Slides - Information Technology at Purdue
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Cascade Server for Developers
Vince Ruppert
College of Liberal Arts
BoilerWeb 2011
Purpose
• Help those of you who have not yet started to
fully develop web sites in Cascade Server
• Share experiences and helpful tips with those
who are currently developing sites in Cascade
Outline
• Overview of the system
• Main building blocks: Templates, Blocks,
Formats
– Most development time will be spent working
with blocks and formats
• Examples from current sites developed in
Cascade
Overview of the system
• Main areas are similar to Serena Collage
– Actions across the top
– Site navigation on left
– “Current view” area on the right
• Developers will be using Administration area
When creating a new site
• The first thing you should do is upload static
template-related elements such as images,
CSS files, JavaScript, or anything else
referenced in your HTML template
• Do not put CSS/image files inside the _internal
folder as this folder is not set to publish
CSS files
• CSS files should use Cascade’s method of
internally linking to images using the
[system-asset] tags.
• Example:
#mainbox {
background-image:url("[system-asset]/images/body-top.jpg[/system-asset]");
}
• Make sure you enable
link re-writing!
Templates, Blocks, Formats
• A Template is a file which contains the basic
HTML structure of your website along with
regions defined in place of dynamic content
• A Block is either an editable piece of content
(XHTML or Data Definition) or an Index Block
which dynamically grabs data
• A Format parses the data in a Block and
translates it to HTML
Templates
• Template files should only contain static HTML
that you are certain will never change
• Anything dynamic should be replaced with a
region using the tag:
<system-region name=“something”/>
– Must have at least one region named “default”.
• Each region defines a location in the HTML
where a Block will be placed
Template example
<html>
<head>
<title>FISP : F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Internationale des Soci&eacute;t&eacute;s de Philosophie</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href=“/_template/styles.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<h1>F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Internationale des Soci&eacute;t&eacute;s de Philosophie</h1>
<div id="leftcolumn">
<div id="navlist">
<system-region name="folder"/>
</div>
</div>
<div id="rightcolumn">
<system-region name="DEFAULT"/>
</div>
<div id="footer“>
<p>Copyright &copy; 2011 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie</p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Templates
• Unlike for CSS files, you do not need to use
[system-asset] tags when linking to files in a
Template.
• Template must remain valid (well-formed)
XHTML after addition of regions.
– Can’t have this: <body> <div id=“header”> <systemregion name=“header”/> </body>
Templates
• After the template has been added, the next
step is usually adding a configuration set and a
content type. Now you can assign the
template to a page.
• If no Data Definition is selected, a WYSIWYG
field is used for the Default region
• Even with a data definition, the default region
shouldn’t have a block assigned to it.
Eventually you should create a format for the
default region
Blocks and Formats
• All content not in your static HTML Template
file will come from Blocks
• Blocks are assigned to Template regions
• XHTML Blocks are like “content includes”
• Index Blocks generate XML, so you should
assign a Format to an index block to convert
the XML to HTML
Regions, Blocks, and Formats example
Index Blocks
• Index Blocks will contain a lot more data than
you will use
• Goal is to create index blocks which contain
just enough information you need to display
without being too broad
• It’s the job of a Format to parse through all of
the XML data and show only information you
want to display
Current Page Index Block
• The most common Index Block is one that
simply grabs all the current page’s data for use
in a particular region
• Useful for outputting:
– Page headlines
– Metadata or using metadata values as logic
– Page content outside the Default region
Current Page Index Block
Current Page Index Block
• Might produce something like this:
<system-index-block>
<calling-page>
<system-page current="true">
<name>index</name>
<title>College Resources</title>
<path>/resources/index</path>
<site>CLA Main</site>
<link>site://CLA Main/resources/index</link>
<dynamic-metadata>
<name>banner_size</name>
<value>Large</value>
</dynamic-metadata>
<system-data-structure definition-path="CLA main">
<headline>Resources in the College</headline>
<main_content>(Main Content)</main_content>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
</calling-page>
</system-index-block>
Index Block for folder navigation
• Either points to an absolute folder (top level)
or relative to current page
• Can restrict how many levels deep the index
block will look
• Whenever possible, try to avoid rendering
XML inline
Index Block for folder navigation
Index Block for folder navigation
• Might produce something like this:
<system-index-block>
<system-page>
<name>index</name>
<path>/index</path>
<link>site://FISP/index</link>
<system-data-structure>
<pagetitle>What is FISP?</pagetitle>
<content>Lots of page content</content>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
<system-page>
<name>olympiad</name>
<path>/olympiad</path>
<link>site://FISP/olympiad</link>
<system-data-structure>
<pagetitle>Olympiad</pagetitle>
<content>Lots of page content</content>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
</system-index-block>
Formats
• Now that we have the information we want to
use in an Index Block, we need to assign a
Format to parse the information and display
HTML
• There are two types of Formats you can use in
Cascade: XSLT or “Script” (Velocity)
• Covered in this presentation are Script
Formats due to their similarity to a structured
programming language
Formats
• Script Formats in Cascade Server use a
combination of 3 other languages: Apache
Velocity, JDOM, and XPath
• A bit confusing because you could use all 3
languages in a single line of code but you will
commonly only use a couple commands from
each language
Apache Velocity
• Syntax often starts with a pound (hash) sign: #
• Commonly used commands are #set, #if,
#foreach and #end, along with the variable
notation with dollar signs such as $variable
• Used in conjuncture with JDOM
XPath
• XPath is what it used to traverse and parse the
XML contained in a Block
• Lots of documentation available online with
examples
• Also use XPath with XSLT Formats
JDOM
• A much larger specification than Velocity
• Common methods used with variables:
getChild(‘child’), getAttribute(‘attribute’),
getParent(), and isEmpty()
• Common methods used with XPath in
Cascade: selectNodes(), selectSingleNode()
Example: Get and display headline
<system-index-block>
<calling-page>
<system-page current="true">
<name>index</name>
<title>College Resources</title>
<path>/resources/index</path>
<site>CLA Main</site>
<link>site://CLA Main/resources/index</link>
<dynamic-metadata>
<name>banner_size</name>
<value>Large</value>
</dynamic-metadata>
<system-data-structure>
<headline>Resources</headline>
<maincontent>(Main Content)</maincontent>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
</calling-page>
</system-index-block>
#set($sds =
$_XPathTool.selectSingleNode($contentRoot,
”/system-index-block/calling-page/systempage/system-data-structure”))
#set($headline = $sds.getChild(‘headline’))
<h2>${headline.value}</h2>
OR, a bit less code:
#set($headline =
$_XPathTool.selectSingleNode($contentRoot,
”//system-data-structure/headline”))
<h2>$headline.value</h2>
Example: Display navigation
<system-index-block>
<system-page>
<name>index</name>
<path>/index</path>
<link>site://FISP/index</link>
<system-data-structure>
<pagetitle>What is FISP?</pagetitle>
<content>Content</content>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
<system-page>
<name>olympiad</name>
<path>/olympiad</path>
<link>site://FISP/olympiad</link>
<system-data-structure>
<pagetitle>Olympiad</pagetitle>
<content>Content</content>
</system-data-structure>
</system-page>
</system-index-block>
#set($pages = $_XPathTool.selectNodes($contentRoot,
”/system-index-block/system-page”))
#foreach($page in $pages)
<a href=“$page.getChild(‘link’).value”>$page.getChild(‘systemdata-structure’).getChild(‘pagetitle’).value</a>
#end
OR, want the index page to be displayed differently?
#set($pages =
$_XPathTool.selectNodes($contentRoot,”//system-page”))
#foreach($page in $pages)
#if($page.getChild(‘name’).value == ‘index’)
<a class=“index”
href=“$page.getChild(‘link’).value”>$page.getChild(‘systemdata-structure’).getChild(‘pagetitle’).value</a>
#else
<a href=“$page.getChild(‘link’).value”>$page.getChild(‘systemdata-structure’).getChild(‘pagetitle’).value</a>
#end
#end
Advanced examples
• The following creates a breadcrumb trail of index pages, starting at the
current page (@current = ‘true’) and then finding system-folder ancestors and
their respective index pages.
• #set($breadcrumbs = $_XPathTool.selectNodes($contentRoot,"//systemfolder[@current='true']/ancestor::system-folder/system-page[name =
'index']"))
• The following grabs pages that should appear on the left navigation for the
current page. First we grab all pages which are not index pages in the current
folder and all index pages in sub-folders and merge these results together (by
use of the pipe symbol which means “or”). Then we also filter out any page
where the ‘hide’ metadata option is set to ‘Left sidebar’.
• #set($siblings = $_XPathTool.selectNodes($starting_folder,"(systempage[name!='index'] | system-folder/system-page[name='index'])[dynamicmetadata[name='hide'][value!='Left sidebar']]"))
Asset Factories
• Asset Factories make it easy to create new
pages with an automatically assigned content
type
• After you have everything working with your
configuration set and content type, create a
blank page and copy it into the
“/_internal/base assets” folder
• Now you can create an asset factory using this
base asset
Migrating from Serena Collage
• AssetQuery, NavBar now handled by Index
Blocks and XPath
• Select now handled by Velocity’s #if
statements
• Ampersands do not work in non-WYSIWYG
fields (use &amp; if you must use one)
• Ampersands and parentheses do not work in
filenames
Resources
• Script Formats: http://www.hannonhill.com/kb/ScriptFormats/
– Velocity:
http://velocity.apache.org/engine/releases/velocity1.5/user-guide.html
– JDOM:
http://www.jdom.org/docs/apidocs/org/jdom/Element.ht
ml
– XPath: http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/ms256086.aspx
• Cascade Support Forum:
http://help.hannonhill.com/discussions
• ITaP Cascade Wiki:
https://wiki.itap.purdue.edu/display/INFOCMS/Cascad
e+Documentation
