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One of the questions that I get asked a lot while teaching the Cascade Server: Site Managers workshop is how to control how hyperlinks are displayed, i.e. using a different style than the default for the current page’s link.

In today’s installment of The Green Bar of Go, we will be discussing a simple technique that will create exactly that effect.

As an example site, I will be using the same site used in our Cascade Server: Contributors, Approvers, and Publishers workshop.

Let’s begin by looking at the XML that is generated by our index block:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<system-index-block name="Main Navigation" type="folder" current-time="1291911981730">
    <system-page id="a270757b7f4f4e1f01a9facf13176d3c" current="true">
        <name>index</name>
        <display-name>Home</display-name>
        <path>/WRAP_ITTE/IU-ITTE-WCMS060/CASCM/index</path>
    </system-page>
    <system-page id="a27076517f4f4e1f01a9facf650a8089">
        <name>undergrad</name>
        <display-name>Undergraduate Students</display-name>
        <path>/WRAP_ITTE/IU-ITTE-WCMS060/CASCM/undergrad</path>
    </system-page>
    <system-page id="a27077647f4f4e1f01a9facf999d8e2a">
        <name>gradstudents</name>
        <display-name>Graduate Students</display-name>
        <path>/WRAP_ITTE/IU-ITTE-WCMS060/CASCM/gradstudents</path>
    </system-page>
    <system-page id="a270788f7f4f4e1f01a9facfda587f0e">
        <name>faculty</name>
        <display-name>Faculty</display-name>
        <path>/WRAP_ITTE/IU-ITTE-WCMS060/CASCM/faculty</path>
    </system-page>
    <system-page id="a27079347f4f4e1f01a9facf61265aa5">
        <name>releases</name>
        <display-name>Press Releases</display-name>
        <path>/WRAP_ITTE/IU-ITTE-WCMS060/CASCM/releases</path>
    </system-page>
</system-index-block>

We will begin by creating a simple, straightforward stylesheet that will turn every <system-page> element into its own hyperlink:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/system-index-block">
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="system-page">
            <li>
                <a href="{path}">
                    <xsl:value-of select="display-name"/>
                </a>
            </li>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="system-symlink">
    	<li>
    	<a href="{link}">
    		<xsl:value-of select="name"/>
    	</a>
    	</li>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Notice that this stylesheet gives us the flexibility to also include External Links (<system-symlink>) to our navigation as well.

To add the contextual hyperlinks, we will be focusing on our system-page template. When Cascade Server goes through its publishing process, it creates another attribute for the <system-page> (or any other) element called “current.” The current attribute is set to false (not present) by default or true if the page is the current page. We will simply look for “@current=’true’” with some conditional XSLT. The modified system-page template is shown below:

    <xsl:template match="system-page">
        <xsl:if test="@current='true'">
            <li><xsl:value-of select="display-name"/></li>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="not(@current='true')">
            <li>
                <a href="{path}">
                    <xsl:value-of select="display-name"/>
                </a>
            </li>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>

And there you have it! Now this XSLT Format will turn the link for the active page into plain, bold text. You can use this method to apply CSS or make any other structural change to the output.

The final, full XSLT is here:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="system-index-block">
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="system-page">
        <xsl:if test="@current='true'">
            <li><xsl:value-of select="display-name"/></li>
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="not(@current='true')">
            <li>
                <a href="{path}">
                    <xsl:value-of select="display-name"/>
                </a>
            </li>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="system-symlink">
        <li>
            <a href="{link}">
                <xsl:value-of select="name"/>
            </a>
        </li>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Welcome to another edition of The Green Bar of Go Cascade Server column. Recently Hannon Hill hosted a webinar to introduce a different way of transforming XML to other configurations in Cascade Server, Velocity scripts. Velocity is a procedural language, so it might be easier for some to use than XSLT.

Check out the webinar here.

Welcome to another edition of The Green Bar of Go Cascade Server column. In this column, I’m going to discuss briefly some of the new features coming in the latest version of Cascade Server, Cascade Server 6.4. If you’re involved with WCMS at IU, you’ve been using Cascade Server 5.7.5, so as you can imagine, the switch to 6.4 will be pretty substantial.

For a list of the biggest features and a link to the Hannon Hill webinar demonstrating the features, continue reading after the jump.

Aside the usual bug fixes and software improvements, there are five new features in Cascade Server 6.4 that can have a huge impact on how WCMS is used at IU. Those five features are: A new Edit area text editor, Connectors, Enhanced content comparison, Drag-and-Drop Data Definition creation, and Broadcast messages.

• The new Edit area text editor – One of the most frustrating parts of working in Cascade Server as a site manager is the software’s lack of a useful text editor. Currently, there’s nothing more than a web text box for editing complex pieces of code. In Cascade Server 6.4, the default text edit box has been replaced with a more robust text editor that contains line numbers, code coloring for most major programming languages, and the ability to use the Tab key inside the editor.
• Connectors – Connectors are a new asset that allows Cascade Server to interact with external web applications, namely WordPress and Twitter. When an asset is published, it can now be published as a WordPress post or a tweet as well as in its other web-based formats (html, pdf, etc.).
• Enhanced content comparison – The “Compare with current” feature in Cascade Server while being effective is a little bit difficult to see and notice in a long document with very few edits. Cascade Servr 6.4 introduces the use of color highlighting to indicate additions (green), deletions (red, along with a strikethrough), and format changes (blue) to make the changes easier to find while skimming or scanning a document.
• Drag-and-Drop Data Definition creation – In the current implementation of Cascade Server at IU, to create a Data Definition, you have to be aware of the XML syntax contained in the Data Definition Schema Reference on the Hannon Hill Knowledge Base. While you can still create using XML in Cascade Server 6.4, the new default is a drag-and-drop implementation that allows site managers to drag controls onto a definition and Cascade Server will write the necessary XML. Data Definition creation has never been easier!
• Broadcast Messages – System administrators can now use a built-in messaging system to message all users logged in to notify about system maintenance, restarts, outages, etc. The broadcast messages will appear at the top center of the application and can be set to start and end at a specific date and/or time.

For the complete release notes, see this document.

These features promise to change the way site managers and content providers/managers interact with Cascade Server at IU. Cascade Server 6.4 is currently scheduled to be implemented in early January at IU so you will be able to get your hands on these new features soon!

Hannon Hill hosted a webinar recently demonstrating these features. To watch the webinar, see this post on Hannon Hill’s company blog.

In this installment of The Green Bar of Go, I’ll be discussing a feature of Cascade Server we don’t cover in our workshops, the External Link.

An External Link is an indexed asset that points to a web page outside of Cascade Server. Any link that is not a page within your site should be turned into an external link. This not only allows you to place them into a dynamically generated navigation, but also makes it easier to manage the URLs if they should change.

Take a look after the jump to see how these are used.

Adding an External Link to Cascade Server

External Links are created using the New >> Default menu, or via any asset factory that you create as a site manager. I’m going to explore creating an external link from the default asset factory. Once you select External Link from the New >> Default menu, you will see this:

The interface is pretty straight forward. The Link text box is for the URL of the site. On the System Pane, you’ll give the asset a system name, and the Metadata Pane contains the metadata fields from the Default metadata set. Simply fill out these fields as you wish and click Submit.

When the External Link is created, it will appear in the Asset Tree as shown here:

Adding an External Link Browser to a Data Definition

You can add an External Link browser to a Data Definition to allow users to browse for links to outside sites. For example, if you have a personnel profile page, you could allow linking to external sites. Looking in the Data Definition Schema Reference, it’s not exactly obvious how to add an External Link browser because the terminology used isn’t External Link.

Take a look at the Asset section of the schema:

The terminology used is Symlink. The code for adding an External Link to a Data Definition would look like this:

<system-data-structure>
<asset identifier="homePage" label="Select Your Home Page" type="symlink"/>
</system-data-structure>

Of course, the typical optional parameters apply (required, multiple, etc.) and can be added anywhere. The above code will generate this Data Definition:

And that’s it. The External Links are simple to deal with since they’re just another asset inside Cascade Server.

I’m still looking for more suggestions for column topics. Upcoming articles will include integrating Flash media into a page and structuring data using Data Definitions, but if you would like to see a specific topic covered, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do!

Welcome to the second installment of The Green Bar of Go. In this post, I will discuss how to use a part of Cascade Server not covered in the Cascade Server: Site Managers workshop: Asset Factory Plugins. Asset Factory Plugins are a way for Site Managers to create Asset Factories that will perform specific tasks when a user submits the form. For example, when a Page Asset Factory (like our new page factory from the workshop) is submitted, if the user forgets to change the system name, Cascade Server will change the name automatically to an SEO compliant name.

This post will explain what the built-in Plugins do and how to use one of them. Check it out after the jump!

Asset Factory Plugins and What They Do

There are several Plugins built-in to Cascade Server. A lot of them have similar functionality, all based on giving each asset a unique system name. Here are the Plugins that are installed currently with a description of what they do:

• Display to System Name Plugin – If, upon submission, the system name contains a substring of the system name of the Asset Factory’s Base Asset, the Display Name is converted to an SEO compliant string and used as the System Name.
• File Limit Plugin – Files uploaded using an asset factory can be limited by either size or asset name. File names are tested by a regular expression, file size is defined in kilobytes.
• Friendly File Name Plugin – Limits the name of a file to a-z, A-Z, 0-9, underscores, periods, and hyphens. This plugin is deprecated; the File Limit Plugin should be used in its place.
• Friendly Page Name Plugin – Requires system names of newly created assets to match a regular expression.
• Set Start Date Plugin – Sets the Metadata for Start Date to the current date and time. An offset for date and time can be used, but is optional.
• Title to System Name Plugin – If, upon submission, the system name contains a substring of the system name of the Asset Factory’s Base Asset, the Title is converted to an SEO compliant string and used as the System Name.
• Create Resized Images Plugin – Creates resized copies of the original image.
• Data Definition Name to System Name Plugin – If, upon submission, the system name contains a substring of the system name of the Asset Factory’s Base Asset, a specified field from the Base Asset’s data definition is converted to an SEO compliant string and used as the System Name.
• Structured Data Fields to System Name Plugin – If, upon submission, the system name contains a substring of the system name of the Asset Factory’s Base Asset, multiple fields can be defined, concatenated together, and converted to an SEO compliant string to be used as the System Name.
• Image Resizer Plugin – Resizes JPEG images to a specified width and height.

Using Plugins in an Asset Factory

Using a Plugin on an Asset Factory is easy. When creating new or editing existing Asset Factories, you will notice a Plugins pane. Activate that pane, and you will see this:

Simply select the Plugin you would like to use and click on the green plus sign. This will add the Plugin to your Asset Factory.

Some Plugins require certain parameters to be supplied (structured data fields, height, width, etc.). For example, here is the Structured Data Fields to System Name Plugin when it’s added to the Asset Factory:

Notice the drop down box and green plus sign located toward the bottom of the Plugin description. This is where parameters are added to a Plugin. Parameters are added to Plugins just like Plugins are added to Asset Factories. Simply select the parameter from the drop down menu, then click the green plus sign.

That’s all there is to it. Now, by using Plugins, you can prevent disasters from occurring from the use of Asset Factories.

This is the first of what will be a regularly appearing column on the IT Training Tips blog.  The focus of this column will be to convey tips and tricks concerning IU’s newly purchased WCMS. This week, being the first edition, is going to be pretty brief.

For those of you who are wondering what Cascade Server does, this column probably isn’t for you, but I will at least tell you that Cascade Server is a Web Content Management System produced and sold by the Hannon Hill company in Atlanta Georgia.

For more information about how Indiana University is using Cascade Server, check out the Web Content Management Initiative site: http://www.indiana.edu/~wcms.

This week, I want to make you all aware of a Cascade Server related event coming up toward the end of this month. On April 23rd from 10:00am to 11:30am, there will be an Info-share in the Dogwood room of the IMU in Bloomington. There will be a variety of topics covered including, but not limited to: how to use the New Site Managers Tool, the newest version of Cascade Server — Cascade Server 6.0, Modules and Widgets, and dealing with Institutional Data.

Hopefully you can join us!