Looking for a quick list of all Categories and Attributes configured in a Content Server? Tired of browsing the Categories Volume? Want to see all attrobutes and their IDs in a list?
In Content Server 16.2.6 the Cluster Manager is gone.
Whenever you try to open the Admin pages, you see this:
Install the System Center Software
First, you have to download and install the System Center Software. Clicking on the Link “Download Software” directly connects you the the Knowledge Center. After logging into this Knowledge Center, you’ll arrive at the Landing Page for the System Center.
The System Center(s) are avaliable for Windows and for Linux servers. Select the proper version for your system and download it.
Install it.
You’ll find the System Center directly in the list of programs, like here in Windows Server 2012
Configure it
Double Click to start. Next, you’ll see the System Center Home Page
Like in the cluster management, you’ll need to download an agent per Content Server system and install that agent at that particular system – Click on Download and Install Agent.
(dont forget your local system!).
Next, you have to register the systems, onto which you just unstalled the agents. Go back to the “Home” of the System Center and click on “Register Systems”
Under “Managed Systems”, you see all systems already registered, under “Pendig systems” there are all systems with agents recognized by the System Center.
Click on the entry in the column “Actions” on the system pending, and you can register the agent. A Click will give you the detail view (here the system is already registered)
So you are nearly done!
Click on “Discover Products” for this particular system at the bottom of the page and the system is checked for all supported products and those installed are listed.
How to check for patches and install them?
Easy. Until now, you did the setup.
This has to be done only once.
Go back to the “Home” and click on “Check for Updates”
This will lead you to the “Products” tab with Updates for the registered product.
Either expand the “Avaliable Patches” entry and select the patches you want to install or select all by checking the checkbox at “Avaliable Patches”. Then click on “Download Selected” and see the system working.
First you need to login into Knowledge Center
Press Close and you see the download window. As the download is done async, you see green marks (downloaded and installed) and also the moving circles (waiting for download or still in progress)
It also provides a list of supported products by clicking “Catalog” from the “Home” page of the system Center
The latest releases are listed directly in the calalog overview.
So the System center is much better then the Cluster Management doing updates.
Widgets are controlled by perspectives, changing the data displayed in the widget requires a change of perspectives
When you restrict yourself to use only the standard REST command set, you’ll find that you fire a lot of REST commands
You lost the capability of using navigational menus with computed URLs.
This leads me to some thoughts towards webreports as an adddition to widgets.
Webreports used as widget surrogates do have this pros and cons.
Pros:
You can use standard bootstrap navigational menus and UI elements, which allows you to mimic your webreport like a widget.
You can easily build things like Wizards inside your webreport structures. This is interesting, when you require some complex categories setup at doc creation time.
Webreports can use different sources to diyplay things, all server based. You can add the complete output via asynchronous AJAX call directly in your hosting webreport.
You can start actions inside the surrounding smartUI using standard jquery and html selections.
Starting Webreports and inserting the output via AJAX makes things quite fast. Especially when you display more than 1 record.
You get the option of using normal menu structures w/o the requirement of changing the perspectives.
Its easy for experienced webreport developers to modify the menu structures and the contents of such a meta webreport.
Cons:
Storing Webreports in the database require an additional license.
You have to load jquery by yourself.
No access to binf.js, unless you build one binf library without the normal csui-hierarchy or load a plain bootstrap.js.
In the last case, you’ll loose the css overwrite capability offered by the Content Server.
Webreports tend to require large numbers of themselves. This requires a very clean process documentation for the group of webreports.
Webreports take some time to start. On performance points, Subwebreports are evil. On the other hand, Subwebreports are required for a lot of things.
Doing things via AJAX means, you enter the wunderful world of async processing. Actually, you have no control on when the async webreport is finished
Here is a short receipe howto use webreports as widget surrogates:
Add a webreport html widget to your perspective. This one will held your base webreport.
This base webreport contains all menu structures and also all js needed.
Define your webreports for the different “pages” controlled by your menu. Each webreport is a stand alone webreport.
Call these via js from your menu structure. Use AJAX calls.
Insert the output from this webreports in a html structure (like a div).
Add somewhere a home button to switch back to your first page.
Some more tips:
Consider using stored searches in your “page” webreports. These are quite fast, depending on your search infrastructure. You dont have to use multible webreports to support this, you can switch the sourceID on the AJAX call to the webreport.
Consider to use the REST tags of a webreport.
Inside the webreport html widget there used to be the opportunity to use plain html for menu or other purposes. Since 16.2.4 there is a new widget in town, a plain html widget without the need of an webreport license.
In both cases, you have to think of the new namespace (“binf”) on using bootstrap.
Take a bootstrap menu for example.
The plain bootstrap code wont work, because OpenText added the prefix “binf” to introduce a special namespace.
Change the plain code by adding these “binf” prefixes:
And the values you receive from the REST Calls are between -2 and 3.
How can you transfer this in a “selected” clause in the html select box?
Easy.
Ass a select helper in your main marionette view:
Handlebars.registerHelper('select',
function (selected, options) {
Handlebars.registerHelper('select', function (selected, options)
{ return options.fn(this).replace( new RegExp(' value=\"' + selected + '\"'),
'$& selected="selected"'); });
This handlebars helper named “select” will examine the coding tagged betweern a {{select}} and a {{/select}} in your handlebars template and insert at the option clause which is selected a ‘selected=”” ‘ clause. Then the Selectbox is ready to use.
Simply add a
status: this.model.get('status'),
to be returned in your template helper and the
{{#select status}}
...
{{/select}}
will trigger your select box helper to check for the v ariable status and to add a selected at the proper place.
Thats the magic behind the handlebars select helpers.
Beeing Content Server Trainer, I was asked to provide a training “How to program a Widget for the new Content Server GUI” to several customers. This is about the content of such a training and the reason why such a training is technically really advanced.
CSUI SDK introduces a shift in paradigma, the server is no longer providing the GUI, all is done by a Javascript Application at the client side.
Basic Training (newest version 1.005 from Feb/2018)
The basic training is very compact and lasts 5 days.
First, lets take a look on the components:
As a prerequisite, a firm knowledge of CSIDE, How to build a module, the Node Structure and whats to do with Content server Nodes is necessary.
At the end of the training, you’ll have a working knowledge of:
Content Server Perspectives. What are they and how you can use them to provide a user specific interface.
Content Server REST. This is the only possibility for the client to communicate with the server, so its mandantory to know the REST interface from the application point of vue. And, as REST can be very slow due to unneccesary data, its also mandantory to know, how to add REST services to the Content Server to get the data you want in the fastest way.
Javascript. There are Javascript Patterns, which are used heavily in the SDK. If “Javascript Object Inheritance”, “Currying/Schoenfinkelizing”, “Decorators” etc are weird words for you, this chapter is the right chapter for you.
Next is the infrastructural world of the sdk.
There are several components, which must be understood prior to build a Widget.
node.js is the base Javascript system for our development
grunt.js is a Javascript task runner, which we use to build, test and debug our widget
yeoman is a scaffolding system, which will be used by a Opentext extension to initialize the development folder. It also creates the skeleton of a Content Server module, which is used as a “Carrier” for our Widget(s)
backbone.js is the base framework to be used
marionette.js is an extension to backbone.js, making Views easier.
handlebars.js is the html templating framework used in the sdk
require.js is the javascript module loader to be used
bootstrap.js/binf.js is originally the public domain CSS/JS framework from Twitter for the appearance of the Widget. Binf is the Opentext variant, allowing to override CSS without negative effects
Next is the SDK itself. Due to time restrictions, in the base training are only the base functions, the advanced training covers the other aspects. It contains
Installing the SDK
Building the Demo Widget
CSS Style Overrides binf
General Overview of the SDK
Content of the SDK
Routing (Preview of the Advanced Training)
New Commands
Custom Columns
Metadata
Define a new NodeType
Create a Widget
Base Widgets
Controls
Models
Mockup and Test Data. How to setup mockup REST data. How to build test facilities in the SDK
Anatomy of the Hello Widget. A walktrough through this widget
Anatomy of the MyAssignment Widget
Add another Widget to the Content Server. Change the Hello Widget and add additional fields
Build a Custom Widget to be used as Client with a custom REST service. Here, a custom widget is build, which uses an extended version of the custom REST service from Part 2.
If time allows: Some Tips and Tricks from a “Work-in-Progress” Widget
Advanced Training (Version 1.005 Feb/2018)
OK, thats the basic training. There are a lot of additional things inside the SDK, but to understand these, there must be a couple of weeks with practical experience in between. The advanced part has beed remodelled to include a couple of interesting things. The advanced part contains:
Chapter 1 Extended SDK Parts
Additional Widgets
NodesListReportView
TilereportView
FilteredCountChartView
Carousel Widget View
Userwidget eSocial
ActivityFeedWidgetView
ActivityFeedContent
ChatWidget
Datepicker
switch
Workflow (new in Content Server 16.2)
Workflow Components
Workflow in smartUI
Starting Workflows
URL Routes
Workitem Actions
Workitem Extension
Writing Workflow Extensions
New REST API Support (16.2) for Workflows
Widgets not part of the SDK
Mobile Scanning
xECM: Header Widget with Business Object Infos
xECM: Snapshot of current document Attachments
xECM: Dossier View Widget
Engineering Doc Management: Search
xECM: Office365 Groups
Chapter 2 Extended SDK Features
Build Language Packs for Internationalization
Commands
Implementation and Inheritance from “CommandModel”
Best Practices
Using Commands
Custom URL Router. Routing, adding custom Routers. Using Routers as Navigation.
Behaviours. What are Behaviours?
DefaultActionBehaviour
BlockingBehaviour
ExpandingBehaviour
InfiniteScrollingBehaviour
PerfectScrollingBehaviour
PageLeavingBehaviour
Mixins. What are Mixins? All available Mixins.
Browsable Support for Collections. Using the “Browsable” support for Model-Collections.
Chapter 3 Additional Things to consider
Tips and Tricks (Work in Progress- List can change)
Add a OTDS Ticket already in the browser to the connection object
Re-using a OTDS Ticket as LLCookie
Checking the paths in the test/index.html
Using Helpers for supporting a select box with Handlebars
Adding non CSUI supported JQuery functions in a view
Handlebars advanced. A deeper look into Handlebars
LESS advanced. A deepter look into LESS, the CSS language used in Bootstrap
Accessibility in Bootstrap. What can be done to add support for screenreades etc to Bootstrap/Binf? Whats to avoid? Which tools are available
Best Practices in Development
As you can see, there is a lot of stuff. The basic training last 5 days, the advanced training 2. But on the other side, you’ll get happy users with your new Widgets.
And that’s all what counts.
References
Javascript
“JavaScript Application Design “as a general introduction (covering Grunt) https://www.manning.com/books/javascript-application-design
A new feature in the content server version 16.2 is the usage of smartGUI in workflows. This gives a standard workflow user a great new experience in using this workflow.
Lets see, how:
Setup
But first, you have to setup an few things.
This is our workflow map which we use in this example:
In the Classic UI edit the workflow map.
Goto to the Initiator. Mark „Initiate in Smart View“ . Add to Workflow Definition and save the map
(optional)
goto the Tab „Smart View“ and add a form. Forms can be added to all steps, if they are enabled for display in Smart View.
This is an example of the last step on „How to enable a step for SmartUI“:
Save the map and exit.
Now its time to see our workflow in the smartGUI.
Usage
Switch to the smartGUI and instantiate the workflow from the map.
Then the Workflow Widget appears. At this stage, you can set all attributes as usual, you can add files at to the workflow by dragging and dropping these to the right side of the widget
Add some comments
Click submit and login with the userid of the first step assignee.
Here, you see your open workflow step in the “My Assignments” widget. Clicking on the entry opens the Approval widget
By clicking on the attachment at the right side, the attachment can be opened, downloaded or the properties can be checked.
The properties look like
Now after the examination, you can click on “Approve” and add a comment.
Then the Workflow Step is approved. The entry in MyAssignments is removed. The workflow is on the next step.
From time to time, you need a test email server on a VM or on a test environment to configure the Content Server elink capabilities. Or maybe a Exchange is too powerful for you?
Then Mercury as an email server and Pegasus as email client may be a good choice for you. You can download this at http://www.pmail.com/ .
But having a mail server up and running is only half of the price. You still have to configure elink and the mail server.
elink is a Content Server mechanism, which allows you to store documents via email or post replies to to discussions or send documents also via email.
Setting up elink is simple.
You have to imagine, that elink has to have a mailbox on the mail server, which is used to retrieve messages to the content server. This means, a mail to this mailbox is processed by the content server. The mail server must be configured that all mails from a domain will be stored in this mailbox.
for example the message
<123BeDessfdj>@elink.net must be stored in the elink mailbox to be processed by the content server.
First, lets configure the Mercury Server. First, we need to setup a Content Server used. Lets call it elink.
Second, we need to setup the Domain for this mailbox. If we enter the DM=user with the username just defined and an Internet Name (here elink.net) for our mails to the content server, we define that all mails from the Domain elink.net will be stored in the elink mailbox.
Next, we need to configure elink. This must be done on the Content Server admin pages.
Virtual Hostname is the name of the Domain, from which we want to store all messages in the elink mailbox.
Username/Password is the name of out mailbox user (elink) and its password. You can test the connection by pressing the “Test Connection” button.
If everything runs, you’ll see mails like these in the Pegasus mail client.
One of the nicest things in the content server area is, you can set Access Control Lists not only for the owner or the default group of a node, and you can add or revoke rights to the node for virtually all users and groups defined in the content server.
Here, we want do discuss how to do this using Content Server Web services. First, let’s see how ACLs are organized. A simple object would display something like this:
On the left hand side, you see the default access, there is always one Owner, one default group and a public group.
If you want to assign further access, you can select a user or a group by clicking on the bottom at the lower left hand side. This will select a user or a group. (Btw: It’s recommended to use groups instead of users)
On the right hand side, there are the ACLs for the selected user/group on the object. Here, we used the Administrator, therefore all rights are switched on.
Ok, how to use this on a c# client?
First, the ACLs for a given user are called NodePermissions. Use them like this. Let’s say, this is utils.setNodeRights(….)
/// <summary>
/// Creates a Noderight Structure and returns it
/// </summary>
/// <param name="rights">"all" or see (see,seecontents)</param>
/// <param name="id">the member ID for this node rights</param>
/// <param name="type">Owner, Ownergroup, Public or ACL </param>
/// <returns></returns>
public DocumentManagement.NodeRight setNodeRights(string rights, long id, string type )
{
DocumentManagement.NodePermissions newPerm = new DocumentManagement.NodePermissions();
newPerm.SeeContentsPermission = true;
newPerm.SeePermission = true;
if (rights.Equals("all"))
{
newPerm.AddItemsPermission = true;
newPerm.DeletePermission = true;
newPerm.DeleteVersionsPermission = true;
newPerm.EditAttributesPermission = true;
newPerm.EditPermissionsPermission = true;
newPerm.ModifyPermission = true;
newPerm.ReservePermission = true;
}
DocumentManagement.NodeRight newRight = new DocumentManagement.NodeRight();
newRight.Permissions = newPerm;
newRight.RightID = id;
newRight.Type =type;
return newRight;
}
The Nodepermissions is simply a container with the single access rights set to true or false.
When the definition is finished, the NodePermissions must be encapsulated in a structure called NodeRight. This contains the ACLs defined and the user/group for the ACL. Use the id as long integer, this is the unique identifier of a user/group in the content server. You can use MemberServices to get this number, if you know the login-name.
Then, the system wants to know, which kind this user/group is. Use ACL, if these are additional users/groups, or use something like Owner, Ownergroup or Public, if the ACLs should belong to the predefined entities.
How to use this?
First, login to the Webservices.
Second. Get the node, onto which you want to set ACLs.
Forth. Set the ACLs for the standard entities (if needed). Define a NodeRight for every entity (user/group) you want to set. Define these 2 right groups.
// setup standard permissions for base ACL group
DocumentManagement.NodeRight newRightstandardGroup = utils.setNodeRights("see", standardGoupID, "ACL");
DocumentManagement.NodeRight newRightsmanagerGroup = utils.setNodeRights("all", managergroupID, "ACL");
The nodesrights on a node can contain something or be null. First, lets check, if the thing is null.
if (nodesrights == null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Nodesrights not found- no external Users/groups assigned");
Console.WriteLine("Setting a group with rights see/seecontent");
DocumentManagement.NodeRight[] allrights = new DocumentManagement.NodeRight[2];
allrights[0] = newRightstandardGroup;
allrights[1] = newRightsmanagerGroup;
nodeRights.ACLRights = allrights;
docclient.SetNodeRights(ref otauth, pargs.nodenumber, nodeRights);
authClient.Close();
Console.WriteLine("All Rights and Groups set --- Finish");
return;
}
In this case we simply define a NodeRight array with two entries containing our new RightstandardGroup and our newRightmanagerGroup.
Let’s store them into our newly created array.
Let’s store this array in our nodeRights under ACLRights. This will change our copy of our structure which we downloaded before.
Next is simply a SetNodeRights with the nodenumber and the updated nodeRights array to write our changes back to the server.
If there are already entries, you should set them like this:
// Just display the first Entry of the first assigned Users/groups
DocumentManagement.NodeRight right = nodesrights[0];
DocumentManagement.NodePermissions nperms = right.Permissions;
// check, if we do habe the groups already set
int newLen = nodesrights.Length;
// copy rights into new longer Array
DocumentManagement.NodeRight[] allrights = new DocumentManagement.NodeRight[newLen+2];
for ( int i = 0; i < newLen;i++ )
{
allrights[i] = nodesrights[i];
}
allrights[newLen] = newRightsmanagerGroup;
allrights[newLen + 1] = newRightstandardGroup;
nodeRights.ACLRights = null;
nodeRights.ACLRights = allrights;
docclient.SetNodeRights(ref otauth, pargs.nodenumber, nodeRights);
Console.WriteLine("All Rights and Groups set --- Finish");
authClient.Close();
In this case, our nodesrights come from the nodeRights.ACLRights, because there are alredy entries.
Now, let’s do the same thing like we did on a new structure. But, we don’t want to delete existing entries, lets simply add our new RightstandardGroup and our newRightmanagerGroup to the ACLRights array.
One thing, if finished, first set the nodesRights.ACLRight to null and then fill it with the new extended ACL array.
Then do a SetNodeRights with the nodenumber and the updated nodeRights array to write our changes back to the server.
Finished. Quite easy, isn’t it?
BTW: There is no equivalent to do this on the REST api at the time of this post.
If you are thinking on using Content Server Webservices (CWS´) you may wonder how to activate this on a standard Content Server Installation. Normally, right out of the box, CWS is not active or installed, although you got the license to use it in your basic license.
As Administrator, you have to do a couple of things to activate CWS.
Decide which architecture you will use.
CWS can be used inside of the Microsoft Internet Information Server or inside a Java Application Server like Tomcat. Both ways to activate will be described here.
Locate the CWS Software
Look in your install directory of the content server. There, you will find a directory named “webservices”.
Here, there are three entries:
dotnet contains all CWS service definitions for use inside the Microsoft IIS
java contains all webapps for use inside the Tomcat application server
java6 contains the same thing as in 2. but for use with java 6.
Installing CWS inside the Microsoft Internet Information Server IIS
First, let’s examine how to install CWS inside IIS. Switch to the dotnet subdirectory, then to cws (do not use les-services, this is an old version supporting legacy clients)
Locate the .svc files you wish to install and use in CWS.
Open the IIS Manager. Create a new Application at the default web site
Enter the path to the dotnet\cws directory , enter for example CWS as alias.
Remark: IIS must be configured to
execute .NET 2.0 apps
allow “Read” and “Script” rights to the new app
execute WCF (can be ensured for example by “%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe -i” (check, if something changed, if you are using newer versions)
allow “Read” and “Execute” rights for the ID of the Application pool on $OTHOME/webservices/dotnet
And (don’t forget), ensure that your webservides will use the same port as your content server uses. If you use a nonstandard port (not 2099) you need to change the port in the file $OTHOME\webservices\dotnet\cws\web.conf
If you use the standard port, there is nothing for you to do.
Installing CWS in Tomcat
Alternatively, you can use Tomcat as a base for CWS.
In this case, go to the java6 base directory in the webservices dir.
In this dir, you’ll find the war (web application archive) files, which you need to deploy.
Deploy the cws.war file either to the TOMCAT\webapps directory or use the Tomcat service manager to deploy this file.
Don’t forget, if you changed your port number of your content server from 2099 to something else, change also the value in the web.xml of the unpacked cws web app.
If you don’t use the same port numbers, the whole system will listen to different ports and will do nothing.
Test your installation
Your installation is correct, if a browser, pointing to
http://127.0.0.1:8080/cws/services/DocumentManagement (Tomcat) or