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Branding the Web UI
Overview
Internet Services (IS) is the Centrinity executable which gives Internet protocol access to the FirstClass server functionality and message store. The web user interface to FirstClass is served out of IS. Since the first IS release, the way this was done was by taking dynamic content from the FirstClass message store and combining it with an HTML "template" to produce a page of HTML with "links" to other content and functionality. Because of this combining of content with templates, it has been possible from the earliest IS releases to brand your web UI by modifying the templates used to serve the content.
Some other IS technologies impact branding, so I will discuss them briefly here. Since the beginning IS has had the ability to serve multiple web sites, steering the request to a different set of FC content (and potentially a different template set) based on the domain name used to reach the server. The exact same is true of language, IS has always been able to steer requests to different content/templates based on the language preference set in the browser. IS has always used a local language resource file (EN.FC, FC,FC, etc.) for some of the strings presented in the web UI, but not nearly for all of them. A particular IS loads all of it's icons from a single local file called ICONS.FC, no matter what site/language is being accessed. IS has traditionally had no access to the "branding" or layout information used to customize
the FC client UI experience.
Web template "branding" and FC5
IS in FC5 operated as described above. To brand a site was an arbitrary chore, the more you wanted to "brand" the more templates you had to change, and the more extensively you have to change them. To support any particular language, you needed both a LANG.FC file for that language, and a complete template set in that language. The template set that came with FC5 IS had very limited (droppable) Javascript and could be configured to use frames or not by swapping a single template file.
Web template "branding" and FC6
IS in FC6 makes attempts on several fronts to reduce the need to edit templates in order to brand a site. First off, all fixed language strings have been removed from the templates and are now loaded instead from the LANG.FC file, so once the language resource translation is done for the client, we automatically have a web UI for that language. As well, IS now ships with 2 complete sets of templates, full and light.
The full template set uses browser frames and Javascript extensively to provide a web UI that approaches FirstClass client functionality. This template set requires a modern browser and is not suitable for embedding in other web content. It does however support many branding features, such as setting colours, fonts, corporate logos, an ad banner, and others. It largely obeys client layout information to support icon position, split bar settings, background pictures, and others.
The light template set does not use frames and makes very limited (droppable) use of Javascript. This set is comparable in "heaviness" to the FC5 set, but with improved functionality and branding support. It is suitable for embedding in other web content, although there may be some issues with the screen area required. It supports all of the branding features that the full template set does, but less of the client layout information.
An FC6 IS will support "legacy" templates, in other words, those customized for use on an FC5 setup. This support is fairly complete, but there is no guarantee that some template work will need to be done to "port" these to FC6. The design of the template set itself may have scalability implications on the FirstClass server which the FC6 templates have been designed to improve. So, FC5 template sets will largely work on an FC6 IS at similar performance levels to when they ran on an FC5 IS, but some work may be required and they may put more load on the FC server than the FC6 template set does.
Some visual aids:
Full template desktop
The full template set snap below shows a full template set with logo, background image and default color scheme. Note that desktop icons are in exact position and that this can be modeled by the admin on a per group basis.
 Light template desktop
The light template set snap below shows a light template set with logo, ad banner, background image and default color scheme. Note that desktop icons are not in exact position.
 Site prefs form
The site prefs form can exist for each web site on a system, and is a simple FC form that the admin can edit. The images below show all of the features currently on this form (in fact the Large Company Logo field on the last tab has been dropped).
    If you would like to see additional features by the author of this article, click here.
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