What are item types?

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Item types define the contents of an item and the information that is stored about an item. The information stored about an item is determined by the attributes of the item type. For example, the File item type's attributes include Create Date, Expire Date, and Author. What are base item types? Base item types are the item types included with Oracle Portal. There are nine base item types:: Item Type Description File Uploads a file and stores it in your database. Each file item title is displayed as a link in the folder. Folder Link Adds a link to another folder to your content area. Use folder link items to provide shortcuts to frequently used folders. Image Uploads an image and displays it in your folder. You can associate HTML imagemap code with the image so that users can click an area of the image to go to a Web site or Web page. Java Application Uploads a Java Server Page (JSP) application as a JAR file and stores it in your database. PL/SQL Adds PL/SQL code to your content area. You can display a PL/SQL item as a link that users click to execute the code, or display the results of the code directly in the folder. Text Item Adds text (up to 32KB) to your content area. You can display a text item as a link that users click to view the text, or display the text directly in the folder. URL Adds a link to an external Web site or Web page to your content area. You can display a URL item as a link that users click to view the Web site or Web page, or display the site or page directly in the folder. Application Component Adds a component such as a form, report, or chart to your content area. You can display a component item as a link that users click to run the component, or display the component directly in the folder. You can display the component's parameter entry form if you want to enable users to customize the component's output. For information about building components, see Building components. Zip File Uploads a zip file to your content area. After uploading a zip file, you can unzip it to add all the files contained within it to your content area. Custom item types But what if you want to store more information than the base item types allow? For example, suppose you have a health and fitness content area, and you want users to be able to add product reviews including a rating of how good a product is. You can create your own custom item types to meet these requirements. You can base a custom item type on one of the base item types, or create a completely new item type. If you base a custom item type on one of the base item types, the custom item type automatically inherits all the base item type's attributes. For example, if you create a custom item type (Review) based on the File item type, the Review custom item type automatically inherits all the File item type's attributes, including Create Date, Expire Date, and Author. After you create a custom item type, you can edit it to add attributes that are specific to your requirements. For example, in the Review custom item type, you want store the product rating, so you would edit the Review custom item type and add the Rating attribute to it. Note: You must create an attribute before you can add it to a custom item type. In addition to adding attributes to custom item types, you can also add calls to PL/SQL and HTTP procedures. You can pass attributes as parameters to those procedures, if required. For example, if the Review custom item type includes a Search attribute to store a search string, you could add a procedure call to a search engine and pass the search string to that search engine. When users run the search engine, the search results for the search string are displayed.

Notes

You cannot add attributes or procedure calls to base item types.

Related topics
Creating a custom item type Changing a custom item type's basic properties Adding attributes to a custom item type	Adding procedure calls to a custom item type Deleting a custom item type What is an item?

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