Extending the Administration Interface

Content

• Overview
• Initial preparations
• Adding additional menu items
• Test the customized administration interface
• Change layout or content of delivered Administration Interface

Overview

With WebsydianExpress v2.0 each site has its own administration interface accessed by adding "/admin" to the end of the url of the site e.g. http://[host_name]/express20/site/demosite/admin.

In order to prevent the administration interface of a site to become corrupted the structure for the administration interface is not visible in the site structure. However, this also removes the option to customize the administration part of the site.

This document describes how to get a customizable administration interface for your site and how to add further menu groups and menu items as well as how to change the behavior of supplied administrative business processes.

Initial preparations

In order to preserve the supplied administration part of each site it is recommended to  perform the following steps in order to prepare the extension of the Administration Interface.

Step 1: Create a new folder containing customized templates for administrative business processes

1. Locate the physical folder where the HTML templates are stored (Select Templates->Folders, and then press Insert. Then the template root will be displayed).
2. Create a sub folder to the template root that will be holding the templates of your administrative business processes; e.g. MyAdmin
3. In the Express Administration Interface add a new folder (Templates -> Folders) which refers to the physical folder just created.
   Use the following parameter settings.

   Parameter	Value
   Description	My administration templates
   Template path relative to root	MyAdmin
   URL reference for resources	/express20/res/admin20
   URL reference for java script resource	/express20/res/admins20/admin.js
   URL reference for style sheet (CSS)	/express20/res/admin20/admin.css

Step 2:Create a new folder list

In the Express Administration Interface create a new folder list (Templates -> Folder Lists) e.g. MyAdmin.

As you add folders to the newly created folder list make sure that the folder created in step 1 is located before the admin20 folder. E.g.

Path
MyAdmin
admin20
basicsite

Step 3: Create a new administrator user profile

In the Express Administration Interface create a new user profile (User Management -> Users) making sure that you expand the section "Advanced Information" and selects the folder list created in step 2.

When the user has been created make sure that you add administrative roles to the user. E.g Administrator and User.

Step 4: Attach "Admin" menu item and structure to your site structure

1. In the Express Administration Interface open the site structure (Site structure -> Site Structure) and select the menu on which you would like to attach the "Admin" menu item.
2. Press the "Add" button and select the options "Refer existing site element" and "Frameset" site element type. Press "Next"
3. In the grid locate the Frameset element named "Admin" which uses the presentation "WSA - Administration frameset". Press "Select"
4. Enter a value for  "Alignment", "Sequence" and make sure that you select _Blank as "Display in frame". Press "Finish"

Adding additional menu items

Create a new menu group for the left menu

1. In the Express Administration Interface open the site structure (Site structure -> Site Structure) and locate and select the site element ADMMENU - Administration Menu
2. Press "Add", select "Menu" in the parameter "Type of Site Element" and press "Next"
3. In the select presentation dialog locate the presentation named "Menu Loader 3-level" and press "Select"
4. On the detail dialog enter required information as follows, and press "Next"

   Parameter	Value
   Menu item text	Enter the text to become the title of the new section
   Alignment	Left
   Sequence	Select the sequence where the menu group will be placed
   Display in frame	HIDDEN
   Comments	Optional comment

5. In the add roles dialog add the role "Administrator" and press "Finish"

Add new menu item to the menu group (Business Process)

1. In the Express Administration interface open the site structure (Site structure -> Site Structure) and locate the site element for the menu group element just created.
2. Press "Add" and then "Next" to keep the current settings
3. Select the presentation of the Business Process to be used and press "Select"
4. Enter detail information about the site element making sure that you set "Display in frame" to "ADMMAIN". Press "Next"
5. In the add roles dialog add the role "Administrator" and press "Finish"

Test the customized administration interface

The customized version of the administration interface will now be available to the new administrator user profile as created in step 3 above. Look for the menu item "Admin" in your menu.

Change layout or content of the Administration Interface

This section describes how to change the behavior or layout of one or more of the supplied administrative business processes.

As an example we will remove the option of deleting users in the User management business process.

Step 1: Locate the name of the HTML file that will be changed

1. In the Express Administration Interface go to the page you would like to change. In this example select the Maintain Users (User Management -> User).
2. Right click on the page and select view source
3. In the source locate the line similar to <!-- TemplateID: WSUSER_2_9 - WSY_WebAdministration.MaintainUsers.GridPage - Generation timestamp: 2005-06-08 11:14:27.000 -->
4. Copy the TemplateID, in this case WSUSER_2_9, to your clipboard
5. In the Express Administration interface open the find template utility (Templates -> Find Template)
6. Paste the Template ID from step 4 into the field "Template ID" and press "Find"
7. The path and filename of the template used by the page is shown on the page

Step 2: Copy the HTML file to the folder containing your administration templates (see step 1 under initial preparations)

Copy the file found during step 1 to the folder of your administrative templates as created in step 1 under initial preparations.

In this example this would be the file WSUSER.HTM found in the Admin20 folder to the folder MyAdmin.

Step 3: Change the HTML file

Open the new html file just copied in an editor.

In this example this would be the file WSUSER.HTM found in the folder MyAdmin

Locate and remove the following information from the WSUSER.HTM file

Step 4: Test the changes

Go to your WebsydianExpress site login using your administrative user profile created above and go to the Administrative interface

In the Express Administration Interface open the Maintain Users (User Management -> User) and verify that you are now unable to delete users.

Further Information

Menu Services with parameters