eXo Platform 3.5

## Chapter 2. Get Started

eXo Platform is a full-featured application for users to have many experiences in building and deploying transactional websites, authoring web and social content, creating gadgets and dashboards with reliable capabilities of collaboration and knowledge.

This chapter covers the following topics:

- Glossary provides terms which are commonly used in eXo Platform applications.

- eXo Platform 3.5 interface introduces the default page of eXo Platform 3.5, and ways to enter the sample portals built in eXo Platform 3.5 before using functions.

- Manage accounts gives you how to register new accounts, sign in and out, change account settings, and retrieve your account and password.

- Manage language includes procedures on how to change the display language permanently and for another users.

### Note

Some accounts will not include all features stated in this guide due to limitations of user role. Check with your administrator to assure which features are enabled for your account or ask for more appropriate rights.

## Glossary

This section provides a number of terms that you will encounter when implementing eXo Platform.

Portal

Portal is a web-based environment for aggregating and personalizing information via specific applications with an interactive and consistent look and feel. Users and administrators are able to integrate information, people and processes via a web-based user interface.

Portlet

Portlet is an applicative component pluggable to a portal through which users can access some specific information, including supports, updates, or mini-applications. The portlet produces fragments of a markup code that are aggregated into a portal page. Typically, a portal page is displayed as a non-overlapping portlet windows collection, where each portlet window displays a portlet. Content generated by a portlet can be customized, depending on the configuration set by each user. Portlets can be divided into two following types:

- Functional portlets which support all functions of a portal. They are built into the portal and accessed via toolbar links when the portal-related tasks are performed.

- Interface portlets which constitute the eXo Platform interface as front-end components of the portal.

Navigation

Navigation is a node tree (so-called menus) containing hyperlinks to other parts of a portal. The default navigation menus in eXo Platform are located in the Administration bar with the following navigation types:

- My Sites: This menu lets you access the different sites hosted by the portal. The navigation of the current portal is displayed as a sub-menu. This functionality allows different sites to individually control some portal-related aspects, such as portlets, while maintaining other content standardized with the parent portal.

- My Groups: This menu contains the navigations that are bound to groups that you belong to. Out of the box, this menu does not appear, but a portal administrator can assign you to a functional group that will grant you access to pages restricted to this group.

  - If you are logged in as a user account, this navigation holds personal links set up by yourself.

  - If you are logged in as a manager account, this navigation contains links to pages for registered users and administrative tasks and personal links.

  - If you are logged in as an administrator account, the navigation adds further management capabilities, such as Internationalization and community management.

- My Spaces: This menu lets you access spaces that you created or spaces that you are a member. The navigation of a space is displayed as a sub-menu which lets you access that space applications.

- Dashboard: This navigation contains links and portlets (or gadgets) selected by yourself. This user navigation is created automatically when your account registration is successful. This navigation only can be deleted when you are removed.

!images/DashboardPortlet.png|align="center" width="100mm" fo:scalefit="1" html:scalefit="0"

- Desktop: The desktop gives you access to applications of the portal in a free-form windowed layout.

- Edit: This navigation type appears when you logged in as an administrator or a web-contributor. In spaces, it also appears when you are a space manager. This navigation contains links to add new pages to a portal, to edit a page or to change the portal's layout and navigation.

- User Menu: The main menu (located under your display name) to change your account information, the portal language or to sign out, and more.

Gadget

Gadget is a mini web application running on a platform that a user can integrate and customize in the website. You can add these gadgets to your dashboards by yourself.

Modes

eXo Platform offers two access modes by default:

- Public mode is for guest users (visitors) who are not registered. In this mode, you are not required to sign in, but limited to public pages in the portal. After being registered successfully, you can use the private mode, but must contact the Portal administrators to get more rights or the group manager to become the member and gain the access to the group.

- Private mode is for registered users who will apply their usernames and passwords to sign in. This mode supports users in taking many actions, such as creating private pages, editing or deleting them, "borrowing" pages from others by creating hyperlinks, changing languages to their individual needs, managing private information.

Permission

Permission settings control actions of a user within the portal and are set by the portal administrators.

- Permission types define what a user can do within the portal.

  - Access permission enables users to utilize portal contents, such as signing in, viewing contents, rearranging portlets. This permission can be set for multiple member groups.

  - Edit permission enables users to change portal contents (changing portal or page information, deleting a portal/page). The edit permission is set for only one group at one time.

- Permission levels specify where the users' permission types can be applied in the portal.

  - Portal: The permission at the portal level includes actions permitted in all pages within the portal. Users with the access permission can view (but not edit) all the pages within the portal. Meanwhile, users with the edit permission at the portal level can change any page in the portal.

  - Page: The permission at the page level restricts users to several particular pages. Users are only able to see and/or edit pages they have been given access to, depending on each permission type assigned to them.

  - Portlet: The permission at the portlet level enables users to create a page through dragging and dropping portlets into a page. Some portlets are only used for administrators, while some are for regular users. Thus, administrators need to set proper access permissions for each specific group. Permission types and levels can be effectively implemented to control who can do and what can be performed within the portal.

Repository

Repository is a locus where contents or digital data are maintained. Users can access without traveling across a network.

Drive

Drive may be defined as a shortcut to a specific location in the content repository. It enables administrators to limit visibility of each workspace for groups of users. It is also a simple way to hide the complexity of the content storage by showing only the structure that is helpful for business users.

In details, a drive consists of:

- A configured path where the user will start when browsing the drive.

- A set of allowed views that will allow the user to limit the available actions, such as editing or creating content while being in the drive.

- A set of permissions which limits the access and view of the drive to a specified number of people.

- A set of options to describe the behavior of the drive when the users browse it.

Node

Node is an abstract unit used to build linked data structures, such as linked lists and trees, and computer-based representation of graphs. Nodes contain data and/or links to another nodes. Links between nodes are often implemented by pointers or references.

Also, a node can be defined as a logical placeholder for data. It is a memory block which contains some data units, and optionally a reference to some other data. By linking one node with other interlinked nodes, very large and complex data structure can be formed.

WebDAV

WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. In eXo Platform, it is used as a mean to access the content repository directly from the Sites Explorer.

Postcast

The Podcast term is a combination of iPod and Broadcast. In eXo Platform, podcast is an audio file which you can download and listen to on your device, such as a computer, or a MP3 player.

File Plan

File Plan is a type of document for planning the primary records management. Although file plans can differ across organizations, their typical functions are to:

- Describe types of items which are acknowledged to be records.

- Describe what broader category of records to which the items belong.

- Indicate where records are stored.

- Describe the retention periods for records.

- Delineate who is responsible for managing the various types of records.

Symlink

Symlink stands for Symbolic Link and is a special file containing a reference to a document or a folder. By using symlinks, you can easily access specific nodes (target) that symlinks point to. In Sites Explorer, a symlink has a small chain symbol next to its icon.

## eXo Platform 3.5 interface

After starting eXo Platform 3.5 successfully, open a browser window and enter the URL provided by your administrator, for example, http://mycompany.com:8080/portal/default.

You will be directed to the default page of eXo Platform 3.5.

Here, you have an overview of eXo Platform through default contents displayed in this page. With eXo Platform, you can do almost everything, especially building social intranets and websites. From the default interface of eXo Platform 3.5, you are provided with two sample portals of a fictitious company named "ACME" where you can discover key features and customizability of eXo Platform. Therefore, before doing any actions, you first need to go to either of the provided portals (ACME website or ACME social intranet) by clicking one of the following links:

- At the top of the default page's body:

- Or, at the bottom of default page's body:

### Note

There is also direct links to login as regular users or superusers in the sample portals.

## Manage accounts

### Register new account

As a guest user, you can visit eXo Platform but are limited to many contents and applications. To access more contents or perform some actions in various applications, you first need to register by yourself and contact the portal administrator to gain certain permissions.

1. Click Register on the top of the portal if you are in the ACME sample site.

   If you are in the ACME Social intranet, click Register at the bottom of the portal.

   The Create a New Account form appears as below:

   Details:

   Field | Description
   --- | ---
   Asterisk (*) | This mark next to each field indicates that it is required to input values in this field.
   Username | The name used to log in. Only lowercase (a - z), digit (0 - 9), underscore (_), dash (-) and dot (.) characters are allowed with its length from 3 to 30 characters. The first and last characters of the username must be lowercase or digit ones.
   Password | The authentication string which must be between 6 and 30 characters, including spaces.
   Confirm Password | Retype the password above. Values in both Password and Confirm Password fields must be the same.
   First Name | The user's first name which must start with a character. Its length must be between 1 and 45 characters.
   Last Name | The user's last name which must start with a character. Its length must be between 1 and 45 characters.
   Email Address | The user's email address that must be in the correct form, such as `username@abc.com.` There are two parts in the email address, called local part and domain (e.g, local_part@domain): Local part: Only lowercase (a - z), digit (0 - 9), underscore (_), dash (-) and dot (.) characters are allowed, and the first and last characters of this part must be lowercase or digit ones. Domain: Only lowercase (a - z), digit (0 - 9), dash (-) and dot (.) characters are allowed, and the first and last characters of this part must be lowercase or digit ones. Note that the dot (.) character is required.
   Text Validation | The text to verify your registration.

2. Fill values into fields.

3. Click Subscribe to accept your new account or Reset to clear all your entered values. If your registration is not successful, there will be warning messages which indicate invalid fields.

- After adding a new account, you should contact your administrator to get appropriate permissions for your account.

- Click to check if your entered username already exists or not.

### Note

Be sure you enter your email address carefully. Should you forget your username or password, you can recover it from this email address.

### Sign in & Sign out

Sign in a portal

To enter the portal in the private mode, you just need to use your registered account. In eXo Platform 3.5, you can sign in the portal via two ways:

The first way

- Click directly one of the default user accounts at the lower of screen right in the welcome page or after entering your selected page.

- Or, after entering your selected portal, for example ACME website, click one of the default users at the bottom of body as below.

The second way

1. Click the Login link to open the Sign in form.

2. Input your registered Username and Password in the Sign in form.

3. Select the Remember My Login checkbox for the first time if you want to automatically return to this portal without signing in again. This feature enables you to be automatically authenticated to avoid doing an explicit authentication when you access the portal.

4. Click Sign in to submit the form, or Discard to quit.

### Note

After selecting Remember My Login, if you do not sign out when you leave the portal, you will be automatically authenticated for your next visit.

Sign out a portal

This feature ends your authenticated session and returns you to the anonymous portal. To sign out, simply hover your cursor over your display name at the top right corner of the site, then select Logout from the drop-down menu.

### Change account settings

To change your account information, hover your cursor over the account name at the top right corner of the site and click My Account from the drop-down menu.

The Account Profiles form appears.

Change your profile information

1. Select the Account Profiles tab.

2. Change your First Name, Last Name, Email. Your Username cannot be changed.

3. Click Save to submit your changes.

### Note

The email address changed must be in the valid format. See details about the Email Address format here.

Change your password

1. Select the Change Password tab to go to the following form.

2. Input your current password to identify that you are the owner of this account.

3. Input your new password which must have at least 6 characters.

4. Re-enter your password in the Confirm New Password field.

5. Click Save to accept your changes.

### Note

If the default accounts' passwords have been changed, you can no longer sign in the portal by clicking the default accounts directly as stated in the first way.

### Retrieve account and password

In case you forget your account or password, you can recover your username or password as follows:

1. Click the 'Forgot your Username/Password?' link beneath the Password field when signing in.

   There will be two options for you to select.

2. Select the appropriate option and click Next.

   You will be prompted to provide identification information, depending on your choice.

   - If you select the Forgot My Password option, you will be prompted for your username.

   - If you select the Forgot My Username option, you will be prompted for your email address.

3. Enter your Username/Email in the form above.

4. Click Send to submit your entered values.

- After you have submitted the form, an email will be sent to your email address with the requested information, either your username or password.

- If you forget your password, you will be sent a temporary password. Your original password will not be valid after this email is sent. You will be directed to a page to update your password for your next log-in.

## Manage language

In eXo Platform, the priority order of the display language decreases to the arrow direction from left to right:

User's language --> Cookies' language --> Session's language --> Browser's language --> Portal's language

It means that the language set by the user will be at the highest level, and the portal's language at the lowest level.

Accordingly, you should pay attention to this order when selecting your preferred display language.

### Note

At present, eXo Platform only supports two languages: English and French.

### Change the display language permanently

eXo Platform supports 3 ways to change the display language permanently.

The first way

1. Hover your cursor over My Sites on the Administration bar and select your desired site where you want to change the display language. The currently selected site is marked with .

You will be directed to your selected site.

2. Hover your cursor over Edit, then select Site --> Layout from the drop-down menu.

Your selected site will be displayed in the Edit mode.

3. Click in the Edit Inline Composer form. The Site Settings form appears:

4. Change the display language of your site by selecting another language from the Locale field in the Portal Settings tab.

5. Click Save, then click to save all changes.

The second way

1. Hover your cursor over , then select Portal --> Sites.

The list of all existing portals will be displayed as below.

2. Select Edit Layout corresponding to the portal/site you want to edit.

The selected portal will be displayed as in the Edit mode.

3. Change the display language that is similar as steps in the first way (Steps 3, 4 and 5).

The third way

This way is only used to set the display language for yourself, not for displaying the language of portal.

1. Hover your cursor over your account name at the top right corner of the site, then select Change Language from the drop-down menu.

The Interface Language Settings form will be displayed with the list of all supported languages. The currently used language is marked with .

2. Select your desired language.

3. Click Apply and wait for a few seconds to take effect.

### Note

The display language will be maintained permanently until you change another display language.

### Change the display language for another user

By this way, you can change not only your display language but also the display language of another users if you have the right to access the Organization portlet.

1. Hover your cursor over , then select Users --> Group and Roles from the drop-down menu to open the User Management form.

2. Click corresponding to the user with the display language you want to change.

3. Select the User Profile sub-tab, then change the display language for this user from the Language field.

4. Click Save to accept your changes.