[opencms-dev] Export Document

Wed Sep 10 18:20:02 CEST 2003

I'm not sure exactly what your setup is. As I understand it there are 3 
basic scenarios:

1. Run everything dynamically, no export what-so-ever, be that directly 
through Tomcat or Tomcat/Apache
2. The default variation where a number of pages/resources are static 
and not generated on the fly (still through Tomcat or the combo)
3. Fully exported, all handled by Apache, no Tomcat intervention

My example falls into the last category - For that setup OpenCms is 
'just' an editor which eventually dumps the site into an appropriate 
place such that Apache or likewise can serve it as any other static 
HTML site.

I'm not sure exactly when one would be in (1) or (2), at the very least 
caching should be used in (1) to speed up the process. Ideally in (2), 
if deployed on an Apache/Tomcat combo, Apache should access the files 
directly and not by means of the JK plugin. Not sure how that is 
handled if at all possible (or maybe it is doing that per default if 
one maps the export directory into the document root of the web 
server), but I expect the prefix in the opencms.properties file along 
with Apache rewrites should make it possible.

As for the JK plugin I ended up using the 'old' version, not the JK2 
variant. The latter I couldn't get to work (from following the 
instructions on Apache's site), whereas the other one did (I think I 
know what I did wrong with JK2 but since the setup with JK works I 
haven't spent time on it). A quick look at the example virtual host def 
you provided it did look more or less like the one I had, though the 
first couple of lines seemed superfluous. I cannot recall the format of 
the other setup-file, so it could be there the issue is.

As for the broken images I assume (based on my own mistakes) that 
you're missing the <cms:link></cms:link> around the URL in the JSP 
files. This tag causes OpenCms to replace the URL with one that works 
whether the resource is exported or not. Usually it works without the 
special tag, but only as long as they are served from the webapp, it 
will break as soon as you export it. Note that URL in the html files 
(edited by either the source or WYSIWYG editor automatically gets 
'translated' by OpenCms which is nice, since you're not adding the 
<cms:link> tag when dropping an image from the gallery.)

On onsdag, sep 10, 2003, at 15:20 Europe/Copenhagen, Ben Rometsch wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the help. It's still quite convoluted IMHO. I'm still 
> unclear
> what to do about the broken images, and what the best method is to get 
> a JSP
> + static HTML site exported with a Tomcat+Apache setup. Is there no
> documentation for this?
>
> Ben
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org 
> [mailto:opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org]
> On Behalf Of Claus Priisholm
> Sent: 10 September 2003 21:06
> To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
> Cc: cpr at codedroids.dk
> Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] Export Document
>
> Having just done the exercise myself this morning, here's my take on 
> it:
>
> The best doc I've found so far is in the opencms.properties file, look 
> for
> the "staticexport.enabled" entry. It is "true" per default. I haven't 
> tried
> to check if it only applies to the implicit export which happens when 
> you do
> a publish or if it also controls the "Static Export" function in the
> Administration view, but I wanted things to be exported ASAP so I kept 
> it
> set to "true", in which case a regular publish (direct or entire 
> project)
> exports html files as well.
>
> Next one is the "staticexport.default.export" which is "true" by 
> default.
> For my test case this makes sense as it is basically all static. Which
> means, if the individual files in VFS does not have the "export" 
> property
> set then it is assumed to be "true", ie. a file that needs to be 
> exported.
> The test case did include a two-frame html layout, having a menu along 
> the
> top of the page and the contents below.
> All the contents files are HTML pages in the VFS, the frame file and 
> the
> menu are both JSPs (though the frame file could probably be a plain 
> HTML as
> well...) The JSP files do, by default, get the "export=false" as a 
> property
> when created. This of course a reasonable default due to the nature of 
> JSPs
> and it does work - publish the project and go to the online project 
> and you
> see the HREFs in the html point to the webapp itself or the export
> directory, depending on the "export" setting. Works great, but in my 
> case I
> knew that once generated the menu is static so I made it 
> "export=true", and
> then I added <cms:link> tags where appropriate in order to get the
> imagebuttons referenced correctly.
> Publishing/exporting now generates a menu.html in the export directory
> - in my case it means that I have the entire test case site as plain 
> good
> old HTML files, ready for Apache to serve to the world. I'm not sure if
> there can be some problems in terms of dependencies in the sense that 
> the
> now 'static' JSP doesn't get regenerated when some files it depends on 
> gets
> changed, but so far - doing a static export from the administration 
> menu  -
> has not caused any problems, it seems to be regenerated upon the 
> export and
> thus is up to date.
>
> Note the "export" property is not limited to "true" or "false" values.
> There is a number of other legal values, among those "dynamic", but not
> having fully appreciated what the all the various rulesets in the 
> property
> file does, I'm not sure if and when it is a better choice than "false".
> Maybe someone on the list can enlighten me...
>
> But a couple of other properties should be set as well. The
> "staticexport.path" could be set to the document root of the webserver
> (though keep in mind that the user id which is running the app, ie.
> Tomcat in my case) must have write-permission to the directory. Per 
> default
> it dumps the exported files into 
> $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/opencms/export. But
> this only has to do with where the files are dumped, it does not have 
> any
> implications on the URLs in the html files.
> This is controlled by "url_prefix_export" - the default value
> "/${WEB_APP_NAME}/export" matches the above export directory such that
> OpenCms out of the box can make this combined sites, where some pages 
> are
> static and others dynamic. For my test case, I simply needed to put the
> exported document tree at the document root of Apache, so I set it to
> "url_prefix_export=", i.e. empty. But were I to put the exported files 
> in a
> sub-directory of the web servers document root then the sub-dir name 
> should
> be the value. Note that once set to something other than the default 
> value,
> you may not be able to click on the file on the Online project in 
> OpenCms
> (well, you can click on it, but you not likely to see the file in the
> browser...)
>
> The other prefix settings are more relevant when you're dealing with a 
> more
> complex setup, ie. before changing the "url_prefix_http" make sure that
> Apache/Tomcat or whatever knows how to resolve the resulting URL, 
> otherwise
> you won't be able to log into OpenCms or do anything.
>
> One thing that can be a little confusing when looking at exporting 
> JSPs is
> the fact that there is another 'export' directory, the
> $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/opencms/WEB-INF/export. This is because JSP 
> files in
> VFS is copied to real filesystem in order for Tomcat (or whatever your 
> using
> to serve JSP/servlets) to actually handle them. But this is implicit 
> export
> is not to be confused with the "static export".
>
> Hope it helps, writing did at least help me clear up a couple of issue
> :-)
>
> On onsdag, sep 10, 2003, at 09:32 Europe/Copenhagen, Ben Rometsch 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I cant find any documentation relating to how static export, JSP's and
>> publishing all hang together. Am I missing something?
>>
>> Ben
>>
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> --
> Claus Priisholm
> +45 48 22 46 46, fax: +45 48 22 46 43
> cpr at codedroids.com
> http://www.codedroids.com
>
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--
Claus Priisholm
+45 48 22 46 46, fax: +45 48 22 46 43
cpr at codedroids.com
http://www.codedroids.com