[THREDDS #IZW-298295]: Customise TDS [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

> Hi Lansing,
> 
> Many thanks if you could us to configure to include our header/footer, 
> because we are ready to publish it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ken
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Unidata THREDDS Support [mailto:address@hidden]
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 8:25 AM
> To: Ken Toch
> Cc: address@hidden; Ken Toch
> Subject: [THREDDS #IZW-298295]: Customise TDS [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
> 
> > Hi Lansing,
> >
> > Thanks for taking times to answer my question. I got some of the issues 
> > working. However on http://localhost:8080/thredds/catalog.html page I like 
> > to include our banner/footer in to the page. Is it possible to do it? Is 
> > this page construct by java class or jsp? Can you please show me how it can 
> > be done?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Ken
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Unidata THREDDS Support [mailto:address@hidden]
> > Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2012 5:21 AM
> > To: Ken Toch
> > Cc: address@hidden
> > Subject: [THREDDS #IZW-298295]: Customise TDS [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
> >
> > Hello Ken,
> >
> > Thanks for writing in with questions.  If the answers I've interspersed 
> > below don't help, please follow up.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Lansing Madry
> > Unidata
> > Boulder, Colorado
> >
> > > Hi Support,
> > >
> > > I name is Ken Toch and I am working for Bureau Meteorology in
> > > system. Recently I have managed to get TDS (thredds) up and running on
> > > our server. There are two questions I need to ask and I hope you can
> > > help me to customise the way thredds were setup.
> > >
> > > 1. Because this is government website and the major concern is
> > > security. To get thredds running I have to deploy war file under
> > > tomcat/webapps (/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/) this directory owns by
> > > root (the people who is looking after the web security). Anyway
> > > I have managed to deploy thredds outside of tomcat/webapps, which
> > > is /web/webapps/ (this directory I have access to) but I got HTTP
> > > status 404 - /thredds/catalog.html. This I believed (I could be
> > > wrong but may be you can help me) may be I didn't create symlink
> > > under /usr/share/tomcat6/content to /var/lib/tomcat6/content/ (these
> > > two directories owns by root). Okay here is my question why thredds
> > > need these two directories and is there a way to customise thredds
> > > to look for other dir like /web/webapps etc. If so, could you please
> > > instruct me?
> > >
> > I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at with your question, here.  Did 
> > you really mean to ask whether Tomcat can be configured to look in a 
> > directory other than ${tomcat_home}/webapps/ for a warfile or a deployed 
> > web application?  While it is not something that I have done, I think you 
> > should look at the appBase attribute, as described here in the Tomcat 7 
> > documentation:
> >
> > http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/host.html
> >
> > As far as I know, you can direct THREDDS to look for data files in almost 
> > any directory on the filesystem by pointing the 
> > ${tomcat_home}/content/thredds/catalog.xml file in the correct direction.
> > > 2. I have mentioned that I have successfully deployed
> > > thredds under tomcat/webapps now next step is to make
> > > http://localhost:8080/thredds/catalog.html look and feel to our webpage
> > > (it is government policy). I believed, the bit that display the catalog
> > > page is
> > >
> > > /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/thredds/WEBINF/jsp/thredds/server/catalog/catalog.jsp
> > >
> > > I have made some changes on catalog.jsp re-run tomcat and redeploy
> > > thredds but I didn't see the effect on /thredds/catalog.html page.
> > >
> > > What did I go wrong?
> > >
> > > How can I customise catalog.html to include standard header/css etc?
> > >
> > Take a look in the tutorial at the documentation on THREDDS configuration:
> >
> > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/tech/tds4.3/tutorial/Basic-threddsConfig_xml.html
> >
> > Near the bottom of this section is a bit on the appearance of generated 
> > HTML pages.  Let me know if it does not help.
> > > Many thanks advance for your helps.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Ken Toch
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Ticket Details
> > ===================
> > Ticket ID: IZW-298295
> > Department: Support THREDDS
> > Priority: High
> > Status: Open
> >
> >
> Hi Ken,
> 
> I took a look at this today, and the short answer is that it is not easy.  I 
> found out that the catalog.jsp file (under the WEB-INF directory) is a red 
> herring, and I had to dig into the htmlwriter to make changes to the catalog 
> page.  You probably don't want to do that.  I also found out that footers are 
> a vexing problem, but HTML 5 is supposed to help with that by creating a 
> <footer> tag.  This sort of feature is on our short list to fix, as part of 
> refactoring the web pages to make them a little more flexible.  In the 
> meantime, I'll try to figure out something quick and dirty for you.
> 
> Cheers,
> Lansing
> 
> Ticket Details
> ===================
> Ticket ID: IZW-298295
> Department: Support THREDDS
> Priority: High
> Status: Open
> 
> 
Hi Ken,

I have an easy solution for you, which should work to get your header and 
footer in place.  You can work with the tdsCat.css file under the 
${tomcat_home}/webapps/thredds directory and modify the bit on H1 and H3.  For 
instance, to put in a footer, I made the following modifications:

H3 {
  font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
  color: white;
  background-color: #0000ff;
  height: 120px;
  font-size: 14px;
  background-image: url("http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/img/packages/thredds.gif";);
  background-position: right center;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

This puts the thredds logo on a blue background in the footer to the catalog 
page.  You can do something similar to the header by changing H1.

We're going to be revising how the html content is generated "soon", probably 
in the next few months, but this should do what you need for now.

Cheers,
  Lansing

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: IZW-298295
Department: Support THREDDS
Priority: High
Status: Open