Create a Custom Siebel Login Page
This article describes the steps to take to create your own custom Siebel login page for thin client.
You can make the Siebel login page look however you want it to look through the use of web development using HTML as long as you include the required fields on the web page. You can customize the Siebel login web page through modifying Siebel Web Template (.swt) files. SWT files are essentially html files that Siebel uses to render the UI, all Siebel views have a SWT file associated which tells Siebel how to render the view in the web browser.
Therefore you change how the login page looks by changing the HTML within the SWT file associated to the Siebel login page.
Here are the steps to take:
1. Determine the Login Web Page that is currently used by your Siebel Application. In Siebel Tools Object Explorer click on Application and query for the Siebel application that you are using (eg. Siebel Public Sector). Make a note of the value in field: Login Web Page. This is the web page that is used for login.
2. In Siebel Tools Object Explorer, click on Web Page and query for the web page noted in the step above. Make a note of the value in field: Web Template, this is the web template that is being used to render the login page.
3. In Siebel Tools Object Explorer, click on Web Template and query for the web template noted in the step above. Expand the Web Template icon in the Object Explorer and click on Web Template File. Make a note of the value in field: Filename. This is the web template file.
4. Now we want to modify the web template file. Get a copy of this file from the server in the %SIEBEL_ROOT%\webtempl directory and copy to the corresponding WEBTEMPL directory on your dedicated client. Now open this file with a HTML editor. Now in this file, search for text: "swe:pageitem id=". You will see a number of places where this tag is used similar to this:
swe:pageitem id="1"
This html identifies a Siebel Web Page Item with identifier 1. These correspond to Siebel items. In Siebel Tools Object Explorer, click on Web Page, query for the Web Page, expand the Web Page icon and click on Web Page Item. All items listed in Web Page Items are the identified by a number in the Item Identifier field. These correspond to the swe:pageitem(s) in the SWT file we are looking at.
In the Web Page Item list, the following items are important, make a note of the Item Identifier for these so that you ensure that they are on your login SWT file:
_SweUserName - This is the field item that the user enters their username. The item identifier this maps to is required to be displayed on the SWT file. _SwePassword - This is the field item that the user enters their password. The item identifier this maps to is required to be displayed on the SWT file. _SweRememberUser - This is the field item checkbox that the user can check if they wish to automatically login. If you want the ability to auto login then this field is required in the SWT file. UserNameLabel - This is the field item that displays the username field label. You can include this in the SWT file, or you can just create your own label using HTML within the SWT file. PasswordLabel - This is the field item that displays the password field label. You can include this in the SWT file, or you can just create your own label using HTML within the SWT file. RememberUserLabel - This is the field item that displays the remember user field label. You can include this in the SWT file, or you can just create your own label using HTML within the SWT file. LoginButton - This is the field item that is the login button. The item identifier this maps to is required to be displayed on the SWT file.
5. So now we know what swe:pageitem elements to put on the SWT file and that we can modify the SWT file as we would a HTML file for presentation. Now it is also important to include other swe elements on the SWT file. These include the following:
swe:error - The login page SWT file will always require the swe:error elements to be used as this is what renders the error text when the user enters incorrect credentials. If you look at the SWT file you will see something like this:
<swe:error><tr><td colspan="2" class="loginError"> <div style="width:296"><swe:thisproperty="FormattedHtml"/></div></td> <td colspan=3 style="width:107"> </td></tr> <tr><td style="height:5px" colspan=5><IMG src="images/spacer.gif"></td></tr> </swe:error>
The above html is used to place where the error text will go on the login page if the incorrect credentials are entered.
swe:form - The login page SWT file will always require the swe:form element to be wrapped around the login form html. You will notice that something similar to the following exists in the SWT file:
<swe:form method="post" name="SWEEntryForm" htmlAttr="target='_top'">
The swe:form html elements are required to ensure that the login page credentials are correctly posted to Siebel when entered and submitted on the login page.
6. You should leave from the top
<html>
tag to the (and including) the
<body>
tag untouched. There is no need to change this section of the SWT file.
7. Once you have finished modifying the SWT file, you can then deploy it to the Siebel server(s) %SIEBEL_ROOT%/WEBTEMPL directory, restart the Siebel servers and web servers.
