Application Layout

The Ripla application divides the browser window into six parts: header, footer, toolbar, menubar, sidebar and content view. The header view displayes e.g. the application title. The footer is usually used for legal information (e.g. copyright, link to disclaimer page etc.). The toolbar displayes toolbar items like language switch, profile or logout button. The menubar is needed to display the application's main menu whereas the sidebar is the area for the context menu. The application's main view is the content area where most of the user interaction will take place.

By default, these views are arranged in the following way:

The display of header, footer, toolbar or menubar view is controlled by the implementation of org.ripla.web.services.ISkin. If you want to hide e.g. the toolbar, you only have to implement a skin which is configured to hide the toolbar.

However, you might want to arrange the views in a different order then the Ripla default layout (e.g. display the toolbar at the top of the browser window). You can achieve this by overriding RiplaApplication.createBodyView(). This method's expected return value is org.ripla.web.controllers.RiplaBody. By overriding the createBodyView() method, you can return a derived RiplaBody instance. RiplaBody arranges the views in the protected method RiplaBody.initializeLayout(). By overriding this method, you can provide the arrangement of views you like.