Overview of Headers and Footers

A header is typically the color, text, or image that appears at the top of a presentation or embedded application or configuration. A footer is typically the color, text, or image that appears at the bottom of a presentation or embedded application or configuration. (You cannot use headers or footers with pop-up resources or with Web documents.)

There are two types of headers and footers:

External headers and footers, such as an HTML file created using a text editor
Internal headers and footers, which are created using Presentation Integrator

Presentations can use either external or internal headers or footers. Embedded applications and configurations can use only external headers and footers.

Writing External Headers and Footers

External headers and footers can be written in different ways, depending on how you plan to use them. For example, if you plan to use only a header or only a footer, all opening tags in the file must have closing tags. Alternatively, if you use both a header and a footer, the header can contain the opening tags, and the footer can contain the closing tags. When used with resources, this type of matched header/footer pair can interact with the resource's alignment property to flow text or images around the resource.

If the external header for a presentation contains a <body> tag, the attributes of the <body> tag take precedence over any background color or image specified on the Presentation Settings dialog box.

When writing external headers and footers, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Do not include opening or closing <html> tags in presentation headers or footers; these are added automatically when the presentation is rendered.
If the presentation will be accessed using Netscape Communicator 4.7x, the presentation header must not include <body>, <table>, or <frameset> tags. In addition, the headers and footers must be independent (you cannot use matched pairs of files with opening tags in the header and closing tags in the footer).

Referencing Other Files

In an external header or footer, references to other files (such as JavaScripts, cascading style sheets, or images) must be written using one of the following approaches:

Relative path to the Management & Control Services (MCS) database — This approach (which is recommended) ensures that the files can be replicated across clusters of MCS servers, but requires that all referenced files be published to MCS.
Fully qualified URL — Using this approach, the referenced files do not have to be published to MCS, but the files must be accessible to users (that is, not behind a firewall or other security mechanism).
Relative path to a folder within the MCS folder — With this approach, the referenced files do not have to be published to MCS, but the files must be copied to the appropriate MCS folder. (If you're migrating existing Terminal Viewers 2.2.x headers and footers, referenced files are placed in \mcs\components\PresentationBuilder\ReferencedFiles. To keep all referenced files together, you might want to use that folder for manually copied referenced files as well.)

For example, a header file might include a reference similar to the following:

	<img src="MyImage.gif">

Using a relative path to the MCS database, this reference would be changed to the following:

	<img src="/mcs/configmanager?action=readfile&product=PresentationBuilder&category=ReferencedFiles&filename=MyImage.gif">

This path is case-sensitive. Be sure to write path references exactly as written above.

Using a fully qualified URL, this reference would be changed to the following:

	<img src="http://server_name/folder_name/MyImage.gif">

Using a relative path to an MCS folder, this reference would be changed to the following, and MyImage.gif would be copied to the specified folder within the \mcs folder:

	<img src="/mcs/folder_name/MyImage.gif">

Publishing External Headers and Footers

To ensure that external headers and footers are downloaded to clients and available to other presentation designers, all external headers and footers must be published to MCS.

If the external header or footer contains references to other files (such as JavaScripts, cascading style sheets, or images), and the path to the referenced file is relative to the MCS database, you must also publish the referenced files.

To modify a published header, footer, or referenced file, you must modify the original file on your PC and republish it. Published headers, footers, and referenced files cannot be deleted using either Presentation Integrator or MCS.


	Publishing External Headers or Footers
	Specifying a Presentation Header and Footer
	Specifying a Resource Header and Footer