Visual profiles

A visual profile is a .properties file that overrides default ARender UI settings for a specific audience. Each profile can control CSS, toolbar layout, panel visibility, color mode, and any other client-side property. Multiple profiles can coexist; the caller selects one at runtime through a URL parameter.

How profiles work

When ARender loads, the GWT client reads the props query parameter and sends the profile name to the server. The server resolves a properties file matching that name, merges it on top of the defaults (arender-default.properties), and returns the resulting configuration. If no props parameter is provided, ARender falls back to the built-in arender-env profile.

The resolution order is:

1. arender-default.properties -- ships with ARender, contains all defaults.
2. arender-env.properties -- generated at container startup from ARENDER_* environment variables.
3. <profileName>.properties -- loaded when ?props=<profileName> is present in the URL.

Properties defined in the profile file override those from earlier layers.

Activating a profile

Append props=<profileName> (without the .properties extension) to the viewer URL:

https://arender.example.com/?url=../samples/arender.pdf&props=readOnly

Multiple documents can be opened with different profiles by varying the props value per URL.

Creating a profile

1. Create the properties file

Create a file named after the profile, for example readOnly.properties. Add only the properties you want to override:

readOnly.properties

# Hide annotation toolbar
toolbar.annotation.buttons.beanNames=

# Disable save button
topPanel.section.left.buttons.beanNames=downloadMenu,printButton

# Force light color mode
preference.color.mode=LIGHT

# Disable rotation save
visualization.rotation.save.enabled=false

Any property present in arender-default.properties can be overridden in a profile file. The full list of available properties is documented inside the default file shipped with ARender.

2. Deploy the file

Docker

Mount the profile file into /home/arender/ARenderConfiguration/ inside the web-ui container:

docker-compose.yml

services:
  arender-ui:
    image: arender-ui:latest
    volumes:
      - ./profiles/readOnly.properties:/home/arender/ARenderConfiguration/readOnly.properties
    environment:
      ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_RENDITION_HOSTS: http://rendition:8761

Using docker run:

docker run \
  -e ARENDERSRV_ARENDER_SERVER_RENDITION_HOSTS=http://rendition:8761 \
  -v $(pwd)/readOnly.properties:/home/arender/ARenderConfiguration/readOnly.properties \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  arender-ui:latest

Spring Boot (standalone)

Place the file in the configurations/ folder next to the ARender web-ui JAR, or in the classpath root.

Kubernetes / Helm

Use a ConfigMap mounted at /home/arender/ARenderConfiguration/:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: arender-profiles
data:
  readOnly.properties: |
    toolbar.annotation.buttons.beanNames=
    topPanel.section.left.buttons.beanNames=downloadMenu,printButton
---
# In the Deployment spec:
volumes:
  - name: profiles
    configMap:
      name: arender-profiles
containers:
  - name: arender-ui
    volumeMounts:
      - name: profiles
        mountPath: /home/arender/ARenderConfiguration/readOnly.properties
        subPath: readOnly.properties

Common profile properties

Property	Description	Default
style.sheet	Comma-separated CSS file paths	css/arender-style.css
preference.color.mode	Top panel color theme (LIGHT, DARK, LEGACY, CUSTOM)	LIGHT
topPanel.section.left.buttons.beanNames	Buttons in the left toolbar section	Import, save, download, print menus
topPanel.section.middle.buttons.beanNames	Buttons in the middle toolbar section	Annotation, builder, image tools
topPanel.section.right.buttons.beanNames	Buttons in the right toolbar section	Navigation, zoom, fullscreen
toolbar.annotation.buttons.beanNames	Annotation toolbar buttons (empty string hides it)	All annotation types
visualization.rotation.save.enabled	Allow saving page rotation	true
about.dialog.enabled	Show the About dialog button	true

Device-aware profiles

ARender automatically detects the client device type (desktop, tablet, phone). The detected device is passed alongside the profile name to the server configuration service. You can use this to apply device-specific defaults without requiring separate profile files.

Multiple profiles

To serve different user groups, create one file per profile (admin.properties, readOnly.properties, reviewer.properties) and mount all of them into the configuration directory. Each user or integration link simply references the appropriate profile name in the props parameter.