Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere Customization

There are the following tiers of Parallels H-Sphere control panel customization:

Basic interface settings can be configured through the control panel. The Look and Feel menu allows to set skins and colors, images and icons, and some interface texts.
Advanced interface customization is what goes beyond the scope of the Control Panel settings. It is performed on the Parallels H-Sphere CP server by designers and programmers with administrative rights, in order to create or modify Parallels H-Sphere interface elements.
Parallels H-Sphere Packages (.hsp) are installable addons that extend H-Sphere functionality. This is a way to share custom elements between Parallels H-Sphere installations. Third parties can use it to develop and distribute packages that add new or extend/override standard Parallels H-Sphere functionality. Documentation on building packages is introduced in Parallels H-Sphere Developer Guide.

This Customization Guide explains how to customize the following Parallels H-Sphere elements:

Customizable Elements	Description
Templates	Design and control patterns for dynamic HTML generation. They are to be modified if you need to restructure the layout of certain pages of the Control Panel interface, or to change the look of the Control Panel header and footer.
System E-Mail Notifications	A special type of templates used to generate standard email notifications sent by Parallels H-Sphere.
Context Help	A special type of templates to generate context help for certain elements of the Control Panel interface.
GUI Texts	Standard messages and labels that appear on the interface pages are placed in the special configuration files and may be set for different languages.
Localization	Adding new languages to the interface and modifying language files with interface texts in different languages.
CP Menu	Generating and modifying control panel menus and submenus and adding external links to the menu.
GUI Design (Skins And Icon Sets)	Parallels H-Sphere interface design has a broader meaning than just configuration of certain color schemes and the corresponding icon sets, what is called the skin. It also determines the set of skins available for this design, specifies the sets of icons in the Quick Access page and enables to override the standard settings with the custom ones.
CP Crons	Parallels H-Sphere utilities regularily executed on the Control Panel server.
Plan Wizards	Custom plan wizards defined and configured in XML documents.
Merchant Gateways	The media for making real-time payments with online credit card processing centers automatically from the CP.
Web Payment Systems	The media for making payments manually from the web interface of the payment systems.
Signup Forms	Generating custom signup forms to sign up users aside from the standard signup procedure provided in Parallels H-Sphere, as well as modifying the standard signup pages.

Warning:
1. Advanced customization may produce unpredictable results after updating Parallels H-Sphere, since updates affect the template structure and the page generation.
2. Advanced customization performed by Parallels H-Sphere customers is done at their own risk and is not supported by the Parallels.