01 Structures

User layouts are stored as an XML document representing a generic tree of content. It does not contain any information about framework or design for how this layout will be viewed. The next step in creating the uPortal layout that the user will see is to take this database output XML and apply it to an XSL stylesheet that will give it structure. The output from this stylesheet will be a new XML document that organizes the abstract nodes into framework layout elements like channels, columns and tabs.

The advantage of separating the data from the structure is that a variety of different structure XSL stylesheets can be written to provide for a variety of different viewing framework options. Separate structure stylesheets can be written that will create a framework for the layout to be viewed as channels within columns under and list of tabs. It may instead use a vertical tree next to the columns and channels. Any framework that someone may come up with for the layout node tree can be developed by writing an XSL stylesheet to represent it.

Different interpretations of a tab/column or tree/column, as well as some other, completely unrelated structures are all possible results of applying the layout XML to an XSL stylesheet. Below is an excerpt of a "tab/column" structure XML.

Tab Column

The default (and most common) structure utilized is tab-column.

Tree

Some institutions prefer to expose a user's layout in the form of a file-browser like navigable tree.

Deck of Cards

Some mobile devices have limited screen real estate and benefit from a collapsed navigation display.