XperienCentral Headless

Owned by Matthew Wagner
Last updated: Jul 06, 2022

XperienCentral can be used in two different modes: XperienCentral Traditional, the base product containing the full set of licensed components and featuring a WYSIWYG rich text editor in the Workspace, and XperienCentral Headless which contains a subset of the full set of licensed components as well as a rich text editor that does not show you a representation of what content items look like when presented on a website frontend.

In XperienCentral, design templates are used to merge the design of a website with the content. The elements on a page, for example, are styled by presentations and are visible as HTML blocks. In XperienCentral Headless, this merging of design and HTML is not performed. Instead, content is delivered in JSON format and no direct styling is performed. To produce the JSON format, a headless presentation is provided, You must install a special plugin named "Headless-Integration Presentation" in order to expoit this functionality. This plugin contains page and element design templates that produce JSON to allow the content to be accessed by external applications. The following presentations are available in this plugin:

  • Headless Page
  • Headless Download element
  • Headless Image element
  • Headless Content Overview
  • Headless Modular Content Element
  • Headless Page Overview element
  • Headless Table Element
  • Interactive Forms

To support canvas text, ensure that the page and elements on the page use the JSON presentation.

When an XperienCentral Headless platform is purchased, a special license file is used. The Headless presentation plugin is not bound to an XperienCentral mode — it can also be used with an XperienCentral Traditional installation and is not XperienCentral Headless-only licensed. 

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Installing the XperienCentral Headless Presentation

To install the XperienCentral Headless presentation, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Configuration > Plugins.
  2. Click [Browse].
  3. Navigate to the folder containing the Headless presentation (headless-integration.zip or the wmaheadlesspresentation zip).
  4. Select the archive and then click [Open].
  5. Click [Apply].
  6. Navigate to the General tab in the XperienCentral Setup Tool.
  7. Locate the headless_search_retrieve section.
  8. Enable the setting search_retrieve_enabled.
  9. Click [Save Changes].
  10. Refresh XperienCentral in your browser.


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Setting the Content Type for XperienCentral Headless Presentations

In XperienceCentral R23, the headless integration bundle is included as an edition bundle that is created as an add-on for XperienceCentral. The add-on has a headless presentation plugin that uses a presentation JSP in order to produce JSON. Normal presentation plugins always use the content type header text/html. For XperienCentral Headless, the content type application/json header is required. To provide a configurable content type header, the JSP descriptor has been expanded to support a <contenttype> node. In this node you can add your own content type to be used when a page is rendered. Usually only the page JSP needs this node in its descriptor. If you add your own content type to this descriptor, the page will be generated with that content type.

Another way to choose your own content type is to use a Java interface that is also added into the headless presentation bundle. XperienceCentral will automatically use the content type you have chosen if the interface is used in your own bundle.


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Media Feeds

The Media Feeds functionality in XperienCentral can also be used to retrieve complete media items (article, download, image, etc.) in JSON format. This is done using an Ajax call from JavaScript. Media Feeds can be used to supplement the XperienCentral Headless functionality. See Media Feeds for complete information.


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