  2. Select another priority from the list of available priorities.

  3. Click Save to accept changes.

This function is used to delete the existing navigation. It is only supported for the group navigation. A user navigation or a portal navigation will be automatically deleted when the user or portal is deleted respectively.

  1. Click Delete Navigation corresponding to the navigation you want to delete.

  2. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept your deletion.

After the navigation deletion has been confirmed, the selected navigation will be removed from the Group Navigation page and its nodes/hyperlinks to pages will also be deleted.

In eXo Platform, applications can be managed inside a portal or inside Desktop.

To manage portlets and gadgets in a portal, you first need to hover your cursor over on the Administration bar, and select Applications. The Manage Applications page will appear.

Portlets and gadgets are organized into different categories. Each category contains one or several portlets or gadgets. You can also mix portlets and gadgets into one category. By default, all gadgets are placed in the Gadgets category.

This feature enables you to import default portlets and gadgets into different categories as follows:

  1. Click at the right corner on the action bar.

  2. Click OK in the confirmation message to accept importing portlets and gadgets automatically.

    All portlets and gadgets of all categories will be imported and listed on the left pane.

To view details of a portlet/gadget, simply select one portlet/gadget in the left pane. The details of that portlet will be shown on the right pane.

Left pane

All portlets and gadgets grouped by categories.

Right pane

Details of a portlet: Name, Display Name, Description.

Edit a portlet

  1. Click on the top corner of right pane.

    The Edit Application Information form will appear.

  2. Make changes on these fields, except Application Name.

This section tells you how to access the edit mode of a portlet and edit it.

  1. Define your desired portlet to check if this portlet has been existing in the portal or page. If not, drag and drop it from Edit Inline Composer to the main portal body while editing the portal's layout, or from Page Editor to the main page body in the Step 3 while creating a page and/or while editing a page.

  2. Hover your cursor over your desired portlet and click at the upper left corner of that portlet.

    The Edit form will be displayed.

    Normally, a portlet has four tabs: Window Settings, Select Icon, Decoration Themes and Access Permission. However, some portlets may also have Edit Mode and Preferences tabs. For example, IFrame and Dashboard portlets have the Edit Mode tab where administrators can define the interface details.

  3. Make changes on fields in the various tabs.

  4. Click Save And Close to accept your changes.

To add a gadget, you first need to turn into the Gadget page by selecting Gadget on the tab bar of the Manage Applications page.

You can add a remote gadget using its URL or create a new gadget into the list.

Add a remote gadget

  1. Click the Add a Remote Gadget link.

  2. Enter the link of your desired gadget which is in the .xml format in the Gadget URL field.

  3. Click Add to accept your inputted URL.

    The selected gadget will be added to the gadgets list in the left pane with its details in the right pane.

Create a new gadget

  1. Click the Create a New Gadget link.

  2. Enter values in the form.

    For example:

  3. Click Save to accept creating your new gadget.

Note

To add the newly added remote gadget to a specific category, simply click the "Click here to add into categories" link at the bottom of the right pane. The table listing all categories will appear that allows you to select your desired category.

To update information of the added gadget, simply click to refresh information.

See the Add more external gadgets from Dashboard section for instructions on how to add new gadgets from the dashboard.

Click located in the header of the Gadget Details page to display the following window.

This portlet is to host mini-applications known as gadgets. The dashboard uses a variety of graphical effects for displaying, opening and using gadgets.

Gadgets within the Dashboard portlet may be moved or rearranged. Users can create new gadgets and delete unnecessary ones. Also, users can open many gadgets with different settings at once.

In addition, eXo Platform is compatible with most gadgets which can be found here.

  1. Click Dashboard on the Administration bar to access the Dashboard portlet.

  2. Click Add Gadgets to open the Dashboard Workspace window which lists all available gadgets.

  3. Select a gadget in the Dashboard Workspace window.

  4. Drag and drop the selected gadget into the workspace.

The edit icon on gadgets only displays when the gadget has some gadget preferences. This icon enables users to display the edit form and change preferences of a gadget.

Change preferences of a gadget (for example, RSS Reader)

  1. Click the edit icon to open the edit form of the RSS gadget.

  2. Enter your preferred RSS into the FEED URL field and one numeric character (from 1 to 100) in the Items field. The numeric character you entered is the number of items displayed in the RSS gadget.

  3. Click Save to accept your changes.

  1. Obtain the URL (.xml or .rss) of the gadget you want to add from the gadgets source. For example, http://bejeweledg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/bejeweled.xml.

    Note

    Remote gadgets can be only created using an .xml link or RSS URL. However, if you use a link that generates an RSS feed (for example, http://feeds.feedburner.com/gatein), a new RSS reader gadget will be created automatically even if the URL does not end with .rss.

  2. Return to your portal and click Dashboard in the Administration bar.

  3. Click Add Gadgets in the Dashboard to open the Dashboard Workspace window.

  4. Paste the URL in Step 1 into the textbox.

  5. Click to add the new gadget to the page.

eXo Platform provides a gadget package that contains many useful gadgets. They can be categorized into:

Engagement gadgets include gadgets designed to aid users in engagement activities and events. These gadgets analyze the existing communications and community engagement in your organization, then show what is going on by providing statistics.

The Latest Forum Posts gadget shows the latest posts in Forum. You can decide the specified number of the latest posts to be shown. This gadget helps you always stay updated with what is going on in the forum.

Latest Forum Posts settings:

Field Description
Total The number of last posts to be displayed in this gadget.
Forum portlet The URL pointing to the Forum portlet.
Subscription URL The URL to the service which you request to get data from (in this case, the data are last posts). For example: http://localhost/portal/rest/ks/forum/getmessage.

The Top Voted Topics gadget lists the highest rated topics in a forum. You can decide the maximum number of posts to be shown.

By clicking the post previewed-content, you will go to that post in the forum.

Top Voted Topics gadget settings:

Select the maximum number of topics to be displayed in the Maximum to display drop-down list, then click Save to save the changes.

The Forum Statistics gadget displays statistics about the forum's activity. This gadget is especially useful for administrators who always need global as well as detailed view about how the forum is going on. Based on these statistics, the administrators can find the solution to increase the forum activities.

The statistics include the total number of the topics, posts, members, active members and the maximum number of online users.

You can switch between different views:

Click to switch to Weekly statistics view.

After switching to the Weekly statistics view, you can display the statistics in a list or a chart.

Click to switch to the Chart view. Click to go back to the List view or click to go to the Global statistics view:

The Friend Suggestions gadget will suggest you to connect with people that have mutual friends with you.

To send the invitation to connect with the suggested people right on this gadget, simply click Send invitation under their usernames.

The User Login History gadget records user's login history and provides statistics.

You can look up a specific user by entering his username in the search box and click Search.

The Collab gadgets include gadgets designed for collaborative activities.

The eXo Calendar gadget displays a mini calendar and allows you to quickly add an event.

Appearance:

If you have more than one personal calendar, you can select which calendar to display. Select the calendars from the list, then click Save. Only the event in the calendar of your choice will be displayed.

Quick add: You can add a new event to your personal calendar in this gadget by simply entering the date, time and description, then click Add to create your new event.

eXo Calendar Gadget settings:

Field Description
REST URL REST URL from which the gadget will get data. For example: http://localhost:8080/rest/

Normally, regular users do not have to care about this setting. If administrators make changes on the server that affects the REST URL, you need to contact administrators to get the new REST URL.

The Management and Monitoring gadgets include gadgets designed for providing the overall vision of the system. These gadgets monitor the system and provide the current system performance statistics which are especially useful for the system administrators and developers.

The Memory Charts gadget provides the chart of memory used during runtime.

The chart shows:

The Cache Levels gadget displays the eXo cache levels and settings. Based on these statistics, the administrators can configure the cache settings properly to get better performance:

The Application Statistics gadget displays how fast applications are. It shows administrators and developers which applications should be optimized.

Applications that take long time to execute will be highlighted so that you can easily recognize:

Each application is provided with these statistics:

The All Template Statistics gadget displays how fast templates are. It shows administrators and developers which templates should be optimized.

Each template is provided with these statistics:

The 10 Slowest Templates gadget displays the 10 slowest groovy templates and their speed statistics. It helps administrators and developers specify what templates are slowing down the system performance most.

Similar to the All Template Statistics gadget, each template is provided with these statistics:

The Services Management gadget provides an easy access to REST management API.

Select the service from the Services drop-down list.

Click to get the description of the selected service.

For each selected service, its method(s) and properties are shown respectively.

Services Management settings:

Field Description
Service URL If you want to manage a remote service on another Platform installation, you can enter the link to the service in this field.

The eXo Scripting Console gadget provides a Groovy console that developers can use to interact with the runtime. This gadget is useful when you want to experiment on code. It accepts eXo API and can access eXo components deployed in the portal container, so this can be used as a tool for drafting code, testing or exploring eXo API/components/data interactively on a live system. The eXo Scripting Console gadget is better viewed on the entire screen. You should configure an entire page or a Dashboard tab for it.

To go into the Desktop application, simply click Desktop on the Administration bar. You will be directed to the Desktop user interface as below:

Described areasDescription
The administration bar which provides quick access to managing tasks.
The WebOS desktop.
The Dockbar which provides easy access to applications via icons.
The application icons which are used as shortcuts to gadgets, applications or pages.
The application.

This section covers the following topics:

In Desktop, you can add an application as follows:

1. Open the Add Application form via one of two ways:

The Add Application form appears as below:

2. Select a category on the left pane. The applications of this category will be shown on the right pane.

3. Click corresponding to your desired application. Your selected application is then automatically added to the Dockbar.

The application window will be shown on the Desktop. When an application is running, will appear right under its icon on the Dock bar to indicate that application is running.

To exit a running application, do one of these following ways:

The first way: Click at the right top of the application window.

The second way: Right-click the application icon on the Dock bar and select Quit.

The third way: This way allows you to close all running applications. Right-click any empty area on the desktop page and select Close All from the drop-down menu.

You will notice that the disappears after the running application has been closed.

First, right-click any area on the Desktop background.

1. Select Page Title from the drop-down menu.

2. Enter your desired new name into the Page title field, and click Save to accept your change.

1. Select Change Background from the drop-down menu.

All available images for the WebOS background are displayed in the Choose Background Image form.

2. Click to preview your background.

3. Click to select and apply the relevant background.

To get the default background again, click the Get Default link at the right corner of this form.

Also, from this form, you can do the following actions:

Click corresponding to the background you would like to delete.

1. Click the Upload button at the bottom of the Choose Background Image form.

2. Select your desired image by clicking Browse... on the Upload Images form.

3. Click to load your selected image. At this step, simply click to add more images, or to delete the uploaded image.

4. Click Save to accept your upload, or Back to go back to the previous step.