Customizing the Consoles

Last update: August 15, 2024

CREATED FOR:

  • Developer
CAUTION
This document describes how to customize consoles in the modern, touch-enabled UI and does not apply to the classic UI.

AEM provides various mechanisms to enable you to customize the consoles (and the page authoring functionality) of your authoring instance.

  • Clientlibs
    Clientlibs let you extend the default implementation to realize new functionality, while reusing the standard functions, objects, and methods. When customizing, you can create your own clientlib under /apps. For example, it can hold the code required for your custom component.

  • Overlays
    Overlays are based on node definitions and let you overlay the standard functionality (in /libs) with your own customized functionality (in /apps). When creating an overlay a 1:1 copy of the original is not required, as the sling resource merger allows for inheritance.

These can be used in many ways to extend your AEM consoles. A small selection are covered below (at a high level).

NOTE
For further information see:
CAUTION
You must not change anything in the /libs path.
This is because the content of /libs is overwritten the next time you upgrade your instance (and may well be overwritten when you apply either a hotfix or feature pack).
The recommended method for configuration and other changes is:

  1. Recreate the required item (that is, as it exists in /libs) under /apps

  2. Make any changes within /apps

For example, the following location within the /libs structure can be overlaid:

  • consoles (any consoles based on Granite UI pages); for example:

    • /libs/wcm/core/content
NOTE
See the Knowledge Base article, Troubleshooting AEM TouchUI issues, for further tips and tools.

Customizing the Default View for a Console

You can customize the default view (column, card, list) for a console:

  1. You can reorder the views by overlaying the required entry from under:

    /libs/wcm/core/content/sites/jcr:content/views

    The first entry will be the default.

    The nodes available correlate to the view options available:

    • column
    • card
    • list

  2. For example, in a overlay for list:

    /apps/wcm/core/content/sites/jcr:content/views/list

    Define the following property:

    • Name: sling:orderBefore
    • Type: String
    • Value: column

Add New Action to the Toolbar

  1. You can build your own components and include the corresponding client libraries for custom actions. For example, a Promote to Twitter action at:

    /apps/wcm/core/clientlibs/sites/js/twitter.js

    This can then be connected to a toolbar item on your console:

    /apps/<yourProject>/admin/ext/launches

    For example, in selection mode:

    content/jcr:content/body/content/header/items/selection/items/twitter

Restrict a Toolbar Action to a specific Group

  1. You can use a custom rendering condition to overlay the standard action and impose specific conditions that must be fulfilled before it is rendered.

    For example, create a component to control the renderconditions according to group:

    /apps/myapp/components/renderconditions/group

  2. To apply these to the Create Site action on the Sites console:

    /libs/wcm/core/content/sites

    Create the overlay:

    /apps/wcm/core/content/sites

  3. Then add the rendercondition for the action:

    jcr:content/body/content/header/items/default/items/create/items/createsite/rendercondition

    Using properties on this node you can define the groups allowed to perform the specific action; for example, administrators