coreContentOnly - Monday, October 20, 2008

Site Studio Default Link Format Per Site by Jason Stortz

With the newer versions of Site Studio (10gR3, at least 10.1.3.3.3+) there is a handy way to set the default link format for your site. You can do this through the Site Studio Designer and the setting is persisted in your Project XML file in Content Server. This is pretty handy if you want to do things like using one manner of linking to data files for 90% of your content creation work.

Monday, October 20, 2008 11:01:36 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Accessing HTTP Header Information With iDocScript by Jason Stortz

Sometimes when you are performing some web programming in iDocScript it is necessary to get at the HTTP Headers of the request. The headers are there, and they are available, but they may be named something different from what you are expecting. For example, "Accept-Language" will be available as "HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE".

When I make a normal request and I spy on the request using a tool like Fiddler the headers I am sending are listed out as:

Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: en-us
UA-CPU: x86
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0...
Connection: Keep-Alive
Host: localhost
Cookie: IntradocAuth=Internet; IdcLocale=English-US

Then, here are the request variables printed out by Content Server (matching from above are bolded):

HTTP_ACCEPT=*/*
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip, deflate
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us
HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/4.0...
HTTP_CONNECTION=Keep-Alive
HTTP_HOST=localhost
HTTP_COOKIE=IntradocAuth=Internet; IdcLocale=English-US
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
IdcAuthChallengeType=http
IsSocketConnection=1
SERVER_NAME=localhost
ThreadCount=1
SERVER_SOFTWARE=Microsoft-IIS/6.0
HTTP_CGIPATHROOT=/wcm/idcplg
RemoteClientHostAddress=127.0.0.1
ssoriginalurl=/web/index.htm
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
REMOTE_ADDR=x.x.x.x
SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1
IDC_REQUEST_AGENT=webserver
SERVER_PROTOCOL_TYPE=NONE
QUERY_STRING=IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&siteId=web&siteRelativeUrl=%2Findex.htm&ssUrlType=2
REMOTE_HOST=x.x.x.x
REQUESTURI=/wcm/groups/system/documents/web_assets/wpl_www_jsp.jsp
RemoteClientPort=4444
SERVER_PORT=80
RemoteClientRemotePort=1231
CONTENT_LENGTH=0
IDC_REQUEST_CTIME=1224069779
PATH_TRANSLATED=c:\inetpub\wwwroot

So, to use these in iDocScript I can call them by the names from this last list, with something like <$HTTP_HOST$> or <$HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUGAE$>

Side Note, to get these variables printed out I put this code in my Site Studio page (JSP). This caused my binder to print out to my page so I could see all the information available to me.

<%=serverbean.evalIdcScp("trace(\"#all\", \"MyTest\")")%><%=serverbean.evalIdcScp("trace(\"#all\", \"MyTest\")")%>
<%=serverbean.evalIdcScp("MyTest")%>
<%=serverbean.evalIdcScp("MyTest")%>
And finally, if you are passing in custom headers you are in for a treat because then you may need a component to serialize your custom header.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 7:03:15 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] Oracle WCM |

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Silverlight 2.0 Released by Jason Stortz

Like them or hate them, Microsoft continues to be busy. Personally, I like the Silverlight platform and I think almost all forms of competition is good. I think Silverlight, while different, is good for the Flash/Air/Fireworks platforms. If nobody is chasing you, you don't try as hard.

So anyway, Microsoft has released the production, final version of Silverlight 2.0!

http://silverlight.net/

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:01:38 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] .NET |

Monday, October 13, 2008

SSEphoxImageSetting - A Content Server Configuration for Ephox by Jason Stortz

When oracle released the 10.1.3.3.3+ site studio product they delivered a new contributor application along with new data file formats. Inside these data files the structure has changed from previous versions. Here’s an example of the new format:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<wcm:root xmlns:wcm="http://www.stellent.com/wcm-data/ns/8.0.0" version="8.0.0.0">
    <wcm:element name="HeaderImage"><img border="0" alt="Wide Image" src="[!--$ssWeblayoutUrl('groups/public/documents/web_assets/wideimage.gif')--]" /></wcm:element> 
</wcm:root>

As you can see a near full path is embedded in the xml file. In this case if I were to change the security group of this image from public to secure the page using this data file would render with a missing image. The same is also true of the doc type and/or account. What can we do about this?

The documentation mentions that the function ssWeblayoutUrl() is able to work with the dDocName: This script extension is used to determine the full web address of a file from either the path or dDocName. This is most typically used for paths to images in data files.

Great. It turns out that through the use of a configuration variable added to config.cfg or through the admin server under general configuration week in control what gets embedded in data files. Note: this is available in build 251 or higher.

SSWeblayoutUrlUsesDocNames=true

On a related note, check out another blog post starring ssWeblayoutUrl over at Web Monkey Magic.

http://webmonkeymagic.blogspot.com/2008/09/surprise-ssweblayouturl.html

Monday, October 13, 2008 8:49:23 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Keep Latest N Revisions by Jason Stortz

There are often a wide variety of reasons why someone may want to keep only the latest n revisions of content in their content server. These reasons range all over from keeping disk usage in check to a form of security/retention management. Whatever your reason the process is pretty straight forward. I am going to show you how to setup archiver to take out all but the latest X revisions. In a later post we can talk about various ways to enact that archive on a scheduled basis.

So, simply put, the secret to this is the Revision Rank (dRevRank) field. A lot of times in the past I've tried looking at dRevLabel, dID, dDocID, but nope, the special field you want is Revision Rank. Use the following steps to set up your archive:

Log onto your content server as a user with administration rights
Under "Administration" select "Admin Applets" and then fire up the Archiver applet
From the "Edit" menu select "Add"
Give your archive some kind of meaningful name
Provide a description, perhaps include something about the expected lifetime of this archive?
Click "OK"
Select the new archive in the archive list and then click on the "Export Data" tab
From the Export Query section select "Edit"
Set the following field defintions
1. field to "Revision Rank"
2. Set the Operator to "Is Greater Than"
3. Set the value to "4"
Click "Add", add and then "OK"
Under "Actions" click on "Export"

Great, now lets discuss some of these points. The Revision Rank field is zero based (meaning it starts at zero) and that zero represents the most recent revision of the content in question. The second most recent revision is denoted by a dRevRank of 1, etc. For example, if you wanted to delete everything but the 5 latest revisions you should set dRevRank to 4. If you wanted to only keep the most recent revsion set dRevRank to 0.

Upon selecting "Export" you will be prompted deleting the revisions from content server during the export process. If you place a check mark in the check box the content will be REMOVED from content server. The content will continue to exist in the archive you just exported as long as you don't crack that open and delete it in there as well.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008 7:51:24 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1] Oracle UCM |

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Larry Announces Two New Products - Both Hardware? by Jason Stortz

In his keynote, Larry had several interesting things to say. First, he announced a new product from Oracle. This is, in fact, their first ever hardware product. It is called The Exadata Storage Server. I wonder what Network Appliances (a major sponsor of OpenWorld) thinks of this? The Exadata Storage Server can be standalone or placed in a grid of these things. He also talked about a new connectivity model between the database and the storage server, named InfiniBand. This allows more data, faster, from the disk system to the database.

Hey look, another new product! This one is called The Oracle Database Machine. Good Lord, it has 64 Intel Cores for database processing and 112 cores for storage processing and gigabytes and gigabytes of RAM. And it holds some ridiculous number of Terabytes of data, something like 168.

Get More Info

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 5:37:54 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] OpenWorld 2008 |

JDeveloper and Application Development Framework by Jason Stortz

While I’m waiting on Larry for his presentation I wanted to recap one of the session from earlier today that I have not got around to posting about yet. Yeah, I’m a slacker. The presentation was an overview of JDeveloper and the Application Development Framework.

The presenter was very good, and he moved very quickly from topic to topic. The points of the presentation were very good, but the demo was better. It was awesome. I’m getting ahead of myself. Oops. I am going to try to sum this up: ADF allows Oracle themselves to utilize developers of various degrees of expertise to quickly and efficiently build useable, robust, efficient applications.

Ok, let’s talk about the demo. That’s why we were all there anyway right?! In just a little under 25 minutes the presenter (Shay? I’m probably spelling that wrong) created a page that paged through data, displayed several master detail scenarios and allowed updating. The whole thing looked nice and worked quickly. A lot of AJAX was built in out of the gate. Graphing was built in. All in all, it was very, very cool.

I have to do some thinking on how this works with ECM. I hope they will soon have prefabricated ADF components to work with the Content Server, or even WCM. How does the Open WCM concept fit into this? How? Why? So many questions, so few answers....

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 5:03:13 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] OpenWorld 2008 |

Just Larry by Jason Stortz

Overwhelmingly I hear people refer to the leader of the Oracle Enterprise by just "Larry". Does he know we're all on a first name basis with him? I wonder what he thinks of that? It's kind of comical, and maybe representative of several social, psychological paradigms. Are we attempting to socially elevate ourselves by referring to a person of power and wealth on a first name basis? Is it something else? I sure don't know. But it did strike me as interesting.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 4:47:38 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] Mindlessness | OpenWorld 2008 |

Remote Metadata Update Via Excel by Jason Stortz

Some of you may have used or even still have an excel spreadsheet which can be used to update metadata. This spreadsheet was originally provided by the former content server creator, Stellent. I am actually unaware of the name or names of the original author or authors and as such have not credited them here. Leave your name to take credit! Some people love it. Some people hate it. Either way, it has been useful to me.

The original style sheet allowed users to specify additional custom columns named after their custom metadata. It offered two buttons. The first was “submit query” which invoked the user defined query string located to the left of the button. The second button “update” would cycle through each of the result records from the query and update the metadata based on the values in the spreadsheet.

I have updated the spreadsheet in two ways. I have added a login button which simply causes a prompt for user credentials. The importance of this button is the reduction in steps needed to update secured content. With the original spreadsheet the user first had to search on public content only and invoke an update which then prompted for credentials after which the user could conduct another search which would then have the credentials to access secured content. With the login button we can now skip this cycle. The second change is a new worksheet which contains configuration variables for the searches. Currently there are three configuration variables including ResultCount, SortField and SortOrder.

Additionally I often get asked how one can use this spreadsheet to update metadata only check-in’s. The trick is an additional column named createPrimaryMetaFile. This column should be set to TRUE if that record represents a metadata only check in.

This file and all updates to it are presented here as-is with no support implied or otherwise. As always, use at your own risk.

References:

remoteMetadataUpdater_20080924.xls (194 KB)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:24:20 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [4] OpenWorld 2008 | Oracle UCM |

OOW Day Three: Goals by Jason Stortz

Session-wise, I would like to hit these today:

Time	Room	Description
9:00 AM	Marriott Golden Gate C1	Basics of SOA Deployment for Enterprises
11:30 AM	Marriott NOB Hill AB	Using Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle BPEL Process Manager to Integrate and Extend
1:00 PM	Marriott Salon 5	Reshaping Your Business with Web 2.0
5:00 PM	Marriott NOB Hill CD	Optimizing User Engagement, Using Oracle Real-Time Decisions

In between all of these sessions I am hoping to finally get down to the demo grounds today. The overall goal for the day is to learn as much as possible about SOA Suite.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:03:14 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0] OpenWorld 2008 |