This series will give those RedDot developers who have never worked with Render Tags before a introduction on how to use the Open Text Web Solutions Management Server Render Tags. Render Tags can replace RQL code and add new functionality to your project. By using Render Tags you can gain project performance and stability within your project. Some things can be done with RedDot Render Tags which can’t even be done with the RedDot Query Language. Other things should not be done with Render Tags and you are about to learn when to use what. The experienced users of course will get something to nibble a bit later, too.

... render tag code ...

<%!! Context:CurrentPage.Headline !!%>

<reddot:cms>
  <output type="object" object="Context:CurrentPage.Headline" />
</reddot:cms>

<%!! Navigation:OutputArea(breadcrumb) !!%>

If you are starting to build projects and find this useful you should also have a look into the great RedDot CMS tutorial by Adrian Mateljan called “The One True Container – RedDot CMS Tutorial – Part I” which you can find here.

Share and Enjoy:

I’ve worked with RedDot now for more than 7 years and I think describing Open Texts CMS flagship RedDot CMS in the year 2009 can be done best with a quote which came up in 2009:

“What RedDot needs is some love! Instead they got renamed from RedDot CMS to Open Text Web Solutions Suite and must have felt like Cinderella living with the step mother and some ugly sisters.”

source

What’s next in 2010

Open Text will present us something new in 2010 I believe, something to show some support for the RedDot Community, something new and shiny and hopefully not too marketing flavoured. I had good conversations this year with some Open Text guys. A lot of guys are trying hard to make a change there and wake up from the RedDot buyout fatigue but Open Text is a big fat vendor vessel (no offense) and those are usually quite slow, so getting something ready for crew usually takes time and it might be a bit like the Titanic struggeling with changing course. But we learned from the past, didn’t we?

Where can you find some RedDot love before the year ends?

Yep – you are right – within the community. That is you out there! You are on the lookout with everyone else and we are willing to shout if we either think we can see an iceberg or on the contrary something of interest worth heading for. The people from Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, United States, Planet Earth don’t have icebergs and they seem really happy with their RedDot CMS.
So they did something neat to share with you earlier this year and made a nice video. I’ve already tweeted this one earlier this year and I think in the spirit of Christmas this video is worth being seen and getting some props from us.

With the right RedDot CMS Partner and/or the right RedDot integration Team for your implementation this video is pretty close to what could happen to you when you migrate your CMS project with RedDot CMS. Sounds like marketing (and I apologise), but fact is: The more your development team has to think and suffer – the happier your editors should be.. right?

Merry Christmas!

to the guys from Longwood University and all of you out there in the RedDot Community!
Thank you for a great 2009 and see you next year!

Wishes?

What do you wish for 2010 from Open Text or your favoured CMS vendor?
Which

• features?
• fixes?
• additional geek toys?
• usability enhancements?
• the next big marketing suite report bang?
• simplified collaboration and solution sharing?

…or whatever gave you grief in 2009 and what would you like to get solved or rather not have to encounter again in 2010?

Share and Enjoy:

Screenshot of the RSS Feed Template

This is a classic article about how to create a RSS Feed using our beloved CMS and this topic has been asked about 5 million times now on Google Groups Wiki and everywhere else… This question or furthermore one of these variations below will now be answered:

How to get an RSS Feed for my Open Text project?

• How do I create an RSS Feed in Open Text Web Solutions Management Server?
• How do I set up an Podcast?
• How can I create a news feed for my news section?
• How do I get my news list as a XML document

To create an RSS Feed within RedDot CMS you just need ONE template.
There is no need to create a separate XML variant or anything like this.
Just change the elements within the template to match your news elements and you are ready to go.
Don’t change the date element, this is a sensitive one which needs some ASP script to read a proper readable date for the RSS Feed.

The RSS Feed Template

The template below makes use of some nice Render Tags which you should check out. Especially the Render Tag described in the SEO article come in handy when you link news from different sections within the project connected to your RSS feed list using keywords.

Explanation of RedDot Elements

So what did we do here? Let’s have a closer look at the single bits and pieces within the template.
The first part contains two ASP functions “GetMonthName” and “GetDayName” to render the date returned by the RedDot element stf_pageDate properly in a RSS format. So DON’T TOUCH THE stf_pageDate element.
Then we have this part in the links:

<%stf_siteURL%><%!! Escape:HtmlEncode(Context:Indexes.GetIndexByPageId(Guid:<%info_PageGuid%>).Page.GetUrl()) !!%>

The siteUrl element should be the URL of your site (for example: www.reddotcmsblog.com if this would be your site..)
The second Render Tag bit returns the MainLink of the page to the linked site no matter what publication package is assigned to the RSS Feed.
All the other bits and pieces should be self-explaining.

Integration into my Open Text project

To integrate this template in your project:

1. Download the template below
2. Donate a decent amount to keep this site running
3. Import the template into your project
4. Make sure PreExecute is activated for your project
5. Create a page based on this template
6. Reference the list inside the template to your news list
7. Create a publication package for the RSS Feed list so that your pages get published into a hidden folder (this is to avoid double indexed files in your site search)
8. Change the filename to yourfeedname.xml
9. Integrate the file into your HTML page templates with something like this

10. Publish everything
11. You are done. Get yourself a Cookie!

Disclaimer & Credits

Feel free to re-use the code linked below. Don’t use the code above because it is just an example and it gets scrambled by the Syntax Highlighter. However both versions come with no warranty. When re-used by you we expect you to attribute this work and use it according to the CC license BY-SA 3.0. Thanks to the famous Plugin Developer and super coder Kim Dezen who helped me out with the code bits but hates writing other things than pretty code so I have to do it.
It also needs to be said that this example is a very basic one and you can enhance any fields you need. Feel free to send us your examples if you have improved this marvelous Open Text solution!

Download and Donate

We can’t get around to outline it and remind you. This site still runs for free. And this won’t change from todays point of view unless we manage to convince OpenText to make a bigger donation because we solve at least as many support requests per day as they do.
So grab your code, enjoy the work we share here with you and if you find it useful then after downloading the template feel free to donate (it should be enough for a beer..).

Share and Enjoy:

Gavin Cope already came up this year with his great article on how to debug classic ASP script which runs in Open Text Management Servers PreExecute Mode. Keith Bloom picked up the idea and improved it a fair bit,
so that you now are able to

• see the Error files as html files in your browser
• open an overview page with all logfiles which are existing in the folder.

Modifications

WriteToFile "C:\Program Files\RedDot\CMS\ASP\PreExecute\logs\PreExecuteErrors_" & Year(Now) & Month(Now) & Day(Now) & _
".html", " Date/Time: " & Now() & "" & _
" ASP Code: " & objASPError.ASPCode & "" & _
"ASP Description: " & objASPError.Description & "" & _
" Category: " & objASPError.Category & "" & _
" Column: " & objASPError.Column & "" & _
" Description: " & objASPError.Description & "" & _
" File: " & objASPError.File & "" & _
" Line: " & objASPError.Line & "" & _
" Number: " & objASPError.Number & "" & _
" Source: " & objASPError.Source & "" & _
"############################################################" & "", True

This replaces the line .07 in Gavins code sample and writes the data with HTML line-breaks into a .html file.
Make sure your Program Files path is set correct.
Next step is to create a default.asp file (so that you just have to browse to the folder) or
ErrorList.asp file inside of the log file folder with the following code:

<%
sDirectory = "CMS/ASP/PreExecute/logs/"
sPath = Server.MapPath(sDirectory)

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set currentFolder = fso.GetFolder(sPath)
Set fileList = currentFolder.Files
%>
<html>
	<head>
		<title>Open Text Websolutions : PreExecuteErrors
	</head>
<body>
	<h1>List of files

	<ul>
		<% For Each file in fileList %>
		<li><a href="<%= sDirectory & file.Name %>"><%= file.Name %>

		<% Next %>
	</ul>
</body>
</html>
<%
Set fileList = Nothing
Set currentFolder = Nothing
Set fso = Nothing
%>

This should list all error files within your log folder.

Thank you

Again thank you guys for share this ASP solution with us and spending some time on publishing it. Hopefully there will be a day when the CMS runs entirely in .NET as fastest available development language and we can use this within Open Texts Web Solutions Management Server to make the CMS world a better place..

Share and Enjoy:

• 100 Posts – Unofficial Open Text WS CMS Developer blog
  We made it so far, we will go further! 100 published posts about the Open Text Content Management World, RQL, why RedDot CMS was the better brand name and a lot of helpful tipps and tricks.
  September 2, 2009 | By Markus Giesen
• SPECIAL: Is The RedDot CMS Dead? No it’s not – But what’s next Open Text?
  This topic has been mentioned by John Shackleton, CEO of Open Text earlier this August where he said that Open Text “would migrate the RedDot to the Vignette platform.” Is that just a uncertain rumour? Or is there more?This article was strongly discussed and we are impressed by the clear way Open Text was able to response after a little while – Curious about the future.
  September 15, 2009 | By Markus Giesen
• Editing draft pages by other users in SmartEdit
  Your colleague is on holiday and forgot to release a press release you urgently need? You have to work on a text with multiple authors which shouldn’t get released or published by accident? Here is a simple trick to make it possible!
  September 21, 2009 | By Frederic Hemberger
• Render Tags – An Overview
  Render tags can be used in many different ways. By using them one not only is able to read content from several places in the project you also can change and manipulate page rendering and use the render tag technology for your control structures.
  September 28, 2009 | By Markus Giesen
• Accessing the Windows Integrated login system from RQL
  Configuring SSO to work from a stand-alone RQL application, i.e. not a CMS embedded plug-in.
  September 29, 2009 | By Richard Hauer

Advertise yourself or get more QUOTES for your PROJECT!

Thanks to the folks which have started using this service, now it’s your turn!
Use our Jobs section to post your job offerings and FIND a RedDot GURU.
Or if you have RedDot work to be done, get a quote from multiple agencies and pick THE BEST one for YOU.

http://www.reddotcmsblog.com/jobs

Preview

• 8 new posts are waiting for review and publishing
• The Unofficial Open Text developer forum is in beta mode.
  Testers? If you would like to get an account, register and leave a comment, we will give write access to new users in every month
• Open Text and Vignette
• and much more… stay tuned!

Share and Enjoy:

Render tags can be used in many different ways. By using them one not only is able to read content from several places in the project you also can change and manipulate page rendering and use the render tag technology for your control structures.
The following list gives a overview and is meant to be an introduction into the functionality and use cases for render tags.

The most common use of render tags is probably the output of content:

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value
!!%>

Manipulating the returned content

Only returning content might often be not of interest. This can be done by a reference or just the element placeholder itself. Hence here are a couple of ways to manipulate the render tag content output.

PadRight()
Return the content of an element with a maximum length of 15 characters

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.PadRight(Int:15)
!!%>

Substring()
Return the first 10 characters of a content element

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.Substring(Int:0, Int:10)
!!%>

Trim()
Return content and remove white space from beginning and end of string

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.Trim()
!!%>

Replace()
Return element content but replace parts of the string. In this example I replace “RedDot” with “OpenText”

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.Replace(RedDot,OpenText)
!!%>

ToUpper()
Return the output in UPPERCASE

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.ToUpper()
!!%>

ToLower()
Return the value of the string in lowercase

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.ToLower()
!!%>

ToString()
Change the output type to type “String()”

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.ToString()
!!%>

Length
Return the character length of returned value

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.Length
!!%>

HtmlEncode()
Return HTML encoded value of the element

<%!!
Escape:HtmlEncode(Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value)
!!%>

HtmlDecode()
Return HTML decoded value of the element

<%!!
Escape:HtmlDecode(Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value)
!!%>

Control output based on render tag queries

Render tags are not only used to return element content.
It also can be used to check the value of an element and create several types of queries.

Equals()
Checks if two Strings are equal or not, return value is type of Boolean

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.Equals(STR)
!!%>

StartsWith()
Checks if the returned content starts with the given value (i.e. character) Return value is of type Boolean

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.StartsWith(STR)
!!%>

EndsWith()
Checks if the returned content ends with the given value (i.e. character) Return value is of type Boolean

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value.EndsWith(STR)
!!%>

<If> and <else> render tag queries

These return values can be used as well as queries which are known from other programming languages.
Another way of controlling output for example are <if>- and <if>-<else>-queries
<IF>

<reddot:cms>
  <if>
    <query valuea="Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value" operator="==" valueb="String:test">
      <htmltext>
        Value is "test"
      </htmltext>
    </query>
  </if>
</reddot:cms>

This IF-query can be enhanced by the ELSE-query which comes in handy when you need an SSL-Switch or you want to Skip levels in your navigation

<IF>-<ELSE>

<reddot:cms>
  <if>
    <query valuea=" Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(std_elem).Value" operator="==" valueb="String:test">
      <htmltext>
        Value is "test"
      </htmltext>
    </query>
    <query type="else">
      <htmltext>
        Value is certainly NOT "test"
      </htmltext>
    </query>
  </if>
</reddot:cms>

In the Loop

Beside these two options render tags offer other solutions. One of those is the possibility to use render tags for the output of elements within or outside of structure elements. For example you can use those outside of navigation manager templates to return your project structure

foreach

<reddot:cms>
  <foreach itemname="item" object="Context:CurrentPage.SubIndexes" countername="counter">
    <htmltext>
      <%!! Store:counter !!%>. <%!! Store:item.Headline !!%><br />
    </htmltext>
  </foreach>
</reddot:cms>

Reading structure elements

Not only can this be used to return your navigation structure at any point of the project – you also can use it to return the structure elements (lists, anchors, container) of any page. Although – in Version 7.5.x – not in the right sort order.

foreach

<reddot:cms>
  <foreach itemname="item" object="Context:CurrentPage.Elements.GetElement(lst_elem).Value" countername="counter">
    <htmltext>
      <%!! Store:counter !!%>. <%!! Store:item.Headline !!%><br />
    </htmltext>
  </foreach>
</reddot:cms>

Undocumented and documented render tags

Beside those and the already described functions in the documentation there are a couple of others which aren’t documented (yet?). For example it is possible to return the name of a content class by using this

Template
Reading a content-class

<%!!
Context:CurrentPage.Template.Name
!!%>

Render tags were quite new and a lot Open Text / RedDot CMS developers are used to ASP with VB.Net but these new tags are worth to have a look at because some of them can reach into parts of the project were you are stuck with your ASP code or you would have to use RQLs which can be slow down the editing process.

Disclaimer

Be aware of undocumented render tags, they might change with the next version of RedDot (oh, wait, there might be no next major version after version 10..) ok, they might change with the next hotfix and then you have to walk through your system and find the little buggers. We also don’t give any warranty for the code shown here, use it at your own risk.

Links

• Credits for this collection go to Ingo from Shift8, who has wrote all this down in German
• This is Phil McKenzies hardcore render tag article
  which will take you more than one step ahead the usual way of using render tags – Very nice read!
• Render tags to translate a site easily!
  A great article for international projects.
• Allowing external links in your navigation
  Growing your navigation beyond the basic tree – Interesting approach by Adrian

Do you know any render tag tricks? Let us know!

Show your render tags below in the comments field, but don’t forget to escape your HTML, which means that the code must be escaped by using HTML-Entities. For example one should write < as & lt; and > as & gt;.

Share and Enjoy:

This topic has been mentioned by John Shackleton, CEO of Open Text earlier this August where he said that Open Text “would migrate the RedDot to the Vignette platform.” [1]

Does Open Text Drop RedDot CMS?

At the moment it seems like Open Text is not planning to continue the product development after Summer 2010 at this stage. Instead they are proposing to create a third product which will combine the RedDot UI with Vignette’s underlying technology.

Roadmap – Open Texts next planned and proposed steps

- Planned release WebSolutions 10.1 for Q4 2009
- Planned release Vignette Content Management 8.0 for Q4 2009
- Combined release proposed for Q2 2010

It seems like the product development of Web Solutions will end soon, there is no talk about a next major release after v10.1. Although The new version 11 named “Dolphin” will be a combination of WebSolutions UI and Vignettes Content Management content centric technology.

Impact on current OT clients

• The licenses will transfer to the new product
• Migration will be (as it always is) a fair bit of work, although OT speaks about an automated way of content migration to the new third product. Personally although they speak about automated migration I think this will be difficult to realise with the given technical diversity.
• Clients which plan to launch projects within the next year based on version10 might have to budget for the migration within the next 2 years.
• There is no word on end of product support / end-of life yet.
• DeliveryServer (formerly LiveServer) will still be supported.

Impact on RedDot CMS – LiveServer / Management-Delivery Server developer

Will it be Vignette or a Mashup or..?

• They are talking about a third product which will combine Web Solutions and Vignette but reading between the lines so far it seems to be based on Vignette. More details can be expected for the upcoming Open Text Content World. [2]
• Vignette is based on Java.
• It is not planned to merge the code of both products (which would be difficult where this would be a mix of ASP, .NET and Java).
• It is planned to combine the content centric nature of Vignette Content Management with the technological backround of WebSolutions (which is the UI, underlying .NET and ASP structures and hopefully a integration in Visual Studio for templating).
• Converting existing code for DeliveryServer, especially the proprietary Dynament code will be a challenge, Open Text is planning to provide instructions or tools where possible to ease this process.

Impact on RedDot / Web Solutions agencies

Which way can former RedDot partners go? What’s next?

• Where agencies could rely on ASP and .NET as a developing base they now might have to invest a lot to train their developers on Java.
• Existing RedDot knowledge and best practice needs to be rebuild on the new product. This will cost time and money.
• Clients trust in choosing the right technology and the right partner needs to be protected.
• RedDot CMS and Vignette were two strong competitors and two strong known brands. The restructuring will let them drop and it will take time for the new brand to establish and get back to were those two big players were.
• Other vendors will take this as an opportunity to attack Open Text and hi-jack their clients. And if Open Text doesn’t react they might succeed. [see UPDATE 1]

Technical architecture

Another point to reconsider is the switch from a Microsoft based solution to a Java based Vignette. There are thousands of clients out there which are running RedDot CMS because of company policies relying on Microsoft based solutions and all those are served by agencies which have .NET experience and not Java developers. Of course you can run Vignette on a Microsoft Server, but the product and development itself when based on Java would make partners and clients Administrators struggle with taking up on this new technology and their administration.

Existing Partnerships & Client relationships

Gauss disappeared after 2003, replaced by RedDot, replaced by ??

The partnership between Open Text and agencies has been quite good when it came to marketing. They proved to be not the strongest in after-sales, support and customer relationship management on a client and a partner side. There were a lot of changes during the last 12 months and definitely a huge improvement on the customer relationship side.
Still, with this recent move of Open Text it will take a huge effort to convince clients to stick with Open Text after RedDot has been bought in 2005 by Hummingbird and shortly after that in 2006 bought by Open Text. In addition to that Open Text acquired Gauss in 2003 [3] and customers had to change to RedDot because Gaus simply disappeared. All that only to see now that again the RedDot CMS will not officially discontinue but “transferred” to a third product. That seems to be a nice thing to read but the budgets which went into RedDot projects over the last couple of years and the expectations of promised “Return On Invest” seem to be on shaky ground here where clients now have to face using a product which will not be further developed OR the content migration to a new product which might have a completely new underlying architecture could involve a lot of risk and therefore cost.
After making a good step to the right direction with the release of version 10 from a developers perspective as well as from a clients perspective this is a disappointing move.

Possible scenario with a combination of RedDot CMS and Vignette StoryServer

What will stay in the Open Text portfolio? And when will the vendor finally tell?

Another possible scenario could be that the “third product” could be a combination of RedDot CMS as Management Server, delivering content to the Vignette StoryServer as DeliveryServer. The strength of RedDot CMS always was and still is one of the easiest to learn and use User Interfaces combined with the security of storing and delivering content separately and because of the publishing of static files faster than any other dynamic solution.
The LiveServer – let’s face it – never was a masterpiece with it’s proprietary Dynaments, weak reporting and attached Verity search. It did it’s job, but I dare to say that Vignette is doing a better one here when it comes to portals and communities.
So the ideal solution could be (could have been?) the Vignette based solution for delivery of dynamic content which receives content controlled by workflows and publication from the RedDot CMS with the new UI in version 10.
Is this still possible? It would be a common sense step and still suite the most of time given requirement by Enterprise and government of content repository separation from actual delivery to Web or even Extranet.

Conclusion – Is RedDot CMS or WebSolutions Dead?

At the moment we don’t know enough to say so. What we know and say is:
We don’t have the confidence to sell a product which future is unknown.
We don’t have the confidence to invest and sell a product we don’t know right now.
In short: We – the clients, partner and developer don’t know what is going on.

A open list of questions to Open Text

1. How can you talk about Visual Studio integration for the new product when you at the same time have a Java based solution as technical base? Which way are you going here?
2. On the one side there is no plan to merge the code on the other side the significant key features of both system should find together, on which technological structure is that based?
3. Where ist that ‘pricing journey’ going? How will the price difference between RedDot CMS and Vignette be managed?
4. By all means, does it at this time still make sense to sell, train or advertise RedDot?
5. Given the fact that for example Gauss just diappeared from the market in a way of ‘The product development extincts, support ends on day X’ and all partners and clients had to switch, will that also happen to RedDot CMS/LiveServer?
6. So, what will happen to the CMS? Which technology will be used for Management Server and Delivery Server?
7. Will they be combined into one single product which runs on one server?
8. Would that mean the end of a separated CMS from Delivery system?
9. Given history how certain is the proposed timeline for the new product?
10. How will you create a new product within less than a year time where it took more than 4 years to change the UI to what we have with version 10?
11. What guarantee for automated content migration without the need of rebuilding a project from scratch can you give clients which are buying the current version 10?

Ok, but is the RedDot CMS Dead?

What’s the future of OpenText’s product portfolio? Which product will cease?

No, of course it is NOT. But we need some answers from Open Text and we need them soon, so that we can react, otherwise the just gained trust of client, partners and developers with the recent release of version 10 will be lost again and then you certainly could call RedDot CMS dead.

Share your thought’s!

We would like to know what your opinion is on this.

• How does that affect you as a developer/client/partner?
• What do you think about Open Texts proposals?
• Which solution scenario would suit you as a positive outcome?
• Use the comment box below to share your opinion on this!

Comment here

About this article (and it’s authors)

This article will probably be read as very controversial and it is certainly confronting. I have had many discussions with other authors on this blog while we created this post, we talked to many partners and clients. Most of them have pre-read this article and all have added notes and their questions. Thank you for helping us on this!

UPDATE 1:
And here we go… The first attack comes from Jörn Bodemann, CEO of e-Spirit, almost the same headline.
Didn’t take too long.
http://thecontentwrangler.com/2009/09/14/chaos-content-management-is-reddot-dead/

Links

[1] Open Text Corporation F4Q09 (Qtr End 06/30/2009) Earnings Call Transcript — Seeking Alpha
http://seekingalpha.com/article/157446-open-text-corporation-f4q09-qtr-end-06-30-2009-earnings-call-transcript?source=portfolio_wl&page=-1
[2] Open Text Content World 2009
http://www.opentext.com/contentworld/2009/
[3] Open Text Buys Gauss for Web Content Management
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/open-text-buys-gauss-for-web-content-management-000021.php

More

Jon on Tech about Vignette being bought by Open Text – http://jonontech.com/2009/05/06/omg-open-text-buy-grandpa-vignette/
More about Vignette – http://www.vignette.com
More about Open Text Web Solutions – http://websolutions.opentext.com

Share and Enjoy: