Portal Layout Components API

Portal layout components are the visual graphical components that get displayed to a client consisting of presentation information in an appropriate markup language (currently just HTML).

Portal components are typically defined in an XML schema known as layout.xml and unmarshalled to Java objects using the Castor java data binding libraries.

All layout components implement a {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.ComponentRender} interface responsible for rendering the presentation content. In addition, most concrete portal components implement a {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.ComponentLifecycle} interface responsible for handling all component lifecyle methods such as initialization, shutdown, and performing actions.

GridSphere supports two pluggable look and feels (PLAF)s: classic {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.view.classic} and standard {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.view.standard} The classic PLAF remains the old (GS 2.1.2 and earlier) look and feel using a combination of nested tables and some CSS. The current default PLAF is standard which is evolving towards a much more configurable pure CSS layout. Each PLAF supports multiple themes inside each of the PLAF subdirectories. If you are interested in developing a new theme, please use the standard PLAF and have a look at the CSS files.

The current list describes the concrete portlet components that are in use:

- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletFrame}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletTableLayout}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletColumnLayout}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletRowLayout}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletContent}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletTab}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletTabbedPane}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletContent}
- {@link org.gridlab.gridsphere.layout.PortletTitleBar}