# Customization Overview

# Development Resources

This chapter provides an overview of resources available for customizing AquaLogic User Interaction.

AquaLogic User Interaction components are designed to allow you to create a personalized experience for organizations, groups, and users. The AquaLogic Interaction Development Kit (IDK) allows you to customize every aspect of the portal.

For a details on the components of the AquaLogic User Interaction architecture, see the section ”AquaLogic User Interaction Architecture” in the Deployment Overview and the developer oriented section “AquaLogic Interaction Architecture Overview” in the Developer Documentation.

This chapter contains the following sections:

- Basic Portal Customizations
- Portlets
- Content Services
- Identity Services

The BEA Professional Services organization is available to develop these customizations and more. For details on the services available from BEA, contact your BEA representative.

## Basic Portal Customizations

The AquaLogic Interaction portal provides a framework for applications that allows you to customize the portal look and feel and functionality. These basic customizations require no custom Java or C# code.

For details on how to configure and customize the portal UI, see Customizing the User Interface, and the section “Basic Portal UI Customizations” in the Development Documentation.

## Portlets

Each portal page is composed of multiple portlets. You can build portlets with any language or technology that can return HTML or XML over HTTP.

BEA provides the IDK development environment for developing portlets in Java and .NET. For details on the IDK, see “IDK Development Environment” in the Developer Documentation.

For details on developing portlets, see the section Portlets in the Development Documentation.

Adaptive Portlets allow the creation of a coordinated portal page comprised of cross-platform services that represent multiple applications. Adaptive Tags are a collection of XML tags that you can include in any gatewayed portal page. The portal gateway transforms the tags to include navigation, UI components, data objects, and other dynamic information in the portal page.

For details on Adaptive Portlets see “Developing Adaptive Portlets” in the Development Documentation. For details on Adaptive Tags, see “Using Adaptive Tags” in the Developer Documentation.

## Content Services

Content services index in the portal content from backend sources, allowing the backend sources to be searched using the portal search service. In addition to the content services provided with AquaLogic Interaction, you can create custom content services.

For details on developing content services, see “Developing Content Services” in the Developer Documentation.

## Identity Services

Identity services allow the integration of established repositories of user information into the portal. You can import users, groups, and group membership configuration. In addition to the integration services provided with AquaLogic Interaction, you can create custom identity services.

For details on developing identity services, see “Developing Identity Services” in the Developer Documentation.