I am new to SDL Tridion world and I have been assigned a couple of activities:
Create Page Template (PT), Component Template (CT), and a Sample Workflow. Basically I am experienced in .NET.
I have some startup code to start with, and I would like to know is there any way to debug the PT, CT, Workflow from Visual Studio 2010?
Your suggestion would be highly appreciated.
For compound templates either CT or PT, here is Tridion documentation (login required) with clear instructions on how to debug.
http://sdllivecontent.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL_Tridion_2011_SPONE/idheading-259229208
For Workflow, it depends on what type of implementation you are following (VBScript or Event System (TOM .net) or Core Service ), but in general it is not different as above. You attach to the process and debug.
http://sdllivecontent.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL_Tridion_2011_SPONE/task_BC70576958F3420CA4FC87B27CB0FC38
Related
I am trying to understand different artifacts around implementing Tridion XPM. Unfortunately I did not find any article that has answers to my questions.
For example Content delivery server (on WebSphere) can have four different applications, one for Content delivery(which handles publishing), one for web service (oData implementation), one for XPM (with Session preview) and the actual preview application. I am assuming we can merge one or more of these applications into one for a simple implementation (with one or two consuming websites).
My questions are:
How can we simplify the number of applications (WARs) to be made? Though I always prefer to keep the preview application separate from Tridion's framework. What are the benefits around Content Delivery session preview Web service as a standalone Java/JSP Web application Versus adding it to existing application?
How can I associate/integrate webservice(oData) to XPM or other common basic functionality like component linking?
For example if I publish a page with out enabling oData it will split tridion:ComponentLink tag where as if I enable it will split tcdl:Link tag. So I need to come up with custom class to read these tags? which eventually require adding Tridion framework in the preview application. (Assuming I did not include any Tridion framework in my preview to have a clean application dependency)
I looked at Tridion's live site for more information, but I could not find much useful info for my questions.
There's a LOT of questions right there, let's see what I can do here.
You will need 3 applications:
A Deployer (standard deployment configuration)
A Staging Website (with Tridion stack + XPM Filters + Ambient Framework)
A WebService app (OData + Ambient Framework)
XPM itself runs in the Content Manager Explorer, so it's not per se a separate app, it's an extension of the Tridion Content Manager.
If you want to have your staging separate from Tridion, then you will not be able to use "Session Preview", which in turn means you do not need OData. This however will revert back to the SiteEdit days whereby every change you do to pages requires the page to be republished (with Session Preview this is immediate).
You do NOT need to use OData for your Website in any way (unless you really want to). The WebService is there to support Session Preview only. I wrote down the interactions between XPM/CME/Staging site here and they're documented here.
If you publish tcdl:link code to OData, then just use TCDL/REL, Tridion will render it for you, you don't need to custom parse anything.
Hope this helps...
Not directly an implementation question but hopefully someone can offer a few pointers.
I wanted to ask if by integrating SDL SmartTarget into Tridion you are effectively getting SDL Fredhopper as well?
Do you still get Fredhopper Business Manager etc?
Could you feed more traditional product data straight into Fredhopper, outside of Tridion then build a site with personalisation/targeting via SmartTarget mixed with a product catalogue driven by Fredhopper and all the cross-sell/up-sell/recommendations it can do?
Cheers
Yes, SDL SmartTarget includes SDL Fredhopper, and you can indeed add data to it via the Data Manager.
The main differences between both offerings is obviously the connector and Ambient Data Framework support for ST queries, a set of Java Taglibs/.NET controls you can use to communicate with Fredhopper and a few other things like session preview support for FH queries (ability to change the variables on-the-fly for testing).
N
We are upgrading to Tridion 2011 SP1 and as a part of Tridion search implementation we are using FS4SP (Fast Search for sharepoint 2010).
In proposed implemenatation search environement consists of following servers:
FAS4SP
FISE
Can someone guide us regarding how to push content to FAST from tridion and how to retrieve the same?
(Here due to some reasons we are not considering crawling of website by FAST)
What all APIs can be used for this implementation?
If you don't want to use the crawling approach, you will need to create a custom deployer, please take a look at this other article:
How can we integrate Microsoft FAST with SDL Tridion 2011 SP1?
Alternatively, if you don't have a development team who is familiar with Java, you might considering creating a .NET application which updates your FAST index based on either a File System or Database trigger when your pages or components are published, updated or deleted from your broker repository.
You will probably want to create XML for FAST and have the Custom Deployer (or Event System) send the content to FAST.
First create the FAST XML that works and write a sample app so you can insert it into the FAST index from either a .NET or Java application. This does not yet involve Tridion.
Then write your Custom Deployer or Event System and pass the XML to FAST.
IF you are using a Custom Deployer approach I would suggest to contact Tridion Professional Services if you have not done it yourself or are not a Java programmer. The new Tridion 2011 Storage API provides new opportunities for the Custom Deployer. In the meantime I would suggest to append the FAST XML to the normal Page Content at the end, surrounded by some markers, and have your custom deployer pull it out of the Page output, send to FAST, then remove from the output before continuing.
This is a fairly difficult challenge for those who do not have serious Content Delivery / Deployer / Java skills. However, if you want to go for it yourself I would suggest taking at least 2 weeks of time to research existing solutions and experiment with the API.
Using the Event System might be a little easier - but your success or failure message will not appear in the Publish Queue and if the search index fails to update you can only log the failure and not pass the info back to users.
I would like to create workflow using SDL Tridion 2011 SP1, and i am going through the documentation in the live content portal.
I have few questions when I go through the documentation as follows:
Can I use C# (TOM.NET) for automatted activities/decisions? or should I use only VBScript (TOM)? Is there any sample code given in the live content portal for automatted activity/decision?
If C# (TOM.NET) is not allowed to use in workflows, why are its namespace/class/member references given there in TOM.NET API file?
If VBScript only allowed to use in WF, where can I get code/TOM API reference in SDL live content? As of now I dont have access to SDL Tridion server to get the documentation from the installer package.
Can I use C# (TOM.NET) for automated activities? Or should I use only VBScript (TOM)?
You can use the TOM within your C# code to write automated activities. There is a primary interop assembly provided for that purpose (IIRC).
Is use of TOM.NET allowed in workflows?
Accessing workflow items from within existing TOM.NET code (i.e. a TBB or DataExtender) is supported. So you can query items that are in workflow, kick off workflows, etc.. But using the TOM.NET for writing automated workflow activities is not supported.
The reason for this has something to do with incompatible threading models from what I recall. But I mostly just took the word of the developers for it; they are bound to know better than me.
Where can I get code/TOM API reference?
API reference documentation for Tridion is not in LiveContent, but instead is delivered in CHM (or zipped JavaDoc) files. The latest documentation for the TOM API can be found in the "SDL Tridion 2009 full documentation" zip on the Tridion 2009 documentation page on SDL Tridion World (login required).
Thanks to Quirijn and Alvin for pointing this out in the comments.
You can use C# for automated tasks. Create a class and sign it with:
[ProgId("[Namespace].[Class Name]")]
[ComVisible(true)]
And sign the assembly with RegAsm.exe with the /codebase parameter.
Then in the Script of the automated action you can use this object.
Create the workflow diagram (based on the requirement) using visio after installing the visio plugin.
upload the workflow into SDL Content Manager by providing the credentials and choosing the relevant publication.
For automatted activities: create a c# class library and refer the tridion dll's, and user progid and comvisible = true in the solution.
create the necessary functions for your workflow.
register the assembly in the SDL Tridion Content Manager server.
in the workflow "Edit script" use vb script code to get the C# object and its methods.
This will simplify the VBScript code and provide flexibility to the developr to work in c#.
It is fine to use the TOM .Net API. However we must consider that we would need to create Session instances since our new TOM .Net for Workflow won't allow you to pass a WorkItem instance from VBScript (Code Tab in Visio for Automatic Activities) and you are forced to pass the TcmUri for that WorkItem. The session creation is mandatory in order to get Tridion objects instantiated since you just have a tcmuri. The recommendation here is to use the C# class registered as a COM class by using the ComVisible and ProgId attributes but use the CoreServices for all the processing in your Com Visible class.
If you use the Core Services for processing you won't need to take care of sessions creations and your core would be much faster and scalable. You might be interested in use a TCP binding or a Net Pipes binding for performance obviously.
I have looked around for a beginners tutorial to start creating a Spring app using the STS IDE. There seems to be nothing around, its either hand build it or the tutorial doesn't work and is many versions off the current IDE. I am very new to Spring and need to get going on this. Any links you can throw my way I would appreciate it.
STS provides Template Projects. Open File -> New -> Spring Template Project.
Now you can choose the type of application you want to create. If you want to create a web application choose Spring MVC Project. This will create a complete project with a controller, a view, maven integration and everything else you need. You can immediately run this application in tc Server.
I think the green beans series from springsource is a good start: http://blog.springsource.com/2010/11/09/green-beans-putting-the-spring-in-your-step-and-application/
Integrated in the IDE is also a task focused tutorial to learn basic steps inside the ide ( help->task focused tutorials...
I may be late, but I think this tutorial might be helpful (for those who are looking for sts tutorial like me):
http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/?p=2373
UPD:
and this one is good:
http://viralpatel.net/blogs/tutorial-spring-3-mvc-introduction-spring-mvc-framework/