The new Install Modules Page

The new Install Modules page

In the versions prior to 21.4 the module version numbers tented to be confusing. To fix this, there is a changed “Install Modules” page.

The new Install Modules page

This page has been redesigned to avoid confusion.

The standard modules appear in a separate secsion without version numbers. And the somewhat long names (like “Content Server Comments” are simplified to “Comments”.

The optional modules are listed in the “Installed Modules” section. They now feature “Build” instead of “Version” to clarify the meaning.

Have much fun with the new “Install Modules” page.

Rethinking smartUI Part 4-B

Forms Rest command

Some weeks ago I published a new video on Rethinking smartUI on Youtube. Now we have Rethinking smartUI Part 4-B discussing the main part of gathering and displaying thr documents data.

If you havn’t it seen yet, here is the short video. In this posts, we’ll go though the technical aspects of this new kind of approach to smartUI. This demo is a Document Pad (or short DocPad), displaying all document properties in a SCIFI GUI arrangement.

A warning at the beginning: To use this code with IE11 is a perfect way to test all js error messages. Use this code only with the newest browsers. Its tested with Chrome (V98), Chrome Canary (V98), FF Developer (95.0b4), Edge (95.0) and Firefox (93.0)

The other parts of this post were

Part 4-A The Javascript Part 1

Part 3 The Infrastructure and the CSS

Part 2 The HTML

Part 1 Overview

In the part 4A, we had discussed all the js responsible for the perimeter of the whdgetz. Not lets discuss the main part which is responsible to gather and displad this data:

docdisplay

A CSS Grid

As you can see, there are 6 panels arranged in a CSS grid.

For infos on the css, please review this post, the part 3 of this series.

So let’s start with the panel at top left.

The documents metadata

This is more or less the data which is related directly to the document. The documents node number was the output from the node picker . The nodepicker was closed by the done() callback.

Nodepicker

Here we are in the this function of the nodepicker. We extract the node from the callbacks arguments an get the id with the topmost arrow. We extract the name of the node and put this name inside the id #document.

The loadDescriptions function does the work.

loadDescriptions

The prelude is simply to select the first face “.face.one”

Prelude
Begin

If this is not undefined (remember, smartUI always makes 2 runs, so its always a goot idea to test if its defined) the create and modify dates are extracted and translated in a standard js data. For non-US readers it will be always a difference between p.ex 04-05-20 and 4.Mai 2020 (US and german dates for the Star Wars day May the fourth), thats why we translate the dates.

Also we need to get the users of the creation and the modification. But these are numbers, so we want to translate them to names.

Next, extract the server from the connection and construct the members REST command to get these names.

First view: The fetch command

fetch is new in js 6. In this older, antique times you would have used some ajax variants like xmlhttprequest or some similar methods which we will use in other calls for comparism.

Fetch command

Technically, we have to issue two REST calls to /member/ to get the names of the createuser and the modifyuser. We use the fetch command.

Remark: the famous async/await would be much more handy for that, but we wanted to limit the language scope to js6 for these posts.

Once we get the responses, we’ll put that names simply as innerHTML on the panel.

Technically, you can use all other avaliable methods to put text on the panel, from template-strings to create a and fill a text nodein the DOM. You can even invite handlebars to do this for you.

loadDocumentThumbnail

In the top middle panel we added the document thumbnail, which is created automatically during indexing on the server.

Thumbnail

We must enter the nodeid in the REST command /thumbnails/medium/content to get the medium resolution version of the thumbnail.

To show the diffence to the fetch comand, the old archaic XMLHttpRequest was used.

The receiving image is put into a div with the id “Thumbnail”.

Image Correction

In the case the user selects another document the old thumbnail would remain. So we remove the old image element.

Almost done, we need to put our otcsticket in the request header and to send the request to the server.

loadNodeData

In this function, we use exactly one REST call to get all data at once. This is done by the function /forms/update?id=xx whick will deliver all data for that nodeid at once. Expecially the categories take a while, so a css-fog was used to cloak the image of the approaching grid until the data was received (revisit the video). Then the css fog is cleared and trhe categories are displayed.

The call is also done with the old XMLHttpRequest to show the diffences to the modern fetch command.

Local functions were used instead of those in “this” to keep the scope clean.

forms/update

The categories and the attributes

Categories

Categories were returned in an object with their category name a title in the entry. To get the attributes we have to do a little bit more.

Attributes

We split the result into several arrays to extract the values. If we have “date” in the type field, we have to use our date translation also on that to display the dates correct.

Security Clearances

All security related data is on the fouth face, the one on the lower left.

Security Clearances

Here, all security levels and markings were displayed inside a span.

Records Management Data

here we extract and fill the data on the lower middle panel.

Records Management

The Versions Data

Here, the REST commend has a problem. Versions are not included in the answer of the REST command, at least in the Content Server versions 21.3 and 21.4. So let’s ionform the user on this fact and display a local language string of this fact.

Tip: Maybe there will be a patch to fix this in the near future.

Versions Data

So we had all parts discussed.

We offer a one day remote training to understand the javascript code. If you are already a sophisticated Javascript Developer, you can get the free Sources also from https://github.com/ReinerMerz/reinerdemo (a public repository on Github).

Warning: This is only the sourcetree of the project, so you have to insert this in your own project file.

The data returned from the formsupdate?id=nn REST command

The whole data structure is send back in response to a forms/update?id=nnn REST call. Some of these entries take quite a while, so try using some css to cache this.

Forms Rest command

Have fun on discovering the endless possibilities of Dashboards and other Contentserver smartUI extensions using javascript6 and css3.

The sky is the limit.

Rethinking smartUI Part 4-A

Rethinking smartUI

Three weeks ago I published a new video on Rethinking smartUI on Youtube. Now we have Rethinking smartUI Part 4-A discussing Javascript. If you havn’t it seen yet, here is the short video. In this posts, we’ll go though the technical aspects of this new kind of approach to smartUI. This demo is a Document Pad (or short DocPad), displaying all document properties in a SCIFI GUI arrangement.

This is Part 4-A of a multipart post covering Javascript of DocPad. For the css refer to part 3 of Rethinking smartUI.

Warning: This is a lot of js code, so I subdivided this Part 4 into Part 4-A and 4-B (getting all documents infos with 1 Rest call). Part 4-B will be published next week.

We offer a one day remote training to understand the javascript code. If you are already a sophisticated Javascript Developer, you can get the Sources also from https://github.com/ReinerMerz/reinerdemo (a public repository on Github).

Warning: This is only the sourcetree of the project, so you have to insert this in your own project file.

The post parts until now

Part 4-A The Javascript Part 1

Part 3 The Infrastructure and the CSS

Part 2 The HTML

Part 1 Overview

But first to Rethinking smartUI Part 4-A.

The Javascript auxiliary files

Using the model factory

The idea of a model factory is to combine several functions in one.

a. Create a model and return it.

b. Load server data into this model for use in the main constructor function

A typical factory looks like this:

// the factory for the model
define([
‘csui/utils/contexts/factories/factory’, // Factory base to inherit from
‘csui/utils/contexts/factories/connector’, // Factory for the server connector
‘ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/docpad.model’ // Model to create the factory for
], function (ModelFactory, ConnectorFactory, DocpadModel) {

‘use strict’;
var DocpadModelFactory = ModelFactory.extend({
propertyPrefix: ‘docpad’,
constructor: function DocpadModelFactory(context, options) {
ModelFactory.prototype.constructor.apply(this, arguments);
var connector = context.getObject(ConnectorFactory, options);
// Expose the model instance in the property key on this factory instance to be // used by the context
this.property = new DocpadModel(undefined, {connector: connector});
},
fetch: function (options) {
return this.property.fetch(options);
}
});
return DocpadModelFactory;
});

The main Javascript files

The lang.js file(s)

The language system consists of those strings which are pupposed to change per language.

define({
helloMessage: ‘Hello {0} {1}!’,
waitMessage: ‘Please wait’,
seldoc: ‘Select a Document’,
printdoc: ‘Print the selected Document’,
pickerTitle: ‘Select a Document’,
selectPickerButtonLabel: ‘Select’,
descNodeID: ‘Node-ID’,
desDescription: ‘Description’,
desCreated: ‘Created’,
desModified: ‘Modified’,
……more …..
});

The standard model from Backbone.js

define([
‘csui/lib/backbone’,
‘csui/utils/url’
], function (Backbone, Url) {
‘use strict’;

let DocpadModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
name: ‘Unnamed’
},

constructor: function DocpadModel(attributes, options) {
Backbone.Model.prototype.constructor.apply(this, arguments);

// Enable this model for communication with the CS REST API
if (options && options.connector) {
options.connector.assignTo(this);
}
},
// Computes the REST API URL using the connection options
// /auth returns information about the authenticated user
// usage of => not possible because of “this” is used for urls
url: function () {
return Url.combine(this.connector.connection.url, ‘/auth’);
} ,

parse: (response) => response.data

}];

return DocpadModel;

}];

 

Remark: The Arrow Function at parse is pure js6. But let me quote developer.mozilla.com here

An arrow function expression is a compact alternative to a traditional function expression, but is limited and can’t be used in all situations.

Differences & Limitations:

(Endquote)

This means, its not possibe to use when any limitation will take place, like in the constructor.

The docpad.view.js

The stages of docpad.view.js

Get infos via the Bootstrap model

constructor: function DocpadView(options) {
options.model = options.context.getModel(DocpadModelFactory);
Marionette.ItemView.prototype.constructor.call(this, options);
this.listenTo(this.model, ‘change’, this.render);
}

First, we initiate the model (and read the data) via a standard model using the model factory. Then we call the constructor in the prototype with the cs options. Lastly we listen to a change of the data and (in case) we rerender the widget.

Load the photo

The user data contains (eventually) a photo of the user. This is loaded and inserted in the DOM with the function loadPhoto. Here the js6+ fetch function is exposed to get the photo and insert it into after the element woth the .photo class in the dom.

loadPhoto: function () {
let server = this.model.connector.connection.url;
server = server.substr(0, server.search(“api/v1”));
let url = server + this.photo_url;
let ticket = this.model.connector.connection.session.ticket;
fetch(url, {method: ‘GET’, headers: {“OTCSTicket”: ticket}})
.then(response => response.blob())
.then(function (myBlob) {
const URL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;
let photo = URL.createObjectURL(myBlob);
let img = document.createElement(“img”);
img.classList.add(“photo”);
img.src = photo;
document.querySelector(“#photo”).appendChild(img);
setTimeout(() => {
URL.revokeObjectURL(photo);
}, 100); // cleanup
}
);
},

       
Using the Node-Picker

The Node-Picker is a standard function in the sdk, so we use it.

The file ‘csui/dialogs/node.picker/node.picker’, // the csui node picker

is required at the beginning of the docpad.view.js file under the local name of NodePicker like this:

define([
‘csui/lib/underscore’, // Cross-browser utility belt
‘csui/lib/marionette’, // Marionetter
‘csui/lib/moment’, // the date/time lib in csui
‘ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/docpad.model.factory’, // Factory for the data model
‘csui/dialogs/node.picker/node.picker’, // the csui node picker
‘i18n!ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/nls/lang’, // Use localizable texts
‘hbs!ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/docpad’, // Template to render the HTML
‘css!ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/base’, // base Stylesheet needed for this view
‘css!ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/adv’, // adv stylesheet for this app
‘css!ademo/widgets/docpad/impl/print’ // print style sheet
], function ( _, Marionette, Moment, DocpadModelFactory, NodePicker, lang, template)

The picker is started by pressing the big button, this actually calls showThePicker. Types of 144 (only Documents) and on the enterprise volume are among the start conditions.

The title and other strings are extacted from the appropriate lang.js language file(s). The command nodePicker.show() at the beginn of the chain displays the nodePicker

showThePicker: function () {
if (undefined === this) {
return;
}
let btn = document.querySelector(“.btn”);
btn.classList.remove(“animate-large”);
btn.classList.add(“animate-large-backward”);

let nodePicker = new NodePicker({
connector: this.model.connector,
selectableTypes: [144],
dialogTitle: lang.pickerTitle,
selectButtonLabel: lang.selectPickerButtonLabel,
startLocation: ‘enterprise.volume’
});
nodePicker.s how()
.fail(function () {
console.error(“Picker fails to show”);
})
.done(_.bind(function (args) {
document.querySelector(“.printbtn”).classList.remove(“hide”);
document.querySelector(“#content”).classList
.replace(“hide”, “display”);
let node = args.nodes[0];
let id = node.attributes.id;
this.docname = node.attributes.name;
document.querySelector(“#document1”).innerHTML = this.docname;
this.loadDocumentThumbnail(id); // load the thumbnail and display it
this.loadDescriptions(node); // load node data and display it
this.loadNodeData(id); // inquire form update data and display it
}, this)
);

},

The callback in the .done clause simply extracts the node id and the name from the results and stores them in the docpad “this”.

In the next week part “Rethinking smartUI Part 4-B” we’ll discuss the REST Commad how to get all document data (nearly) at once.

Rethinking smartUI Part 2

Last week I published a new video on Rethinking smartUI on Youtube. If you havnt seen yet, here is the short video. In this posts, we’ll go though the technical aspects of this new kind of approach to smartUI. This demo is a Document Pad (or short DocPad), displaying all document properties in a SCIFI GUI arrangement.

This is Part 2 of a multipart post covering all aspects of this Docpad.

The post parts until now

Part 4-A The Javascript Part 1

Part 3 The Infrastructure and the CSS

Part 2 The HTML

Part 1 Overview

The html

First, lets take a look on the html (in out case the .hbs file). This is the top part of the widget,

The HBS file, Part 1

The div with the class “topbox” contains the Username and the Photo. There is also a Print-Button, if a document is selected.

A button, class “picker” is sorted in a div with “picker”. This is the button used to start the node picker component. Its hidden now, will be used later, when a document is selected.

The documents data is displayed using a cube. A cube has six sides so all sides can be presented using a css grid or …. (arranged in a 3D cube which can be rotated in 3D. But thhis is not part of this demo).

The whole thing is arranged in a div with the id of “content”. The top element is a div with the class “cube”, holding six divs for the six sides

The html of the cude

Just for fun, the cube is surrounded by a div with the class “cam”. If you want to display the cube as 3d cube. This is used to set the perspective on a 3d Cube. If you are interested in learning more on 3D css cubes, refer to https://css-tricks.com/simplifying-css-cubes-custom-properties/

Lets see the Actions.

The Actions in Detail

After starting the aplication, there are several stages, They are

a. Application started

Docpad started
Docpad started

Here, the application is just started. the “Select a document” started from the top left and moved in the center of the window. This button will initiate the nodepicker, a standard component of the smartUI library.

Until now, we queried the user logged in. Then, we greet the user, extract the photo from the Content Server Database and display this photo in the top right. To make it more interesting, we displayed the photo in round form via css.

In the three panels at the bottom we displayed the rest of the user record. Just for fun we surrounded the three botton panels with a border animation.

b. Nodepicker selected

The next stage is the nodepicker. After pressing the “Select a document” button, it is started and delivers a list folders and documents on the associated Content Server. Meanwhile, the Button moved again back to upper left corner.

c. Document selected

After the user selects a document, all data of this document is read from the server. In this case, the “APAC Expense Report.xlsx” is selected. (Refer to part 1 to see which REST commmands are used).

As of do have a document, we can display the header and the print button.

As you can see when playing the video, the cube starts in some distance and is a little but foggy during the approach and clears when we receive all data.

Display of the document

The reason is, that the forms/update REST call takes longer and we use CSS animations ans css view filters to hide that fact from the user. When in doubt, view the video on top of this post again.

For beauty there are also some hovering effects added, on the panels and on the thumbnail.

d.Document to Print

The last stage is (besides selecting a new document to display) is to print the document.

Here we have the print previev in Chrome

Print stylesheet in action

As we can see. the node data is printed in the form of a css grid on paper. The display is in standard layout. A media query selects a print style sheet instead of the normal stylesheet(s).

In the next week we discuss in Part 3 the index.html to start the widget standalone and css stylesheets (there are really several). We’ll then conclude this series in Part 4 discussing the Javascript made for this demo.

We’ll use the 4 steps of the application as the schema for Part 3 and 4.

See you next week!

Rethinking smartUI

Rethinking smartUI

Yesterday I published a new video on Rethinking smartUI on Youtube. If you havnt seen yet, here is the short video. In this posts, we’ll go though the technical aspects of this new kind of approach to smartUI. This demo is a Document Pad (or short DocPad), displaying all document properties in a SCIFI GUI arrangement.

This is Part 1 of a multipart post covering all aspects of this Docpad.

The post parts until now

Part 4-A The Javascript Part 1

Part 3 The Infrastructure and the CSS

Part 2 The HTML

Part 1 Overview

Part 1: Overview

This demo is supposed to do this:

  • Demonstrate the usage of html5, javascript 6 and css3. Especially how to use this modern components inside the smartUI framework. For example, the famous parse function in the standard demo widget will change this way:

js5
parse: function (response) {
// All attributes are placed below the data key
return response.data;
}

js6
parse: (response) => response.data

  • Compare the methods of getting data via REST using the methods
    • Model (as usual in Backbone)
    • XMLHttpRequest (the good old XMLHttpRequest as used since long)
    • Fetch (the modern javascript 6 method to get REST data)
    • Not used: async/await. Despite the fact that async/await is very handy, this appeared in javascript 8 and is beyond the scope of the demo.
  • Exploit the power of css by using
    • different display methods as Grid and Table
    • use panels in a cube. Origionally this was planned as moveable 3D cube. In this case, all metadata were written on the sides of the cube. Here is a very good technical description how to do it. Unfortunately the cube idea seems to be very impractical for the demo and was dropped
    • “burning borders”, fog and animations as element of the UI
    • provide an additional print style sheet to make this screen infos printeable in a normal way
  • Except some Icons of Bootstrap, nothing is to be used from Bootstrap. These Icons can be replaced by those in the fontawesome font
  • JQuery is not used
  • These Content Server REST commands are used
    • The log in is done in the index.html page, but when used as a dashboard widget the user is already logged in. If a separate login panel is required (p.ex. for a stand aloane dashboard on a tablet) then its necessary to provide a login via post […]/v1/auth
    • then the user info is retrieved via get […]/v1/auth
    • if the user has stored a photo in his profile, then the photo is retrieved by get […][photo-url] and then inserted in the DOM.
    • Then the standard Node-Picker Control is called. All Node-Picker interactions with the server are managed by this control. As a result, the nodeid of the selected Document is returned.
    • Next, the DAPINode infos of the selected node are retrieved by get […]/v1/nodes/{id}
    • for the “created_by” and “modified_by” there is only a nujmber returned, the userid. For this two cases, the username is retrieved from the server by get […]/v1/members
    • Its always nice to exploit the thumbnail of the document to the user. This is done by get […]/nodes/{id}/thumbnails/medium/content
    • To get all other data , a special trick is used. The command get […]/v1/forms/nodes/update returns all categories and the othere nodeinfos using one REST call. This commmand takes a while to execute, so the user is entertained using some css animations.

In the next week, we explore the infrastructure of this Docpad demo.

Rendition Administration

The new Rendition Administration option allows the Delete or Overwrite of the latest version. This is a configuration to be made under the Admin pages (Renditions/Configure Versions Folder/Edit Versions Folder)

If “Save as new Version” is marked on, the rendition will be saved as new version instead of beeing saved as Rendition.

If “Delete latest Version” is marked on then the document which triggered the rendition will be deleted.

This improves the workflow if processing and the retention of the original document is no longer required,

New in Content Server 21.1: New Webreport Widgets and Extensions

Nodestable

There is already an amazing set of webreport related widgets in the smartui (like HTML Webreport, Nodes List WebReport, Visual Count and Widget Carousel) in smartUI along with a couple of controls, models and actions which make the usage of webreports in smartUI much easier (like parameter.prompt.form, table.report, status.screen, open.webreport, WRTextModel etc). More detailled informations can be found in my Training “Advanced Workshop Webreports”.
At the dawn of the new version, we got a couple of new and extended widgets to be used with webreports.

Some amazing new full-page widgets hit the road


New in Content Server 21.1: New Webreport Widgets and Extensions. They display a full-page of data in a folder or Business Workspace in the Smart View. Three new full-page Content Intelligence widgets are now available to use with Perspectives:

  • Nodes Table Report – Full page
  • Table WebReport – Full page
  • Visual Count – Full page

Users may want to display visual countable data as a full-page chart or present a list of nodes, for example documents to be processed, in a full-page format in the Smart View.
The new full-page widgets will also work with Business Workspace tabbed perspectives, to add various reports sourced using WebReports. Full-page widgets can also be used with other Perspective layouts.

New Webreport Destination

A new WebReport destination, Full Page Widget, sees action for the Nodes Table WebReport, Table WebReport, HTML WebReport and Visual Count destinations.
Once the Full Page Widget output destination is selected, the Nodes Table WebReport, Table WebReport, HTML WebReport or Visual Count can be selected for the Type.
To support the new transport destination added for full page widgets, the transport destination page now has references to the Table Report SubWebReport node and the Visual Count button node to be transported.

Nodes Table WebReport – full page

The Nodes List WebReport widget displays a list of items (nodes) generated from the WebReport’s data source in a full-page view, similar to the browse view.
Parameter prompts can be added for the user to input date ranges, attribute values, etc. using the commands, actions and models mentioned above (since 20.1). If in use, an edit pencil button will display to edit the parameters.
Custom columns, scrolling, name search and pagination are supported.
The node action menu and multi-select actions are available to work with the items in the result set.
All titles and labels support multilingual metadata.

Configuration is done this way. Configure thhis widget and add the title and the node id of the webreport to display in the perspective manager. An Icon Class displays the appropriate Icon on the widget.

Table Web Report – full page

The Table WebReport widget displays a list of items based on the WebReports data source in full page mode.
Parameter prompts can be added for the user to input date ranges, attribute values, etc. using the commands, actions and models mentioned above (since 20.1). An edit pencil button will display to edit the parameters.
Additional data columns, scrolling, column filtering for multiple columns and pagination are supported.
Additional actions can be added, for example a sub-WebReport to initiate a workflow, send an email or create a document node from the item.
Titles and labels support multilingual metadata.

Visual Count – full page

The Visual Count helps visualize countable data using a full-page chart in the Smart View. The chart view (can use bar, donut or pie) has controls for users to filter and drill into data easily.
Parameter prompts can be added for the user to input date ranges, attribute values, etc. using the commands, actions and models mentioned above (since 20.1). If in use, an edit pencil button will display to edit the parameters.
Action buttons can be added, such as export to CSV file, email report data and initiate workflow.
Titles and labels support multilingual metadata.
The Visual Count tile widget and full-page Visual Count widget has a new Horizontal Bar type option.
The original Bar type has been renamed to Vertical Bar to distinguish the two bar types.
The horizontal bar, vertical bar, donut and pie chart types can be changed in the Perspective Manager and Edit page.

New WebReport features

New Enable Row Filters Tag


This new tag [LL_WEBREPORT_ENABLEROWFILTERS /] is designed to automatically filter a WebReport data source when the report is used as a button with the Visual Count widget.
This has also been added to the tag guide as a general feature. This allows WebReports to have better out- of-the box support for dynamic complex filters.


Hidden columns allowed to be included in Table WebReport widget


A new tag option is now available for Table WebReport widgets, INCLUDEHIDDENCOLUMNS:, to specify a list of columns that you want to include in the data returned to the client for each data row. The column will not be included in the columns array in the response.

New in 21.1: The new CAPI.ExecN Oscript command

New OScript for 21.1

There is a new CAPI.ExecN command special for Postgres operations.

Oscript, the final frontier. We write the year 2021 and the OScript universe is going to expand. The newest member is CAPI.ExecN.

CAPI.ExecN

Bulk Postgres operations are slow. There is a new implementation of CAPI.ExecN, which fixes this. But there is no free beer in the universe. This new implementation exposes Postgres SQL weaknesses (throws SQL errors).

As for 21.1, this is an experimental feature. IN 21.2, it will be activated by default.

For all the explorers in the world, this feature has to be actiated manually in 21.1.

Activate experimental feature

New in Content Server 21.1: Strict URL Syntax on additional Enterprise Menu Items

The new Strict URL checkbox

In 21. there is a new checkbox in the “Additional Enterprise Menu Items” Admin page. This allows you to enforce a stroct URL Syntax without Javascript or relative URL Syntax.

A small extension to 21.1, but a giant leap for Administrators to enforce more security on the Enterprise-Menus.

The Admins have an option to overrule this restriction by unchecking the new option. But this page is restricted to Content Server Administrators and not available for Business Administrators.

Fine!