Customizing the Sametime Meeting Center UI

I really like the new Sametime Meeting Room Center UI, nice blue/green/grey screen.
Nevertheless our CI colors are more like purple and so I had to try to change the UI accordingly. Sametime Meeting Center is a pure Websphere application so customizing means find the app resource files and you are almost done.

So the magic path is :
$WAS_INSTALL_PROFILES_MEETING\installedApps\$CELL\Sametime Meeting Server.ear\stmeetings.webclient.war\static-20110517-1459\oneui\common\styles

To change UI from

to

was pretty easy.
For this example I just changed 7 images (btnActionBkgd.png, LotusSametime.png, STiconHomepageLarge.gif, titlebarLeft.png, titlebarMid.png, titlebarRight.png, welcomeBkgd.png) and did some CSS changes in defaultTheme.css

Customizing IBM Connections Profile Labels

Customizing IBM Connections 3.x labels is pretty easy, you just have to create a properties file, store your customized labels in it and place this file inside your <customization_dir>/strings directory:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/Customizing_product_strings_ic301
Customizing the profile labels on my installation unfortunately did not work although mentioned on wiki page (com.ibm.lconn.profiles.strings.ui_xx, com.ibm.lconn.profiles.strings.uilabels_xx).
So I had to find a workaround by using an external resource bundle and use it in my profiles. This needs more than one properties file but is still pretty easy. In this example I will reuse a given profile field (pagerNumber) and will add a customized label to it.

1. Create a properties file for each language you are using inside your strings directory -> I’m using com.belsoft.profiles.strings.uilabels_xx.properties

2. Add the key-value pair for the string that you want to customize (for each language) and save the file

3. Add your external resource bundle to LotusConnections-config.xml by checking out the config and adding some lines:

cd D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\Dmgr01\bin
wsadmin.bat -lang jython -port 8879
execfile(“connectionsConfig.py”)
LCConfigService.checkOutConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)

Open LotusConnections-config.xml and add your widgetBundle inside the resource tag, you have to use your property file name as widgetbundle name:

<widgetBundle name=”com.belsoft.profiles.strings.uilabels” prefix=”belsoft”/>

Check in your changes:

LCConfigService.checkInConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)

4. Now we have to use the new labels inside the profiles:

execfile(“profilesAdmin.py”)
ProfilesConfigService.checkOutConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)

Open profiles-config.xml and change the line for attribute pagerNumber (bundeleIdRef has to be the prefix of your added widgetBundle!):

<editableAttribute labelKey=”label.belsoft.privateMobileNumber” bundleIdRef=”belsoft” showLabel=”true” hideIfEmpty=”true”>pagerNumber</editableAttribute>

Check in your changes:

ProfilesConfigService.checkInConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)
  

5. Last step is to update your versionStamp and sync all your nodes:

execfile(“connectionsConfig.py”)
LCConfigService.checkOutConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)
LCConfigService.updateConfig(“versionStamp”,”")
LCConfigService.checkInConfig(“D:/temp”,”BSAZ-ZHRU-VSV04Cell01″)
synchAllNodes()
exit
   

After a restart of your profiles server you should see the new label on your profiles page: