Managing Shell Rules
A shell is an installable component of My webMethods Server. A shell is segment is a special kind of page that generates the My webMethods Server header, footer, and portlet title bars.
Where regular portlets produce the primary content of a page, a shell provides the structure that frames that primary content. Common web page idioms such as banners, standard links, and search boxes appear in a shell.
A developer creates new custom shells to accomplish many different functions, such as:
Adding a row of links to other corporate web sites below the page banner
Changing the default search box to one that searches the corporate catalogue
Adding a left-hand navigation bar to every page.
You can set up many different criteria to determine which shell is used for a particular user request. My webMethods Server offers a variety of ways to configure personalization rules that dictate what shell is displayed for a given user, group, or resource.
Note: Unlike skins, you cannot explicitly assign a particular shell to a specific user. You need to use rules that dynamically assign a shell based on a variety of criteria.
The Manage Shell Rules page allows you to define rules that dictate what shells can be used by users, groups, or roles. This page allows a system administrator to create, modify, or remove rules, and change the evaluation order of a list of rules that are evaluated for each user every time the user logs in.