Portal pages

Component pages can be used in an HTML container to include external HTML pages at arbitrary positions within the container document.

In a virtual page container they will be mapped to elements of the template, but it is necessary to specify a relationship, either a query or a child relationship to retrieve the actual components.

Sometimes it is more convenient to use one template to specify only the layout where to put the external pages and to use a different template to select the pages, that shall be used for a certain virtual page instance. This is accomplished by the node type nodes:simpleMultipage and its template.

All the pages of the application's home page have been created this way. A specific template has been used to create the layout using a table - in fact, there were two of them: one with and one without news at the right corner:

The general template has been used to select the pages being part of each of the home pages, i.e. the pages, that together build the application home:

That way, the left side and the top menu are always consistent: There is only one top menu page, which has been referred to by each home page and there is only one left hand menu for each of the top menu headings, which has been used by all home pages of that heading.

In general, this allows to separate layout and assembly for pages consisting of external components with a common layout, but a different and individual selection of external component pages.