11.8.1. Creating a new site

Note

You can perform this action only when you are a member of the /platform/administrators group.

Click → Portal → Sites on the top navigation bar, then click Add New Site in the Manage Sites page;
Or, click Edit → Site → Add Site.
By default, the window to create a new site, which contains the Portal Settings tab, will open.
Fill in the Portal Name field. The field is required, unique and must start with a letter. Only alphabetical, numerical, dash and underscore characters are allowed for this field with the length from 3 to 30 characters.
Select the default display language for the site from the Locale field.

Click the Properties tab to set the properties of a site.

Details:

Field	Description
Keep session alive	Keeps the working session for a long time to avoid the time-out. There are 3 options: Never: The session will time out if the logged-in user does not do any action after a given period. In this case, there will be a message which asks the user to log in again. On Demand: The session will time out to the application's requirement. If there is no request from the application, the session will time out after the given period that is similar to that of Never. Always: The session will never time out even if the logged-in user does not do any action after a long time.
Show info bar by default	Ticks the checkbox to show the info bar of the portlet by default when the portlet is used in a page of the site. The "Show info bar by default" option only takes effect on new portlets as from the time you select the checkbox rather than all portlets of the site. In particular, after creating your new site with the "Show info bar by default" option checked, newly created portlets of the site will be displayed with the info bar by default. However, if you deselect this option when editing the site's configuration, the former portlets with the shown info bar are remained; meanwhile new portlets, which are created after this option is deselected, will be shown without the info bar.

Field

Description

Keep session alive

Keeps the working session for a long time to avoid the time-out. There are 3 options:

Never: The session will time out if the logged-in user does not do any action after a given period. In this case, there will be a message which asks the user to log in again.

On Demand: The session will time out to the application's requirement. If there is no request from the application, the session will time out after the given period that is similar to that of Never.

Always: The session will never time out even if the logged-in user does not do any action after a long time.

Show info bar by default

Ticks the checkbox to show the info bar of the portlet by default when the portlet is used in a page of the site.

The "Show info bar by default" option only takes effect on new portlets as from the time you select the checkbox rather than all portlets of the site. In particular, after creating your new site with the "Show info bar by default" option checked, newly created portlets of the site will be displayed with the info bar by default. However, if you deselect this option when editing the site's configuration, the former portlets with the shown info bar are remained; meanwhile new portlets, which are created after this option is deselected, will be shown without the info bar.

Click the Permission Settings tab to set permissions on the site.
The list of Access permissions for the portal is empty by default. You have to select at least one or tick the Make it public (everyone can access) checkbox to assign the Access permission to everyone.
Note
For more details on how to grant permissions on the site, see Setting permissions on a site.
Click the Portal Templates tab to select the template for your site.
Click Save to accept creating your new site.

Note

After creating a new site, you can access it via the URL format: http://{domain-name}/portal/[name-site]. For example, accessing the ACME site: http://mycompany.com:8080/portal/acme.

Sample accessible website

The accessibility subject is quite vast, but we have some guidelines like WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and also the RGAA for the French Administration. eXo Platform has been improved to be compliant with these rules. eXo Platform has priority in providing users with a way to create an accessible site and accessible contents regardless of their roles, by using the "Sample Accessible Website" template. This site is accessible without JavaScript enabled on the browser.

To check the compliance of this template, the following tools are used:

W3C validator XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Achecker with the rules of WCAG 2.0 AA

To create an accessible site, simply follow steps described in the Creating a new site section. Next, in the Portal Templates tab, select Sample Accessible Website from the templates list.

Note

The Sample Accessible Website template is available when the WAI add-on is already installed by your administrator. See here for how-to.

After creating the accessible site, you can access the site by typing the URL as follows on the address bar of the browser: For example, the accessible site named "WAI": http://mycompany.com:8080/portal/WAI.

The homepage of the accessible portal appears as below.

The accessible portal provides you with some following features:

Skip to content : Allows you to ignore navigation links, banner, or redundant information, and directly go to the main content of a page.
Site map : Shows a list of pages of the current template.
Accessibility : Allows you to access a specific page about the accessibility policy. It explains what the accessibility is, how to navigate into the site, and describes the available features of the accessible portal.
Font size : Allows you to select your desired font size, including Normal, Medium, and Large sizes. The default size is Normal.
Color themes : Allows you to change the skin color of the website into High Contrast, or return to the default skin with Normal Contrast.
Search : Allows you to search for accessible content in the website.
Breadcrumb : Allows you to ease and keep a consistent navigation. With the breadcrumb, you can easily navigate in an accessible website.
Navigation without JavaScript: One of the successful criteria of a website is to have accessible links and menu before the content when it is displayed like a screen reader. If JavaScript is disabled, you are still able to navigate, and the menu is expanded by default in this case.