Portals and Pages¶
A portal is the site your users open. It is a set of pages, each with its own address inside the portal, grouped into modules for navigation, plus windows that open over the pages. You build it in the portal editor on top of a design, which gives every page its frame.
This page covers the Portals list, the portal editor, and the settings of a page, a module and the portal itself.
The Portals list¶
Open Portals in the Portals app. By default the list shows published portals. Tick Show unpublished portals to also see portals that have never been published.
From the list you can:
- Add new portal. You are asked for a Name, a Code, an optional Description and the Design to build on. The portal starts as a draft with no pages.
- Edit a portal, or double-click its row, to open the portal editor.
- Duplicate a portal. You get a new, unpublished portal named … (copy) with its own code. It includes every page, window and module, each page's data sources and parameters, and stays on the same design.
- Manage access and Delete. Both need full access to the portal. See Access Control.
The portal editor¶
The editor has a left panel, a ribbon and the canvas. The left panel has two tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Pages | The portal's pages in navigation order, then its windows under Overlays. Add offers one entry per layout of the design under Page layouts, and Window and Drawer under Overlays. Right-click a page for Duplicate and Delete. The arrow buttons move it up and down |
| Elements | The widget tree of the selected page or window, starting with its content fills |
The ribbon has a Home tab with Undo, Redo, Preview, the clipboard and the widget library. Next to it is a Page or Window tab for whatever you have selected, and a Portal tab for the portal as a whole.
Pages¶
To add a page, choose Add → Page layouts and pick the layout it should be based on. If the design has no layouts yet, the menu says Please create a layout first.
A page's settings live in the Page ribbon tab:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Shown in navigation |
| Route | The page's address inside the portal, for example /home. It must be unique within the portal. A page created without one gets a placeholder route for you to rename |
| Parent Layout | The layout the page is based on. Switching it keeps the page's content. Content for a placeholder the new layout doesn't have stops showing, and new placeholders offer Add content on the canvas. See Layouts and Sub-layouts |
| Module | The navigation group the page belongs to, or none for the top level |
| Icon | Shown next to the page in navigation. Only the icon packs the theme enables are offered |
| Show in navigation | Turn it off to keep the page reachable by its route but out of nav lists |
The Data group opens the page's Parameters and Data Sources. Entries inherited from the layout are listed too, marked From layout. See Page and Portal State.
On the canvas, a page's own widgets go inside its content fills. The frame around them belongs to the layout and is drawn for reference only. To change the frame, edit the layout in the design editor.
Modules¶
A module is a navigation group: a name and an icon that a Nav List with Group by module uses as a heading. For example, a Finance module could group the invoices and payments pages.
Open Portal → Manage Modules to add, edit, reorder and delete modules. Assign a page to a module with the page's Module setting. A page without a module sits at the top level.
Windows¶
Windows and drawers are overlays that a button opens over a page. They have no route of their own. They are listed under Overlays in the Pages tab and have their own Window ribbon tab. See Actions and Windows.
The Portal tab¶
The Portal ribbon tab holds the settings of the portal as a whole:
| Group | What is there |
|---|---|
| Name, Code, Description | The portal's identity. The Code is part of its address: /ws/<workspace>/p/<code>. Turn on Cross-workspace to serve it at /p/<code> with no workspace prefix. The code must then be unique across all workspaces |
| Modules | Manage Modules |
| Design | The design and version the portal is on, and Change to move it. See Moving a portal to another design |
| Version | Publish, Discard, New version, Unpublish and Versions. See Versions and Publishing |
| Danger Zone | Manage Access and Delete Portal |
Preview¶
Preview in the Home tab saves your changes and opens the draft portal in a new browser tab, starting at the selected page. Actions, navigation and scrolling behave there exactly as they will for viewers.
A window has no route of its own, so to test one, preview a page and open the window from it.