TS6 - custom menu items

Okay, I'm starting to look at migrating a 5.5.2 custom environment to 6.x (6.0.01 Build 29278) and I'm getting stuck right now with creating a custom menu item.
I'm trying to follow the information in UICG.601 but I'm not having much luck.
First, I edited iw-home/local/config/lib/content_center/customer_src/etc/conf/customer/ui_custom.xml as follows:

<!--
   ui_custom.xml

   All customizations to the ContentCenter UI should go here.

   Refer to README_xml_config.txt for details about how to add XML elements to this file.

-->
<iwov-ui>
  <action-list id="iw.ccpro.filesys.menubar">
    <!-- Purpose:    The File menu.  -->
    <menu id="iw.ccpro.file.menu">
      <link id="iw.ccpro.file_menu.cu.shown_env.link" 
            label="Show Environment" 
            description="Show environment information" 
            url="/../iw-bin/show_env.cgi" 
            target="_blank"/>
    </menu>
  </action-list>
</iwov-ui>

I then ran the make.sh script (I'm on Solaris) which copied that file into iw-home/local/config/lib/content_center/customer/WEB-INF/conf/customer/.
I've run iwreset -ui and I've even refreshed the browser window - yet I still do not see this custom menu item anywhere within the CCP interface.
I'm probably missing something simple here - but I can't figure out what it is.

Anyone able to enlighten me here?

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

mgal

You might have to recompile the webapps by issuing

/iw-home/install/install_webapps.ipl -f -i

Hope this helps

Mohammed Gazal.

Adam Stoller

Now I've got a big problem - I tried using install_webapps.ipl -f -i (which is probably the step I missed, thinking that it would have been built into the make.sh script) - but it fails - and then I'm unable to do anyhthing because it looks like the entire contents of iw-home/httpd/webapps/content_center has been blown away!!

Anyone have any ideas?

Stopping Interwoven UI services... done.
Removing webapp content_center... done.
Installing [ base.tk.war teamsite.tk.war vpreview.tk.war formspub.tk.war ccpro.tk.war ccstd.tk.war metadata.tk.war vannotate.tk.war customer ] as webapp content_center... Exception in thread "main" java.net.UnknownHostException: java.sun.com
        at java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName0(InetAddress.java:566)
        at java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName0(InetAddress.java:535)
        at java.net.InetAddress.getByName(InetAddress.java:444)
        at java.net.Socket.(Socket.java:95)
        at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:45)
        at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:334)
        at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:520)
        at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.(HttpClient.java:270)
        at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.(HttpClient.java:280)
        at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:292)
        at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:417)
        at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:510)
        at java.net.URL.openStream(URL.java:793)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.setupCurrentEntity(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startEntity(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startDTDEntity(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDTDScannerImpl.setInputSource(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$DTDDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DTDConfiguration.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
        at com.interwoven.webapp.TaglibMunger.read(TaglibMunger.java:359)
        at com.interwoven.webapp.TaglibMunger.addInput(TaglibMunger.java:158)
        at com.interwoven.webapp.PhantomWebapp.copyFrom(PhantomWebapp.java:101)
        at com.interwoven.webapp.WebappMunger.addInput(WebappMunger.java:79)
        at com.interwoven.webapp.WebappMunger.main(WebappMunger.java:185)
Configuring JSPs... Missing directory /apps/iw-home/httpd/webapps/content_center/WEB-INF!
 OK.
Unable to open /apps/iw-home/httpd/webapps/content_center/META-INF/toolkits.xml at ./install_webapps.ipl line 335.

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Adam Stoller

Serves me right for not looking at the in-line documentation for install_webapps.ipl... '-f' removes everything - but '-i' is failing' - so I'm still in a bit of a pickle here - guess I'll be contacting Support unless someone here can fill me in...

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

mgal

It seems like the system where teamsite is installed cannot connect to sun.com. You might need to have the workaround as mentioned in this KB https://support.interwoven.com/kb/kb_show_article2.asp?ArticleID=51226

Mohammed Gazal.

Adam Stoller

Hmm - well I took a different tack, which I *think* is working (it's still running right now) - which is I temporarilly added an entry to our

/etc/hosts file:
64.124.81.56 java.sun.com
It hasn't errored out yet, so hopefully it will work ...

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Migrateduser

When you do get things running for Custom Menu Items, you'll want to check this little tech note:

http://devnet.interwoven.com/site.fcgi/techlib/050541

If you expect to use any data in those special CGI form variables you used to get in 5.5.2 in your CGI script (like branch_path, area_path, path_0, path_1, etc.) you'll need this handy adapter. See they forgot to make Custom Menu Item scripts backward compatible and none of these variables are passed to your CGI script without the adapter. Whoops.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Adam Stoller

Thanks Smitty - I knew there was something out there for this - but I figured I'd worry about finding it after I managed to get the custom menu item to show up.

Note - adding the entry in the /etc/hosts file does appear to be working - or at least it's not erroring out yet...

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

nipper

>It seems like the system where teamsite is installed cannot connect to sun.com.

Now, for old timers, who remembers this from 5.0 ? As an SE trying to install 5 on a
plane this was very painful.

Anyone ?

You would think a problem that caused a ton of support calls might have been planned
for when 6.0 came about.

Nah, silly me.

Migrateduser

By the way, isn't it fun how long it takes for the install_webapps.ipl script to run? They real joy is when you have to do this 5 or 6 times while testing out something.

As much as I sympathize, I am so happy to see someone else discovering the joys of 6.0....I only get a little pleasure from your pain. Is that so wrong?

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

gzevin

.. welcome to the club

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

Adam Stoller

Yeah - I noticed that length of time too - and people wonder why we prefer Perl to Java ? :-)

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Migrateduser

I'm not totally sure but it seems like in most J2EE containers there is a way to avoid rebuilding the app when code changes. I don't know if you just manually clear out the cache in Tomcat or what.

gzevin

Java is also an kind of interpreted languages... However here all the menus, etc (JSP themselves) are rebuilt.....
so, it's the technology to blame, not the language.. Smiley Happy

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

Migrateduser

Ahhh, another person who feels my pain. Nothing like having to come in early or stay late in order to update a JSP page. Ppfffftht!!!! What is that all about. I'm a Java developer and this really irks me to no end.

Michael

If you are doing a lot of UI customisation you should really be doing it on your own development server. I guess this becomes more of an issue if you have multiple developers making multiple simultaneous UI customisations in one dev environment-- that could be a nightmare as you would spend your day waiting for web application rebuilds!

taalgaard, you make it sound like you are doing UI customisations directly on your production server -- if so, you are a lucky guy to have that sort of access and not have to have a lengthy release process!

Cheers
Michael

Michael

Hi Greg

I will try not to get into a debate with you here about Java being an interpreted language... it is compiled to byte-code, so you could say it is a compiled languge.

However in the case of ContentCenter it isn't really a Java thing that requires the rebuilds...as you say. It is just the approach that Interwoven have taken in making this interface customisable. Generally I think the XML configuration approach including JSP snippets is a good balance of making configuration accessible to non-Java coders, while still getting the benefits of it performing like a compiled app when it is rebuilt and executed.

I guess the other alternative would have been to force you to code the modifications in Java -- say by sub-classing and overriding methods and such. Then the application server could detect just the changed class and incorporate it -- making development easier. However this would be pretty unaccessible to anyone who wasn't familiar to Java and/or OO programming. No doubt alienating a large part of the iwov developer base.

Just my two cents anyhoo....

Cheers
Michael

Adam Stoller

It doesn't matter if you're using a development server or not - it still takes a significantly noticable amount of time to run install_webapps.ipl - which appears to be needed for any customizations (even those that only involve CGI menu additions)

True - on a production system, the effect would be far worse because you are affecting a far larger number of people while waiting for this compilation to finish, however - even on a development system, having to wait all that time just to find out if what you tweaked fixed an issue and if not, to have to go throgh the entire process again, several times - this could easily add up to an hour or more of "wasted time" - which is generally a waste of someone's time and someone else's money.

Contrast this to pre-TS6 where adding a custom menu item to WDP took roughly 1-2 seconds to run 'iwreset' (no flags) after making the change to the iw.cfg file.

Yes, we're [supposedly] getting more functionality and flexibility this way - but it's a rather painful tweak-compile-test cycle.

If anything can be done to reduce the amount of time it takes to compile these changes into the system, I think it would be welcome.

(case in point, I tried to limit some custom menu items to certain roles. It doesn't seem to have worked, so I have to tweak some config files again and re-compile, which means waiting several *minutes* [rather than seconds] in order to see if my changes worked - at the same time, disrupting everyone else who may be working on this server)

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Michael

Perhaps a more granular or more intelligent version of install_webapps.ipl would be better?. If you are working on a specific customisation you could tell it that this is the file which is being worked on and it could just do the appropriate amount of rebuilding. Hopefully this would then only take a couple of seconds...

Even more intelligent would be the script assessing what has been modified since the last rebuild and doing an appropriate amount of rebuilding. Rather than rebuilding everything all the time.... grind grind grind

Perhaps someone from IWOV could have a think about this and let us know if it is doable -- things may be a lot more complex then they seem under the hood.

Cheers
Michael

Migrateduser

I was able to add custom menu items in TeamSite 6.0L without having to rebuild the web-apps. I think I just did an iwreset -ui after modifying the ui_custom.xml. I really don't believe you have to rebuild the entire web-apps directory for a custom menu item. That would be crazy.

- Jason

Adam Stoller

Well, either I did something wrong, or adding custom menu items in CCP via the XML config files requires rebuilding [some part of] the webapps.

I still have to figure out why the role restrictions for some of the menu items don't seem to be working.

Also - is it possible to have certain menu items available only on certain archives and/or branches? available only in workareas / only in staging / only in edition areas ?

I'm working on a shared-resource server that could be used for development efforts for many customers - as such I'd like to make sure that the customizations I'm making to the UI are specific to my work and don't affect other developers working on projects for other customers.

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Migrateduser

>Ghoti
>Also - is it possible to have certain menu items available only on certain archives and/or branches? available only in workareas / only in staging / only in edition areas ?

I wish this was possible. I think there's an RFE for this, you might want to get yourself added to the list.

Lissa, do you know the RFE number?

- Jason

Michael

Hi

I think if you follow the suggested approach for making UI customisations then you need to perform a rebuild of the web app. In this instance the suggested approach is to edit the ui_custom.xml in the customer or customer_src directories. After this you perform the rebuild command and it merges your changes into the web app.

I guess Jason has directly modified the web app file in httpd/webapps -- in this case I guess the customisation could be viewed immediately (or at least without a rebuild of the web app). However I imagine if another developer came along and followed the documented approach to add another menu item then Jason's direct edit of this file would be lost....

Crazy, indeed -- I think that is ghoti's point/rant

Cheers
Michael

Migrateduser

Michael,

What if you do both? Make the changes in the "suggested" location and in the httpd/webapps? Wouldn't that kill both birds with one stone?

Why rebuild the webapps if it's not absolutely necessary?

- Jason

Michael

Hi Jason,

Yep doing both could be OK. For this type of change I guess you could do it in your httpd/webapps area until you get it right and then copy and paste into the correct area. A rebuild of the webapp to make sure you haven't missed anything and you are good to go.

I think this approach does raise a bit more risk that a developer could lose their work if someone was to rebuild the web app unexpectedly and overwrite their changes.

This approach doesn't really help you with something like modifying the links in the 'How Do I...' portlet; which does require a rebuild to take effect. That is when a more intelligent rebuild script would be very handy.

Cheers
Michael