Oracle ECM Alerts - Product News & Information

Site Studio 10gR4 allows external applications to display and edit web content created and stored within UCM by simply executing two new custom services via http. The two new services are “WCM_PLACEHOLDER” and “WCM_BEGIN_EDIT_SESSION”. Correct usage of these services will allow the designer to include a fully editable Site Studio specific XML Datafile into their application.

POTENTIAL USAGE:
Calling the “WCM_PLACEHOLDER” service via http, and passing in the appropriate parameters can return a datafile in a number of different formats. The content that is returned can be embedded into virtually any application. Executing the “WCM_BEGIN_EDIT_SESSION” service via http will launch the Site Studio FCK contributor application, and allow changes to be made to the datafile. Functionality includes, but is not limited to:
1. Viewing datafile content within an external application (HTML/JSP/PHP/ASP etc.).
2. Launching the FCK Contributor from an external application
3. Viewing and editing Dynamically Converted content within an external application
4. Viewing and editing Dynamic Lists/Static Lists from an external application
5. Viewing and editing of Site Studio content within a Portal

PORTAL UTLIZATION RULES:
If the Content Server exists in an environment that can be viewed by the client browser loading the portal, then there should be no issues with executing the services via HTTP.
If the Portal Server has a trusted connection to a Content Server located behind a firewall, the ability to execute the services is limited. In this environment, the client browser would generally makes a call to a JSP on the app server. That JSP would then makes an HTTPRequest to the Content Server to execute the WCM_Placeholder services. The pages returned will more than likely have links to images/CSS/JS assets on the Content Server. When the page loads in the client, it won't be able to see these items, unless a proxy was created that could convert them locally. The forthcoming Site Studio for JDeveloper contains a proxy to address this requirement.

Site Studio 10gR4 viewlets and samples have been placed on OTN and are now available at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/content-management/ucm/SiteStudio10gR4Tutorials/index.html

Viewlets/Samples include:

• “How To” viewlets focusing on Site Studio 10gR4 architecture
  
• Documentation on the new Site Studio 10gR4 services
  
• A sample site, as well as raw site files for download
  

In Site Studio 10gR4, a placeholder tag designates a spot where some sort of managed content gets fed into a page template. Placeholders are the 10gR4 Site Studio’s more flexible version of “contribution regions”, which are still supported for backward compatibility.

By default, placeholders allow contributors to assign or create content at that location. But placeholders can also take parameters, which allow you to manipulate them in interesting ways that would have been difficult with previous versions of Site studio. In this post, I’ll introduce two of the key parameters and show some common uses.

One important parameter a placeholder can take is the Content ID of a data file. This is done by adding a dataFileDocName parameter to the placeholder. This parameter tells Site Studio to use a specific data file, rather than looking what data file was assigned by contributors and stored in the project file. In fact, when a data file parameter is put onto a placeholder, the ability for end users to assign content – i.e. create new or reuse content and assign it to this placeholder – is suppressed, because we don’t want to mislead users into thinking that the “switch” action will accomplish anything.

Why would you want to do this?

Consider a footer. You want users to manage and edit the footer, but you don’t want them to have to assign it for every page. So you can reference a specific data file in the placeholder for the footer. That way, the same data file will be used everywhere, but at the same time you still get the in-context editing so users can change it. A placeholder that references a footer might look like:

And the finished footer might look like:

If you want to do the same thing but don't need a backing data file - you simply want to include a chunk of markup or script, optionally with additional placeholders - you can reference a sub template from your placeholder using the templateDocName parameter. A placeholder with a templateDocName reference looks like this, where "RVI_FOOTER" in this case is the dDocName of a sub template rather than a data file:

Upcoming posts will look at how to use placeholders to do personalization and A/B testing, and how to use placeholders to make flexible templates.

A new URM training course is now available.

The first two sessions:
9/15-9/18 - Online - GCC: D59559GC10
9/29-10/2 - Bellevue, WA - GCC: D57727GC10

Register
(Oracle employees should register directly through self-service apps)

Future sessions can be checked for directly on the website.

Greater detail at the link above, but course objectives include:
* Perform user-end URM functions such as browsing a file plan and creating records
* Search and define physical content
* Configure URM security
* Configure URM
* Configure physical content management
* Create a file plan, disposition instructions, and triggers
* Screen records, record folders, and record categories
* Schedule tasks
* Manage audit trails
* Generate reports
* Export and import file plans and record content
* Link records
* Create and manage simple profiles