| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
In This Topic
| Table of Contents | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Redirects
Alias redirects route URL requests for nonexistent URLs to a valid target URL. The target URL for an alias redirect can be a page in the current web initiative(s) as well as an external URL. Redirects allow you to make available simple, easy to remember URLs to direct visitors to pages on your website in cases where your tree structure is complicated or the target URL contains a difficult to remember path structure. URL aliases can only be a single identifier that contains no hierarchical structure. The address of the alias URL is relative to the root URL of your website. For the website www.gxsoftware.com,, for example, any alias URL you create can only be reached in a browser via a URL that adds the identifier to the root address, www.gxsoftware.com/<alias> for example, where <alias> is an identifier such as "Products", "Services", "Developer Support" and so forth.
...
To create an alias redirect, follow these steps:
...
Deleting a Redirect
To delete a redirect, follow these steps:
...
Dumped Content
...
| Info |
|---|
The extension given to the dumped HTML file should be different from the extension of the friendly URLs. Apache determines, based on a fixed pattern in the URL, where the page data should come from. By default, Apache transfers those URLs beginning with |
For performance reasons, XperienCentral will always use the static variant of a page if one exists. For example, a page with the title "Economy" has the corresponding friendly "Economy.htm" URL and is also dumped to "Economy.html". When "Economy" is requested, XperienCentral will refer to "Economy.html" because it can be loaded faster. Requests to "Economy.htm" will also work but the response could be somewhat slower because the web server has to generate the page.
Dumping Pages to Static HTML Files
To dump a dynamic page in XperienCentral to a static HTML file, follow these steps:
...
| Note |
|---|
The relative URL that you specify must match the friendly URL listed under "URLs used by active versions" in the "SEO" tab of the Properties Widget. |
...
Caching
Caching is essential for high traffic websites. It will handle the load created by the many page requests by using an intelligent mechanism that returns pages without having to regenerate them completely. The XperienCentral caching module is also tailored to not interfere with interaction and personalization, therefore visitors to your site will not notice that they are looking at a largely static website.
This topic explains the options available in the Server Configuration. For a complete discussion of caching in XperienCentral, see Caching.
Cache Settings
Under normal conditions, XperienCentral manages the cache when content is changed, added or removed. When an editor adds an element to a page, the timestamp for the page will be set to the current date and time. The next time that the modified page is requested, the caching mechanism will regenerate the page.
There are more complex situations, for example when several page sections are involved or situations where a lot of caching timeouts are set for individual parts of a page or when the load on the server is very high and there's no time to regenerate pages. Content is normally regenerated automatically, however, in some situations, you do not want to wait until a visitor requests the content, but instead you want to manually force all the content to be regenerated.
Navigate to Configuration > Server Configuration > Caching. The Caching tab appears as follows:
...
Updating the Timestamps
To immediately update the timestamps to the current date and time, click the [Update Timestamps] next to the specific content type. When this action is performed, each content item will be regenerated and placed in the cache the next time it is requested. If your website contains a large number of the specific type that you update, use caution because this action could put a large load on the server.
Updating all Timestamps
To update the timestamps for all content types on your website, click [Update Timestamps] next to "General Timestamp". Updating the timestamps in this manner is a relatively safe action to perform on all environments. After activating the "General Timestamp", requests from the front-end trigger two actions. The first action is that the requested content is directly served from the cache without first being updated. The second action is that the backend is requested to regenerate the content in the background. When this has finished, the cache is updated with the latest version of the content.
Initializing the Cache
| Warning |
|---|
GX highly recommends that you do not use this command on production environments. This command immediately sets the timestamp for all content (pages, articles, database objects, etc). If you have a site with a lot of content, this process could take a long time and will put a heavy load on the server. The effect of executing this command is that each request on the front-end may not be served from the cache, which leads to a request on the backend. In most cases, this has a negative impact on the performance of your website(s) and on the XperienCentral Workspace. |
...
| Note |
|---|
Support for external applications was removed from XperienCentral in version R29.3. |
XperienCentral can integrate content from external applications together with its own content. This functionality makes it possible to show content retrieved from a web service, embed an external search engine from another website, and so forth. This type of customization requires little knowledge about the implementation of XperienCentral because all complicated tasks, such as calling components or passing on parameters and other configurations are handled by XperienCentral. A junior Java programmer with knowledge on how to use XperienCentral's user interface should be able to integrate external applications quickly and easily.
| Filter by label (Content by label) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
...
Overview
The application integration functionality consists of one or more servlet filters which are applied to the content retrieved from the external application in the defined order. Servlet filters are part of the J2EE specification. The resulting content, after all the filters have been applied is then rendered on a page in XperienCentral.
Four application integration filters come standard with XperienCentral:
- The
WMIncludefilter retrieves the content of an external web application. - The
WMReplacementsFilterexecutes a series of replacements in the content that theWMIncludefilter has retrieved. These replacements strip away unnecessary HTML and convert other HTML so that it can be rendered in the XperienCentral frontend in your design template. - The
XSLFilterconverts XML into HTML. - Using the
IncludeFileFilter, content from a file on disk can be displayed.
See Filters for complete information about the filters that can used in an external application integration.
Application integration works as follows:
- A visitor navigates to an XperienCentral page where an external application is shown.
- XperienCentral (the
WMIncludeFilter) sends a request to the server of the external web application. - The XML or HTML response is retrieved and a series of transformations (replacements) are performed to make the HTML renderable in the design of the website (the
WMReplacementsFilter).
The replacements perform the following tasks:
- Convert XML to HTML.
- Convert relative URLs to absolute URLs.
- Remove styling from the retrieved HTML so that it will be rendered in the design template used by the website.
- Replace the pathing in image elements (
<img>) to valid URLs containing the images. - Delete all other unnecessary HTML that interferes with the correct rendering on the website frontend
(<body>,<head>, and so forth).
The precise replacements that are made vary from application to application. Many applications can be integrated using the standard filters, however, you may need to create one or more custom filters that handle cases specific to the application you are integrating. This can be accomplished using the Integration API.
Adding an External Application
To integrate an external application in XperienCentral, you will typically follow these steps:
- Add an application server to the configuration. This makes it available to the
WMIncludeFilter. - Add the proxy server for the external application to the configuration if one is used.
- Create one or more filters if the standard XperienCentral servlet filters do not suffice.
- Create one or more replacements if the standard XperienCentral replacements do not suffice.
- Add an external application.
To add an external application, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Configuration > External Applications.
- Click the "External Applications" tab.
- Select "<New application>" from the drop-down list next to "Application".
- Enter a name for the new application in the text field next to "Name". This is the name of the application as it appears in the drop-down list in the External Application content element. For example:
- Select a filter to add to the external application from the "Add filter" drop-down list.
- Define the fields for the filter(s) that you add. See Filters for an explanation of the properties that must be defined for the default XperienCentral filters.
- Click [Apply]. The filter is added. If you add more than one filter, they will be applied to the external application in the order in which they appear. To change the order of the filters, select a new value from the drop-down list to change the order. For example:
