5 Unbelievable Tricks to Help You COPEEric L. Epps, Sauk Valley
Community College@ericepps #CUC15 #COPEtricksWhich Hannon Hill
Employee Are You?
COPE, of course, stands for Create Once, Publish Everywhere, one
of the core reasons to use a content management system, especially
Cascade Server. Today, I want to look at some key concepts and
techniques that have helped me COPE with content over the
years.
If everything works correctly, Ill be posting links throughout
the session with the hashtag #COPEtricks, so feel free to follow
along or check those out afterwards
This is going to be part historical, part technical, as I
explore some of the key techniques Ive discovered or developed to
re-use content--whether that content be traditional web page
content or system assets like formats. Its a mix of concepts,
techniques, and code, so I hope there will be a little something
for everyone. Please feel free to stop me at any time with
questions, and I hope we can have some time at the end for you to
share your own favorite COPEing mechanisms.
To start off, let me share a little about my context to explain
why this has been so critical for me. Im Web Developer at Sauk
Valley Community College. Heres a picture of our campus, which
looks pretty rural, but if we zoom out a little bit.it looks even
more rural. Were definitely one of the smaller Cascade
sites.[twitter]Follow #CUC15 or #COPETricks for related links (if
it works right!)[/twitter]
To start off, let me share a little about my context to explain
why this has been so critical for me. Im Web Developer at Sauk
Valley Community College. Heres a picture of our campus, which
looks pretty rural, but if we zoom out a little bit.it looks even
more rural. Were definitely one of the smaller Cascade sites.
So I wear several different hats--webmaster, campus display
signage, mobile app, document imaging system, other duties as
assigned--which comes with some challenges and benefits. Since I
touch so many areas, I have an ability to look for where content
can be re-used. But I also have a real need to make that process as
efficient as possible. In larger institutions, you still have a
need to be efficient and re-use content, but with the added need to
share that content among several developers and departments.
1. Its not about the web page(Cascade as a data warehouse)
When I started using Cascade Server, back in version 4.7 (which
boasted Internet Explorer 7 support!), I remember being frustrated
by how complicated it was to build a simple web page. So, I love
coffee, perhaps a little too much, and roast my own. If I have
roasted some coffee beans and want to give you some, the easiest
way is for me to put it in a bag and give it to you. Right? No need
for any other steps.
But we do have some limitations, dont we? We have to be nearby.
We need to be able to carry the package. So, if I have 100,000
pounds of coffee to distribute nationwide, Im going to need to add
some steps. If that coffee comes from a hundred different sources,
more steps. Im going to need a warehouse, a distribution
center.
One of the key realizations for me was when I stopped thinking
of Cascade Server as a program to make web pages and started
thinking of it as a data warehouse. Im going to be collecting data
from a lot of different sources--user generated in Cascade, XML
feeds, APIs, user generated from outside Cascade, wherever I can
get it. Some of that will need to be repackaged, transformed,
filtered, then I can send it out to wherever it needs to go.
In one sense, this is hardly revolutionary, but looking at
Cascade this way is a key to unlocking Cascades full potential.
2. Ultimate set of tools(Take advantage of Cascade tools)
Data Definition Smart Fields
First is Smart Fields in Data Definitions. In addition to making
Data Definitions much easier to use for the end user, having the
ability to hide part of a form makes it easier to reuse that Data
Definition elsewhere. The general idea is that you can show or hide
sections of a form based on a box, checkbox, or radio button.
Again, this makes life much easier for content creators, and since
you have to select whether a particular section is shown or hidden,
you can easily show or hide that section in your Velocity or XSLT
Format based on that value.
Data Definition Smart FieldsContent Types/Content Type
Publishing
[twitter]Content Type publish sets: idea
http://bit.ly/cuc15-ctpublishidea, code
http://bit.ly/cuc15-ctpublishcode #CUC15
#COPETricks[/twitter]Second up is Content Types. Many of you may
not been around for the dark ages before the Content Type, but the
ability to group together all of a particular type of page
regardless of their location is great. So, once you have a content
type, you can use a Content Type Index Block or the Query API to
get a list of all assets and further filter and display them. I
have a listing of committees and their minutes in our Intranet;
before Content Types, I had to remember to manually add each index
page to the publish set every time a new committee was added. Now,
its a Committee Index Content Type, and I can use Web Services to
update the publish set automatically whenever a new committee is
added. Theres also an idea in the Idea Exchange to make this an
option in the native Publish Set, so a shameless plug to vote for
that idea and make my Web Services script obsolete.
Data Definition Smart FieldsContent Types/Content Type
PublishingXSL Page Transforms
Third is a technique I learned from Jay Mercer in my first ever
User Conference session. He talked about XSLT Page Transforms and
his Identity Transform. This has eliminated much of my need to
write new templates by essentially giving access to the entire page
from within the DEFAULT page region. The Identity Transform just
loops through and replicates the entire XHTML page *after* all the
regions have been processed. You can then add whatever templates
you want to modify the processed XHTML. For example, if I want to
append the current month and year to the element for all news
releases, I just add an element with a class=addToTitle which I
move to the element and remove from the DEFAULT region. Or, I can
take any link with a class=proxy and run that link through
EZ-Proxy. Or I can define an element in any region of the document
and move it to the document by adding a class of moveToHead. This
dramatically reduces the number of modifications I need to make to
Templates and the number of new Templates I have to make. Jay,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
Data Definition Smart FieldsContent Types/Content Type
PublishingXSL Page TransformsWeb Services
Fourth is too big of a topic to do more than a passing mention,
but nothing has supercharged my ability to manage and automate
Cascade more than Web Services. Theres just no substitute for being
able to set a cron job to create and modify content in batches and
daily, weekly, or whatever.
Data Definition Smart FieldsContent Types/Content Type
PublishingXSL Page TransformsWeb ServicesVelocity Script
Tools(Velocity Includes, Locator Tool, Query API)
[twitter]Cascade Velocity Tools
http://www.hannonhill.com/kb/Script-Formats/ #CUC15
#COPETricks[/twitter]Finally in my ultimate set of tools is
Velocity Script Tools, especially Includes, Locator Tool, and Query
API. Well use this many more times in all the rest of the
presentation, but Velocity offers many tools to streamline your
code. One of the most useful has been Velocity Includes, allowing
me to define code used repeatedly as a Velocimacro in a shared
Velocity format. Our course schedules are maintained in Cascade,
and include several different filtered views (for example, night
classes, friday classes, listing by department) but theyre all
displayed in a common format. I used to have to edit each
individual Format for every change to that format. Once I rewrote
them in Velocity, I can modify that display table code once and
update all those pages. Saves a ton of time.Locator Tool often
saves me from needing to include a block as part of the Data
Definition. Often, to get additional information, Id need to
include a huge Block in the Data Definition and hide it from
end-users. This way, I can have smaller blocks and reference them
just in the Format (which also makes them easier to change out).
Again, well be coming back and looking at some more examples
later.I havent used the Query API much yet, but it similarly has
the ability to be a more efficient way to access pages than
attaching an index block and another format. Instead, the results
can be filtered ahead of time and all from one Format.
3. Give me all the XML(APIs to XML using Web Services)
One of the things the Locator Tool opened up was the ability to
easily open a block from within a script. This means its a lot
easier to pull in just the block I want. All I need to know is the
name and path--which I can reliably predict if Im using Web
Services to create the blocks.
$restURL = 'https://api.somesite.com?apikey={{secret}}';
$returnJSON = file_get_contents($restURL);
createXMLBlock($cascade, $auth,'/parent/folder', 'theAssetName',
$siteName, $returnJSON,'json');foreach($values as $value) {
$restURL =
https://api.somesite.com?apikey={{secret}}&value=' .
$value;
$returnXML = file_get_contents($restURL);
createXMLBlock($cascade, $auth, '/parent/folder', $value,
$siteName, $returnXML,'xml');}
[twitter]Idea - Locator Tool access to Feed Block XML
http://bit.ly/cuc15-feedblocks[/twitter]At the same time, its
becoming more and more common for web apps to expose data via an
API. Ive seen REST APIs most commonly, and theyre among the easiest
to work with, so well use them for a couple examples. REST usually
returns XML, JSON, or text. Of course, Cascade is great with XML,
text can easily be wrapped in XML tags, and JSON can be pretty
easily converted to XML. So all we need to do is use Web Services
to access the REST API and store the result in an XML block. Time
for another shameless plug: theres an idea on the Idea Exchange,
too, to allow the Locator Tool to access the XML of a Feed Block,
which could even eliminate this step in many cases and allow the
most up-to-date data at publish time.
$restURL =
'https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools.json?
id=148672,147703&_fields=school.name,school.city,school.state,id&api_key={{secret}}';
$scJSON = file_get_contents($restURL);
createXMLBlock($cascade,$auth, '/-blocks/CareerOneStop',
'scorecard', $siteName, $scJSON,'json');foreach($socCodes as
$value) {
$socCode = str_replace(-,'',$value);
$restURL =
'http://www.careerinfonet.org/webservices/occwages_webservice/occwagesservice.asmx/GetWagesByZip?userID='.$apiKey.'&soccode='.$socCode.'&zip='.$zipCode;
$wagesXML = file_get_contents($restURL);
createXMLBlock($cascade,$auth, '/-blocks/CareerOneStop/Wage',
$value, $siteName, $wagesXML,xml');}http://bit.ly/cuc15-restapi
(GitHub)
[twitter]Import REST API results into Cascade
http://bit.ly/cuc15-restapi #CUC15 #COPEtricks[/twitter]
[twitter]Import Acalog course catalog into Cascade
http://bit.ly/cuc15-acalog #CUC15 #COPEtricks[/twitter]
4. A Brick Within a Block Within a ShortCode(Bricks and
ShortCodes)
#set ( $sib = $_XPathTool.selectSingleNode($contentRoot,
"/system-index-block) )#set ( $bricks =
$_XPathTool.selectNodes($sib,
"system-page/system-data-structure/brick") )#macro ( useBricks
$contentString ) #set ( $string = $contentString ) #foreach ( $item
in $bricks ) #set ( $var = "\[" +
$_EscapeTool.xml($item.getChild("name").value) + "\]" ) #set ( $val
= $_EscapeTool.xml($item.getChild("value").value) ) #set ( $string
= $string.replaceAll($var, $val) ) #end ${string}#end#set ( $page =
$_XPathTool.selectSingleNode($sib, "calling-page/system-page")
)#set ( $content =
$_SerializerTool.serialize($page.getChild("page-xhtml"), true)
)#useBricks($content)Bricks
[twitter]Hannon Hill Bricks example http://bit.ly/cuc15-brick
#CUC15 #COPEtricks[/twitter]
[getBlock type="xhtml" path="/absolute/path/to/block"
site=siteName"][getBlock type="xhtml"
path="/absolute/path/to/block" site="siteName"
replace="textreplacement1 textreplacement2" textreplacement1="value
to display #1" textreplacement2="value to display #2]
(will replace the string "[|[textreplacement1]|]" in the block
with "value to display #1" and "[|[textreplacement2]|]" with "value
to display #2)http://bit.ly/cuc15-shortcode (GitHub)
5. Better together(Content Layering)
Faculty/Staff Websites
Program Pages
Thank [email protected]/ericepps
