FYI - I've had support file a new FR on my behalf (
53270) - which I described as such:
This issue comes up many times in DevNet and it also exists at our site, and I'd like to make a proposal for a feature request that I think might please a lot of people if it gets implemented.PROBLEM:A site with many branches for which the same DCT and PT apply - currently requires copying of at least- the DCT to all branches. Maintenance pain-in-the-neck because if you forget to copy the DCT and/or PT to one of the branches all **** breaks loose; or you forget that there's one "true" DCT-original and you accidently do development on a DCT-copy (or PT).
For instance, at our site, we have /default/main/ED/en/[AREA]/templatedata/General/Article/datacapture.cfg
/default/main/ED/en/[AREA]/templatedata/General/Article/presentation/article_page.tplHowever - all content is developed in sub-branches, such as: /default/main/ED/en/ABOUTED/
/default/main/ED/en/ADMINS/
...
/default/main/ED/en/ZONE/All branches support the identical General Article type, so right now we have to copy the DCT from the parent branch to all the children branches whenever we make a change.
We would have to do the same thing with the PTs except that all of our page generation is automated through workflow and we control the command line given to iwpt_compile.ipl and iwgen to reference /default/main/ED/en/STAGING/.../article_page.tpl regardless of which branch the DCR is in. This works for us, but other sites do not have this constraint and need to be able to reference PTs the same way that we need to reference DCTs.- Symbolic links are a mess and only work in some situations and not at all under Windows.
- Copies work, but are a maintenance headache.
PROPOSAL FOR FEATURE REQUEST
What I am proposing is an addition to the templating.cfg file, probably something like this:<!ELEMENT data-type (dct-failover?,locations?,allowed?,presentation?,viewoptions?) >
<!ELEMENT template (pt-failover?,locations) >
<!ELEMENT dct-failover EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST dct-failover path CDATA #REQUIRED>
<!ELEMENT pt-failover EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST pt-failover path CDATA #REQUIRED>and in usage - something like:<data-type dcr-type="iwov" name="Article">
<dct-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article/datacapture.cfg"/>
<presentation>
<template extension="html" name="article_page.tpl">
<pt-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article/presentation/article_page.tpl"/>
<locations>
<branch preview-dir="/" vpath-regex=".*">
<directory dir-regex=".*"/>
</branch>
</locations>
</template>
</presentation>
<viewoptions actionlist="save" showtree="f" replicant-render="collapsed"/>
</data-type>Now - the example I've shown above provides for a full, explicit path, all the way to the filename; it's not clear to me that we need quite that much flexibility - the formats I'm thinking of are:allow for using a different named file - greatest amount of flexibility but may break accepted conventions and make debugging / support more difficult. <dct-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article/the_real_datacapture.cfg"/>
<pt-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article/presentation/the_real_article_page.tpl"/>- use the already accepted filename but in a different explicit path - this helps if you have two identical DCTs that exist in different category/data-type paths (for some reason?) <dct-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article"/>
<pt-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING/templatedata/General/Article/presentation"/> - use the already accepted filename and area-relative path - this is by far the simplest solution, provides sufficient flexibility for most of the cases (I think) and requires the least amount of extra verbiage in the config file. <dct-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING"/>
<pt-failover path="/default/main/ED/en/STAGING"/>
NOTE: The reason I consider this as "failover" is that I am suggesting that the Templating / Forms Publishing system only make use of this information if the expected file is not in the expected location. This would allow a local copy to override the real copy during development. If engineering / PM thinks this might be too confusing, then change the terms to something like "use-dct" and "use-pt".
Feel free to contact Support to register your company's interest in such a feature (#
53270).
--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com
