Use of RequestDispatcherForwardAction in a Site Pre-Controller

Bowker

Can anyone confirm that the RequestDispatcherForwardAction when used in a site pre-controller will allow a forward to a static piece of content only?

When I put in a .page file (or an alias URL) to be forwarded to, I'm getting a 404. If I put in a static image it works perfectly.

Interestingly, the site pre-controller appears to be firing AFTER validating the .page file. For example if you go to http://server:1776/site/invalidpage.page throws a 404 before initiating the site pre-controller class.method. I would think that the controller would fire before anything is processed for the site.

Crsb

Forward to a page should work, what does your code look like?
I don't have a way to test right now but I think the code is something like this:

new URLRedirectForwardAction(context, context.getPageLink(page));

I agree with you on the behavior of site controllers, they only get invoked when you hit a valid page.

Bowker

I just trimmed down our pre-controller to redirect all LiveSite pages to what is stored in the controller's parameter 'redirectTo'.

(Please note I give this code, which I believe works, as an example for others to get their feet wet. This pre-controller does not work in preview mode because of it's over simplicity and brute force approach.)

[PHP]
package com.company.livesite.precontrollers;

import com.interwoven.livesite.common.web.ForwardAction;
import com.interwoven.livesite.runtime.RequestContext;
import com.interwoven.livesite.common.web.forward.target.ContextRelativeTarget;
import com.interwoven.livesite.common.web.RequestDispatcherForwardAction;

public class SitePreControllers {
public ForwardAction redirect(RequestContext context) {
String redirectUrl = context.getParameterString("redirectTo");
ContextRelativeTarget crt = new ContextRelativeTarget(redirectUrl);
ForwardAction faction = new RequestDispatcherForwardAction(crt);
return faction;
}
}
[/PHP]

If I put /images/smiley_face.gif as the redirectTo parameter, I get the smiley face.
If I put /site/abc.page as the redirectTo parameter, I get a 404 - /site/abc.page not found (yes it's there and does work without the controller in place.) Adding the context.getPageLink(...) doesn't help the situation.

So back to my original statement - it appears that pre-controllers can not 'ForwardAction' using a RequestDispatcherForwardAction object to a different .page page. It works just fine to static content (.pdf, images, .html...) but not to dynamic pages. Does anyone know differently?

Also I disagree - if the .page file is not found I would like to pre-controller to be called, maybe the pre-controller can 'fix the issue'. An added bonus would be to add something to the context indicating the validity of the page being requested.

Rick Poulin

Also I disagree - if the .page file is not found I would like to pre-controller to be called, maybe the pre-controller can 'fix the issue'. An added bonus would be to add something to the context indicating the validity of the page being requested.

A precontroller on your error page could be configured to do this.

Bowker

Ok - so the "it doesn't fire on error pages" is a minor issue that putting the controller on the error page will fix it.

The real issue I'm trying to solve is redirecting, without a 302, to a .page file.

Rick Poulin

Maybe try having your precontroller method return a ContextRedirectForwardAction with fullRedirect=false. That triggers a RequestDispatcher.forward(request, response), which *should* internally come back in as any other request and trigger all layers of the code.

Bowker

ContextRedirectForwardAction has been deprecated in v7.2.1

Rick Poulin

Gah! Sorry. My experience getting LS to do crazy things is dated (LS3.1).
/ I've got nothin you couldn't figure out on your own then

Balamurugan Jayabalan

@Denise, any luck of using RequestDispatcherForwardAction in pre-controllers for .pages/friendly URLS?