Customizing the Web Interface

The browser interface can be customized to support preferred colors and layout, and even to translate to different languages.  The basic web interface is stored in a directory called web/en-us in the UnForm server directory.  Within this directory are many .html files that act as templates, a messages.txt file that contains text messages and other items, and two style sheet files, default.css and custom.css.  One primary html template, master.html provides the overall layout of the web interface.

The files in web/en-us are all subject to overwriting when UnForm is updated, so to provide a custom interface, you should copy any files you want to customize into a different directory under the web/* structure.

In addition, each custom web/* directory requires its own messages.txt file, even if it is a copy of the one provided in en-us.

Once this is done, you can modify the webdirs= line in the [archive] section of uf80d.ini.  This line contains a list of directories that the user login screen lists as “Language” choices.  There can be many directories, or just one.  Whichever is selected by the user, that directory becomes the first location searched for web files, with the en-us directory searched after for any files not found.  As the en-us directory is also searched, there is no need to copy all files to the custom directory – just those you want to modify.

One common scenario in single-language installations is to copy messages.txt and master.html, along with a custom logo, to a custom directory, and then set webdirs=customdir in uf80d.ini.  Then master.html can be customized as needed.  Only one language is offered at login, and the custom master.html template is used for all pages.

The name=value line in the web directory’s messages.txt file is used as a description in the login screen.

Note that the first webdirs entry can contain a different login.html template, and this becomes the form shown when users first login.

An example of a simple customization is to change the title and logo displayed in the web browser interface.  This is found in the master.html template, in these lines:

       <div id="mainheader">

               <span class="logo">

                       <img src="[SCRIPT_NAME]?fl=sdsi-logo.gif" alt="your logo here" />                

               </span>

           <span class="headertext">UnForm Archive Viewing</span>

       </div>

To change the logo, place your logo image anywhere in the UnForm server directory structure (main directory, the web directory, the web/en-us directory, or your custom directory.  Then modify the fl=filename to reference your image file.  You can also change the title to your chosen title.

While it is possible to modify the cosmetic appearance of the browser interface, it is not possible to modify the underlying structure or navigation, so be sure that if you modify templates all bracketed tags and links are maintained.

Note that if the publisher makes changes to the master en-us structures, any custom templates will have to be updated to reflect any new options, tags, or other critical elements related to processing.

Caution: Any modifications performed to the templates should only be performed by experienced and knowledgeable HTML and CSS programmers.  SDSI cannot warrant the performance of customized templates.