I’m at Lotusphere 2012 and attending a session on Portal themes. It occurs to me that we’ve had a new and ‘better’ theme in almost every version or fix pack. Portal 7.0.0.2 continues that pattern. IBM continues to try to tweak the theme to make them faster and better.
Now we have a Theme Optimization Framework to work with. This new framework has been extremely modularized using Modules, Profiles, Capabilities, and Contributions. These concepts allow you deliver a rich, responsive theme.
to the page such as JavaScript or CSS. A module can be reused across multiple themes and can define dependent modules
Modules
- A module is a component that defines a single feature that adds artifacts to a page. A module might be tagging for example. With modules, you can easily swap out Dojo for jQuery if you wish.
Profiles
- A profile is a defined set of modules that can be loaded onto a page
Capabilities
- These attributes are defined in the modules so a page implements the capabilities each module needs.
Contributions
- These are the HTML fragments that get added to the page.
Using this modular approach allows you to tailor a theme to load only the parts you require. Imagine, no more bloated themes that have to be downloaded to the browser for every page. IBMs testing shows dramatic improvements in the theme by minimizing the modules in the theme.
I mistakenly listed the version of portal as 7.0.2. Thanks to Brad Thurber for finding this. I’ve corrected it to 7.0.0.2.