View SiteStudio Dynamic List on WebCenter Portal application

Last week my coworker Daniel wanted to view the results of a Dynamic List on a WebCenter Portal Content Presenter Template. After a few test we saw that this feature is not suppported.

Under a Content Presenter Template (CPT) you can show any field of the DataFile, simple text, WYSWYG, static list of elements, but seems that the Dynamic List was missing by WebCenter developers ;-)

To solve this issue we created a custom TaskFlow that is capable of listing the elements of a Dynamic List (Element Definition).

First I've created a new Element Definition (ED) of type "Dynamic List", this ED will perform this query:

dExtension <matches> `docx`

This will retrieve all Word documents of the WebCenter Content (WCC).

Next, I've created a Region Definition (RD) with two fields, one of type "Single Text" and another with the DynamicList (ED) just created.

After that, I've created a DataFile based on that Region Definition, this is the resulting XML content:

<wcm:root version="8.0.0.0" xmlns:wcm="http://www.stellent.com/wcm-data/ns/8.0.0">
  <wcm:element name="text">This is a simple text</wcm:element>
</wcm:root>

As you see, there is not track about the ED with the DynamicList, but if you edit that DataFile on WCC interface this is how it looks

So, where is the information of the "Documents" section stored? In the Element Definition called "ED-DYNLIST".

This is the content of the ED file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<elementDefinition xmlns="http://www.oracle.com/sitestudio/Element/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.oracle.com/sitestudio/Element/ http://www.oracle.com/sitestudio/ss_element_definition.xsd">
    <property value="3" name="type"/>
    <property value="" name="description"/>
    <complexProperty name="flags">
  ...
  ...
    </complexProperty>
    <property value="" name="height"/>
    <complexProperty name="dynlistaddregioncontent">
  ...
  ...
    </complexProperty>
    <dataProperty name="querytext">dExtension <matches> `docx`</dataProperty>
    <property value="dDocTitle" name="sortfield"/>
    <property value="asc" name="sortorder"/>
    <property value="20" name="resultcount"/>
    <property value="false" name="limitscope"/>
    <property value="" name="targetnodeid"/>
</elementDefinition>

As you see the query is stored on <dataProperty> TAG.

Now that we have all the needed information, we can create the TaskFlow that parses the WCC query stored on the ED file, and show the results of that query under a Content Presenter.

Diagram of our TaskFlow

This is how it looks like at the end

Download Links

• ADF JAR Library
• Project sources (JDeveloper)

Documentation

• Understanding Site Studio Web Sites

NullPointerException in VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE service

Recently I was debugging an error in WebCenter Portal, that didn't allow the user to search over a content-server instance with a Content-Presenter TaskFlow.

In this case, we had 2 instances of UCM connected to WebCenter Portal application, the first one works without problems, but when we attached the second one, and you try to query over it, the page is refreshed and the content-presenter wizard is closed.

The Portal log shows this error:

Caused By: oracle.stellent.ridc.protocol.ServiceException: Could not load information about VCR content type. Unable to execute service method 'vcrGetContentTypeInfo'. The error was caused by an internally generated issue. The error has been logged.
 at oracle.stellent.ridc.protocol.ServiceResponse.getResponseAsBinder(ServiceResponse.java:135)
 at oracle.stellent.ridc.protocol.ServiceResponse.getResponseAsBinder(ServiceResponse.java:107)

And looking at UCM log this error is shown:

services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89 !csUserEventMessage,sysadmin,CIS!$ intradoc.common.ServiceException: !csVcrCouldNotLoadContentType!csUnableToExecMethod,vcrGetContentTypeInfo
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89 *ScriptStack VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89 3:vcrGetContentTypeInfo,**no captured values**
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceRequestImplementor.buildServiceException(ServiceRequestImplementor.java:2115)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.buildServiceException(Service.java:2260)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.createServiceExceptionEx(Service.java:2254)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.createServiceException(Service.java:2249)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceHandler.executeAction(ServiceHandler.java:102)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.doCodeEx(Service.java:533)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.doCode(Service.java:505)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceRequestImplementor.doAction(ServiceRequestImplementor.java:1643)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.doAction(Service.java:477)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceRequestImplementor.doActions(ServiceRequestImplementor.java:1458)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.doActions(Service.java:472)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceRequestImplementor.executeActions(ServiceRequestImplementor.java:1391)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.executeActions(Service.java:458)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceRequestImplementor.doRequest(ServiceRequestImplementor.java:737)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.Service.doRequest(Service.java:1890)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceManager.processCommand(ServiceManager.java:435)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.IdcServerThread.processRequest(IdcServerThread.java:265)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.IdcServerThread.run(IdcServerThread.java:160)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:528)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:209)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:178)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89 Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.vcr.VcrServiceHandler.addPropertyChoicesForFieldAndView(VcrServiceHandler.java:514)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.vcr.VcrServiceHandler.vcrGetContentTypeInfo(VcrServiceHandler.java:464)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.common.IdcMethodHolder.invokeMethod(IdcMethodHolder.java:86)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.common.ClassHelperUtils.executeMethodReportStatus(ClassHelperUtils.java:324)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         at intradoc.server.ServiceHandler.executeAction(ServiceHandler.java:79)
 services/3 02.07 15:22:14.039 IdcServer-89         ... 16 more

After seeing that the problem resides at UCM service execution we see that the status-code returned is -32. (Any status-code lower than 0 means service execution error).

Looking at the dDocTypes all appears correctly, but after accessing to the "Check-in" form, some errors can give us an idea of the problem. When I access to check-in form, some alerts are showed to the user indicating that some of the metadata "views" seems corrupted.

To find out wich metadata is the one that uses that view, I've opened Firebug and look for that view on JS files.

The metadata called "xIsEditable" is using YesNoList view, its recommended to perform more search and see how many metadata fields are using that view.

The problem in this case was that the view was empty and didn't have any value, this causes the NPE (NullPointerException) in the execution of the service VCR_GET_CONTENT_TYPE.

After adding values to the view, and going back to check-in page, no more "alert" of view errors were shown.

Now the UCM is ready to be used again with content-presenter, and the problem solved.

Get metadata values from external service in a Custom Element Form

At my actual UCM project we are using some tables to store values of a metadata field.


We have already a custom service that performs a Query to the table to obtain that values, with this service we can show values of the DB table in our JSPX. (For more info on how to build this kind of components check Brian Bex Huff Book)


This is how our service returns the data:

Our customer ask us about the possibility of adding inside a Site Studio Contribution Form a custom element that shows in a combo the values of the table. After searching a bit I found Kyle's post really good and very similar to what I triying to do.


After modifying a bit the code, finally I have success, and my custom element performs this steps:
1- Executes a custom service
2- Obtain the data from XML Request via AJAX
3- Prints a combo with the data obtained.


There is the source code. (link)


For your purposes you will have to modify the next lines 36-41

var httpCgiPath = "http://" + document.location.hostname + "/cs/idcplg"; 
var myRset = "QueryResult";
var myIDField = "CT2_ID";
var myDescField = "CT2_DESC_EN";
var myFieldName = "custom-content-type-level-2";

Also should be modified the line 295 where is the URL of the service execution:



var requestUrl = httpCgiPath + "?IdcService=CUSTOM_CTN2&idN1=15&IsSoap=1";
loadXMLDoc(requestUrl, loadComboValues);



This is how it looks like: