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default tag in DCT

Samir_Friend

TS 7.2.1

Hi,

I used "default" tag in one of my DCTs to show some default content in the DCR. I created some DCRs a while back and now when I need to change the text, I modifed the DCT but it's not reflecting in the existing DCRs although it works for a new form entry. Is this the normal behavior or am I missing something?

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Comments

Pawan

The existing DCRs must have the default value already saved for that item, so it will show up unless you are clearing them on init. Hope I understood your problem correctly.

Samir_Friend

The existing DCRs must have the default value already saved for that item, so it will show up unless you are clearing them on init. Hope I understood your problem correctly.

So it means that a change in the DCT which usually reflects in all DCRs (existing or new) does not work for the default tag and I have to handle it explicitly using FormAPI. That is weird.

Anyway, thanks for your inputs.

ISCBorisB

change in the DCT [...] does not work for the default tag...That is weird

Oh, please. DCT is a template, DCRs are Documents populated with that template.

When you modify MS Office "my Projects" Template you do not expect that existing Project Documents
generated with the old template will automatically get modified by some magic, do you?

It's the same here. Your former default value within saved DCRs is now treated as customer provided
value that overrides any default.

Samir_Friend

Oh, please. DCT is a template, DCRs are Documents populated with that template.

When you modify MS Office "my Projects" Template you do not expect that existing Project Documents
generated with the old template will automatically get modified by some magic, do you?

It's the same here. Your former default value within saved DCRs is now treated as customer provided
value that overrides any default.

Thanks Boris. I think your point maybe valid in some scenarios but I would not really compare MS office with a CMS to validate this.
The point of contention here is that when the DCR (containing the old default value) is already versioned, why doesn't it get updated on modifying the DCT when I open and save it again. I know that I wouldn't actually want to revert all those DCRs again manually, but it's just that this behavior is different from what I had expected since now I'll have to include a FormAPI function to clear the values on init and it is nowhere mentioned in the manuals.

ISCBorisB

Thanks Boris. I think your point maybe valid in some scenarios but I would not really compare MS office with a CMS to validate this.
The point of contention here is that when the DCR (containing the old default value) is already versioned, why doesn't it get updated on modifying the DCT when I open and save it again. I know that I wouldn't actually want to revert all those DCRs again manually, but it's just that this behavior is different from what I had expected since now I'll have to include a FormAPI function to clear the values on init and it is nowhere mentioned in the manuals.

What you observe is, in my personal opinion, correct behavior.

Consider simple scenario with no DCT changes. Let's say we have a DCT with the "Owner" Field, default value
is "Boris". You use it to create a DCR and enter owner as "Samir". If you (or anybody else) open up a DCR two
days later, it should render Owner's value as "Samir", despite the fact that default is still "Boris".

By definition, "default" is a value that gets provided in the absence of user-provided one. In your scenario, as
soon as you change DCT's default, whatever has been saved in existing DCRs becomes this "user-provided" value,
thus overriding any default. TS simply "does not know". All it has is (new) default "A" and DCRs with different
value "B".

On more generic note, TS never changes saved DCRs values on behalf of DCT changes. This is true even if
such changes would have been "easy" to perform (like comparing existing DCRs for modified default and updating
only ones where old default is present). The reason is simple. Besides the fact that such unsolicited service
is extremely misleading, TS has no way of knowing what else has to be done. We changed content, now what? What
WFs to run? What to generate? What to deploy and where? In other words, if you make DCT changes that may affect
saved Content, it is up to you to make required DCRs modifications.

Samir_Friend

What you observe is, in my personal opinion, correct behavior.

Consider simple scenario with no DCT changes. Let's say we have a DCT with the "Owner" Field, default value
is "Boris". You use it to create a DCR and enter owner as "Samir". If you (or anybody else) open up a DCR two
days later, it should render Owner's value as "Samir", despite the fact that default is still "Boris".

.........

On more generic note, TS never changes saved DCRs values on behalf of DCT changes. This is true even if
such changes would have been "easy" to perform (like comparing existing DCRs for modified default and updating
only ones where old default is present).
................

I think I agree to the example you've provided with just one correction to the bold part in your note:
TS never changes saved DCRs values on behalf of DCT changes until those DCRs are edited and saved again..

Also, though this maybe an "expected" behavior but in scenarios where you have a lot of DCRs with original default values that now needs to be changed, editing all these DCRs manually is a nightmare unless you're smart enough to download all DCRs and modify the values at the back-end.

Thanks.

nipper

I think I agree to the example you've provided with just one correction to the bold part in your note:
TS never changes saved DCRs values on behalf of DCT changes until those DCRs are edited and saved again..

Also, though this maybe an "expected" behavior but in scenarios where you have a lot of DCRs with original default values that now needs to be changed, editing all these DCRs manually is a nightmare unless you're smart enough to download all DCRs and modify the values at the back-end.

Thanks.

Yea that is why people are always very reluctant to change the Schema of a DB, the DTD of an XML or the DCT form. You can break a lot of legacy data.

When people do, they write a script to fix it. Other times I have included the legacy data in a legacy tab, maybe used FormAPI to move it from one to another (or had the users manually move it) and then removed the legacy information later.