Templatedata Directory Questions

yenly

There's a few concepts that I'm not clear on and is hoping someone can help me. Let's say I have a site called Membership on one branch and I have a couple of a couple of work areas. I'm not sure how to set up the directory structure in Teamsite and how the files are synchronized.

Is this how we are suppose to struture our site? (example 1)
Is it recommended to have a separate directory to place all our website files (ie. .jsp, .html, xml)?
In Example 2, I didn't have a separate directory for my web files. When I submit files to STAGING, would my templatedata directory & subdirectories be submited also?
In Example 1. I have 2 workareas and each one has a templatedata. I am working on creating DCTs and TPLs in my work area. Marketing has their own work areas to create or modify existing DCRs for our production site. How do we synchronized the templatedata directories in the two different workareas without any impact on the data? Is there another way, we can handle this?

Thanks in advance,
Yenly

Example 1: directory structure
Membership Branch
---YenlyWorkArea (work area where I develop DCTs, TPLs)
-------websiteFiles
-----------Manage
--------------JSP_Files
--------------XML_Files
--------------HTML_Files
--------------images
-----------templatedata
---------------Manage
-------------------WebHosting
-----------------------datacapture.cfg
-----------------------data
-----------------------presentation
--- MarketingWorkArea (work area where authors add & modify DCRs)
-------websiteFiles
-----------Manage
-----------templatedata
---------------Manage
-------------------WebHosting
-----------------------datacapture.cfg
-----------------------data
-----------------------presentation
Example 2:
Membership Branch
---YenlyWorkArea (work area where I develop DCTs, TPLs)
-------websiteFiles
-----------Manage
--------------JSP_Files
--------------XML_Files
--------------HTML_Files
--------------images
--------------templatedata

Adam Stoller

Your "Example 1" structure mostly makes sense - however keep in mind that if you have two workareas on the same branch - the directory structure within those workareas should be identical. You may choose to provide some of the directories a more restrictive access list (at the file system level) but the files and directories (except those that get marked [workarea] private) will be the same in each workarea except for the editing that may be going on at the time.

Given this - you create the DCTs in the YenlyWorkarea, but then you submit the DCTs to STAGING - and then the MarketingWorkarea does a GetLatest and viola they're using your new DCTs when creating their DCRs.

If you are planning to change the structure of an existing DCT that's been used to create existing DCRs - you need to figure out the impact before you make such a change. You might be better off introducing a new datatype and over time (probably with the help of some scripts) translate the existing DCRs to the new datatype.

On the other hand, if the changes are relatively small (new fields added, no existing fields removed or types changed) - you could just introduce the new DCTs in place of the old ones.

If you're talking about active development of new DCTs at the same time as active content development is going on - I usggest you consider a multiple branch solution - in which you have one branch (YenlyBranch) in which you can experiment with changes to DCTs and PTs and such and which the content *never* gets pushed to your production site, and you have the other branch (MembershipBranch) in which you're ready-for-production content gets developed.

As you want to introduce changes to existing DCTs, PT's etc. - you do the development on YenlyBranch - and test thoroughly to make sure the transition will be clean - and then you can use File > Copy To Area (iwupdate) to copy the new-improved DCT into place in the MembershipBranch.

Does that help answer your questions?

--fish
(Interwoven, Curriculum Development)