About layouts

IPF provides these types of layouts for portal pages: Chart, Session, Global, and Grid.

• The Chart layout is used when you need to include a chart on the portal page. See Chart for information about supported chart types.
• The Session layout is used for UserAlert event handler and user-authenticated event handler scripts. SessionStartCustomer is an example of a session layout. More information is provided in Events associated with layouts.
• The Global layout is used for global scripts, which are similar to layout scripts, except they do not use FDFs. Instead, they are treated as a library of functions that other layout scripts can call. They are helpful when you have code that you must use in multiple layouts. You can put that code in a global script, and then call it from the other layouts. Because global scripts can be modified or deleted independently of the scripts that call on them, this function is necessary to confirm that scripting will compile as expected.
• The Grid layout is the main UI building block for pages. When you work with Grid layouts in the Layout Editor, you will see that each one has a Main region and possibly one or more floating regions. The regions contain cards, and the cards contain layout tables with cells. See Understanding the Grid layout.

These are general guidelines about our layouts:

• The layouts can be used as needed when you modify and create portal pages. You can also create your own layouts.
• Layouts are managed using the Portal Manager, under Content Development.
• Custom layouts can be reused. A clear naming strategy is important, so appropriate layouts can be found when needed. This is described in Portal coding standards and guidelines.