Technology Blogs by SAP
Learn how to extend and personalize SAP applications. Follow the SAP technology blog for insights into SAP BTP, ABAP, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP HANA, and more.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
troy_cronin2
Active Contributor

Perhaps one of the most elementary and fundamental aspects of the Enterprise Portal is that of the Themes in association to it. From a high level perspective such a topic seems basic, challenging and generally simply but it is often the case that a small sense of confusion arises when dealing with Portal Themes.

Such confusion could surround any action whether its creating a theme, deleting a theme, transporting a theme or copying a theme. With this next series of blog postings I intend to cover all bases from the plain and simple to the "nitty gritty" components of theming to ensure the creation and management of a theme can be an easy process.

Backdrop

With the Enterprise Portal as a System User you are capable of changing the theme setup i.e. the look & feel of the Enterprise Portal. Essentially in simplistic terms by Portal Theme we are talking about the visual and grammatical appearance of the Portal Desktop (EP GUI). As with most visual interfaces a theme depicts all core elements conjoined within a display and this particular case we are talking about font, color, contrast and interface components.

Themes - Where are they stored?


Upon logging into the Portal as a authorized user you should be able to view all the themes in the setup via the following navigation path

  • Portal Content > Themes > Theming Folder > Folder Catalog

Important Point On Storing Themes


  • When you are dealing with themes it is highly recommended and encouraged to ensure themes are stored, holstered and kept in their dedicated location i.e. the theming folder or a folder in association to this (sub-folder). If you plan on perform a theme transport, copy, or Product Migration and wish to utilize themes it's always better to know exactly where they are stored.


Portal Catalog - Theme Folder


As mentioned earlier themes need to be kept where they belong in the appropriate repository. Themes are unique in the sense that they have a continually dedicated repository within the Portal Catalog and this is not the same for other Portal Objects.This repository and the theme sub-folder cannot be moved Theme Types


From a high level perspective as you might have guessed there are two common labels for themes.

  1. A SAP Standard Portal Theme
  2. A Company Custom Theme (based upon a Portal Theme or generated from scratch in terms of element makeup .e.g. CSS).


Standard Theme Types

  • SAP_Tradeshow
  • SAP_HighContrastBlack
  • SAP_BlueCrystal
  • SAP_GoldReflection
  • SAP_Chrome
  • SAP_Streamline

Custom Themes - Why?


The whole purpose behind the creation of a custom theme is simply down to preference. A business requirement may be based upon adding a personal look and feel to your Portal. If you are an organization specially in a certain Product it would almost certainly be of interest to base your theme on the fundamental services and products you provide to consumer bases. Creation of Custom Themes


Depending on your Netweaver Product Version you can utilize two different mechanism tools for creation and editing of Portal themes which include:

  • Theme Editor (older versions).
  • UI Theme Designer (new version - requires activation via SAP NWA (Netweaver Administrator).

Creating Your Own Theme - Permissions


If you wish to go about creating your own Portal Theme or editing existing themes the first thing that you will need to check is that you have the relevant permissions and authorizations to do so. To edit a theme you require like the same permissions you would need to edit an object or any essential property and this is known as a Content Admin Role. If you want to subsequently assign this theme to the landscape and desktops as a business requirement you would then require a System Administrator Role or alternatively a Super Administrator Role. Permissions Continued Let us remember that a theme is the graphical representation of the content contained on the Enterprise Portal which is displayed back to your end users. Evidently making a decision to change such a representation requires the appropriate level of consideration and thus permissions. With the Enterprise Portal you assign permissions for the themes themselves and then for the folders through which the themes are stored.


Accessing Permissions


Theme Permissions are stored in the following navigation path:

  • System Administration > Permissions > Portal Catalog Folder (this is the theming repository mentioned earlier).
  • To view and overview the permissions select and open the context menu of the theme in the "Theme" folder > open > permissions.

In my next blog posting "Theme Editor VS UI Theme Designer" I will cover the two core "tool labels" for the creation/editing of themes and highlight the important factors of each whilst drawing a comparison.