Introduction | Information Center

Using the Portal Theme Utility


The Portal Theme Utility can be used to create new IBM Alphablox themes for use with WebSphere portlets. A new IBM Alphablox theme is created by merging style properties from the specified WebSphere Portal Server theme with style properties from the specified IBM Alphablox theme. The new theme can be used to optimally display Blox components (for example, a GridBlox or ChartBlox) in a portal application.

Accessing the Portal Theme Utility

To access the Portal Theme Utility, which opens in a new window, follow these steps:

  1. Open the IBM Alphablox home page.
  2. Click the Administration tab.
  3. Under Portal in the navigation menu on the left, click the Portal Theme Utility link.
    The Portal Theme Utility dialog appears in a new browser window.

Creating portal themes

To create a new portal theme, follow these steps:

  1. When the Portal Theme Utility dialog opens, the Portal theme directory field attempts to display the path for the theme directory of the portal server that is currently being used. To modify the directory, enter an absolute directory path to your portal theme directory and then press Apply.
  2. In the navigation tree displayed on the left, select a portal theme directory to copy styles from. For information about using and customizing WebSphere Portal Server themes, see the portal server documentation.
  3. After the theme directory is selected, navigate to the Properties tab to specify additional properties. The options that are shown depend on the format of the selected theme directory. The utility automatically determines whether your selected directory contains a JSP-based theme, or a CSS-based theme.
  4. In the Name of IBM Alphablox theme to create field, enter a name for your IBM Alphablox theme. The default entry is "portal."
  5. Select the Make this the IBM Alphablox server default theme option if you want the new theme to be the default theme for all IBM Alphablox applications. This setting can also be specified using the Default HTML Client Theme setting in the IBM Alphablox Admin Pages under Administration > General > General Properties > System.
  6. For the IBM Alphablox Theme Template option, select an existing IBM Alphablox theme to be used as the template for creating your new portal theme. The Preview area shows a preview of some of the icons that will be used in the new theme.
  7. Press the Create Theme button to create your new theme. In the Create Theme Status box, the "Action completed. See log for details" message appears if your new theme is successfully created. Press the Show Log button to view the log.
  8. Press Done when you are done.

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