Setting up a Simple Workflow in Oracle WebCenter Sites

Welcome fellow enthusiasts of Oracle WebCenter Sites, to an introductory blog about how to set up a simple workflow!  As we all know, workflow is an integral aspect of any web content management system, and thus creating an efficient workflow is paramount to the overall success of the system and it’s business owners.

The particular workflow we will design is modest yet effective.

There are 2 main Roles of users:

  • ContentAuthor – creates/edits content
  • ContentApprover – approves content for publishing

Go ahead and create these 2 Roles, and...


Create a Simple 'Contact Us' Form with GSF

If you're familiar with the GSF, then you already know how helpful it is for developing basic JSP Templates and how it lets you do the same work as before, except with a lot fewer lines of code. But what about another type of page that most sites need? I am, of course, talking about the Contact Us form page. The GSF 11.x makes it easy to add your own custom form processing logic without having to write your own Java controller from scratch. In a few easy steps, your Contact Us form page...


WEM Distilled

In the world of information technology the acronyms are a plenty and their translations are often debated and overloaded. So what is WEM you ask? Well, WEM is short for West Edmonton Mall located in the glorious province of Alberta Canada OR a line of vintage guitar amplifiers depending how you structured your Google search...I'm just kidding, don't leave just yet! Let's rewind. WEM, Web Experience Management, is an acronym used to describe the evolution of Web Content Management software into a realm that encompasses online interactions with visitors across multiple delivery channels...


WebCenter Sites CSDT tip: Recommended Order of @ALL_ASSETS for Error-free Imports

As anyone who has worked with Oracle WebCenter Sites "Content Server Development Tools" (CSDT) already knows, the import process can get a little “tricky”, especially when trying to import "@ALL_ASSETS".

Regardless if you're operating from the command line or via Eclipse's CSDT plug-in, there are inevitable errors that occur because of the complexity of certain sites, and all the dependencies that arise between workspace resources.

When a CSDT import error occurs during “@ALL_ASSETS”, it’s typically difficult to pinpoint which specific element caused the error, and there’s...


CSDT Command throwing HTTP 401 Error

Overview:

The error "Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL" occurs when running CSDT commands from the command-line.

Symptom:

If you're using Oracle WebCenter Sites 11gR1 BP1, the following error will occur when running CSDT commands from the command-line:

java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL: http://<www.mydomain.com>/cs/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/PrologA......


Setting Up a Development Environment in Oracle WebCenter Sites

Function1 would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mike Field (co-author of this blog) to our Web Experience Management team.  Mike joins us from Metastratus Web Solutions and brings in-depth expertise in all aspects of Oracle WebCenter Sites.  Mike and I worked together on creating a development environment in Oracle WebCenter Sites for a client and decided to document the process.

As all of us enthusiastic developers know, setting up an initial development environment can sometimes be a tedious and painstaking process, regardless of the platform or software we use.   It can...


How to use Vanity URLs in the GSF with WebCenter Sites

WebCenter Sites does not support vanity URLs without customization.  The GSF provides a great vanity URL package that is flexible and easy to use, and this post will describe how to set it up.

Background

First, a little background.  Native URLs in WebCenter Sites all have to include a query string parameter called "pagename".  If the page is rendering an asset, "c" and "cid" are also included, and recently, other parameters like "childpagename" have crept into the standard set of parameters that are found in URLs.  This simply doesn't cut...


How to install both GSF and CSDT in WebCenter Sites

So you're building a new website in WebCenter Sites and you've decided to use CSDT (Content Server Developer Tools) and GSF (GST Site Foundation) to help make the development process as efficient as possible. The steps for installing GSF are quite simple. Copy a few files, click a few links, and you're done. Setting up CSDT is easy too -- once you get the hang of the differences between importing and exporting and what direction those commands sync your assets -- always think of it relative your WebCenter Sites installation: You import to WebCenter Sites, and export from...


What is this whole GST Site Foundation thing?

You've heard about it... the GST Site Foundation.  Maybe you've heard of it as the "GSF".  But what is it?

The GSF is a set of core architectural patterns and tools that support building websites with WebCenter Sites.

Think WebCenter Sites on Rails.

So why does it exist?  Well, WebCenter Sites provides very flexible and powerful APIs.  They are so powerful that the entire editorial interface, asset infrastructure, and all of the tools that are part of the application itself are built on the same APIs that we can use on our own websites...


There's Gonna be Some Changes Made

Excuse the Bruce Hornsby reference, but it's that time again! Summer is over, football is back on TV, and your favorite TV shows are just getting started. Obviously, it must be time for another Function1 website refresh. For this first phase of the refresh, we were mainly focusing on the design and keeping it in line with our new branding. If you try to access our site in a mobile browser, you will see that we are using a responsive design as Jeremy wrote about in...


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