xcp Designer Preview Mode

Transcription

1 White Paper Abstract This white paper explains the preview mode feature in xcp Designer and its use cases. It also covers the setup, configurations and troubleshooting tips. January 2015

2 Copyright 2015 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. VMware is registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part Number h

3 Table of Contents Overview... 4 Audience... 4 Preview Mode Technical Details... 4 Setting up Design-time environment... 4 Preview mode configuration parameters Example use cases Troubleshooting tips for Preview mode Conclusion

4 Overview Preview mode feature was introduced in xcp Designer 2.1 release that allows you to preview the application during design time. With the preview mode feature in place, there is no need to perform complete deployment to view the changes in the application. However, the preview mode is limited to reflect the application UI changes. The model changes have to still be deployed before invoking the preview mode. In a typical application development paradigm, the application model is frozen much before the application UI work starts. Hence, the application model can be deployed and the preview mode can run using the deployed model. Note: In xcp Designer 2.2, by default, Preview mode does not work if build automatically feature is turned off. Audience This white paper is intended for business users of xcp Designer who are involved in designing the xcp based application. Preview Mode Technical Details In preview mode, the web application is made to run using Webby and Jetty server hosted in the xcp Designer. Webby is an Eclipse plugin that bundles the Jetty server to host a maven-based application. Hence, in preview mode the entire application is running in the background and capable of performing all the actions. In preview mode, the artifacts are generated and published to the Jetty server, which picks up the changes and shows it instantly. However, as the application has been optimized for web performance, the resource caching has to be cleared for the preview mode to reflect the changes. There are few spring configurations that are dynamically generated and those needs to be reloaded to reflect the changes. Setting up Design-time environment Preview mode uses the default design-time environment preference configuration to connect to the Documentum repository and BAM server. Set up the design-time environment and choose the default one to use if you have more than one environment in the preference. It is mandatory to have the design-time environment setup before starting the preview mode. The Design-time environment preference page can be accessed from the Preferences toolbar. 4

5 Click Add to add the design time environment configuration. 5

6 Fill in the Documentum repository connection details 6

7 Fill in the BAM connection details. 7

8 Fill in the Global Registry repository connection details. 8

9 Specify a name to the configuration. 9

10 Choose the default configuration to use with the preview mode. Starting preview mode in xcp Designer Now, the Preview mode toolbar options can be used o Start Preview Mode Launches the Jetty server and load the application. o Preview in Browser Launches the application in the default browser. In addition, this clears the application context at the app server, which enables picking the new application configurations. o Stop Preview Mode Stops the Jetty server. o Restart Preview Mode Restarts the jetty server. Preview mode configuration parameters The following configurations can be used with the preview mode. These configurations have to be added to the xcpdesigner.ini file. 10

11 -DdisplayWebbyView=true Displays the webby console from which you can see any server side errors or exceptions from the application -Dwebby.containerTimeout=30 Specifies the timeout value of the webby container. Default containertimeout value is 30 secs. If the application is relatively heavy and takes time to load, increase the timeout value appropriately. -Dwebby.containerPort =8888 Specifies the port number of the webby container. Default value is Dpreview.mode.debug=false Launches the webby launch configuration in debug mode. The default launch is in run mode. Launching in Debug mode provides additional debug log statements. -Dwebby.jvmArgument = XX:PermSize=192m -XX:MaxPermSize=192m -Xms512m - Xmx832m Specifies the JVM arguments for the webby container. The default value is XX:PermSize=192m -XX:MaxPermSize=192m -Xms512m -Xmx832m. You can provide additional JVM arguments to the webby container through this configuration parameter. Example use cases The following use cases are with the assumption that the preview mode has been started earlier with the model object deployed. The use cases depict the way preview mode picks up the changes: 1. Add a new page/fragment Create a page/fragment in Designer. Link the page to the application master page or any other container pages. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Invoke Preview in Browser; the new page can be reached from the link on the master page. 2. Modify layout of a page/fragment Modify the widgets or layout of an existing page/fragment. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Refresh the browser to view the updates. 3. Add/Modify an actionflow Add or modify the actionflow configuration or step page. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Invoke Preview in Browser, the modifications are visible. 4. Add/Modify a context menu 11

12 Add or modify the context menu configuration. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Invoke Preview in Browser, the modifications are visible. 5. Add/Modify an UIEvent Add or modify the UIEvent configuration. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Clear the browser cache and access the app, the modifications are visible. 6. Add/Modify session variable Add or modify the Session Variable configuration. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure that the build is complete. Clear the browser cache and access the app, the modification should be visible. 7. Add/Modify an expression Modify the expression in the UI artifacts. Save the changes that triggers the build internally. Ensure the build is complete. Clear the browser cache and access the app, the expression changes should be applied. Troubleshooting tips for Preview mode App runtime errors in preview mode Check whether application has any validation errors, this could prevent successful app generation and the preview mode does not reflect the changes. Models/Types in the app can be out of sync with the models in repository. Adding new page/fragment is not shown in preview mode Use Preview in Browser command to reload the app context. Adding a page or a fragment adds new spring configurations that need to be loaded. Expressions, UI Events or Session Parameters are not shown in preview mode Clear the browser cache and launch the application using the Preview in Browser mode. The preview in browser command only reloads the context and hence the browser cache has to be cleared explicitly. Localized messages are not shown Use preview in browser command to reload the app context. Adding localized message need a context reload. Preview mode is disabled Check whether the build automatically is turned on. Preview mode fails with 404 error 12

13 - This can happen if the application has validation errors while importing and thus the code generation is not complete. In order to fix this issue, follow the steps: o Fix the validation errors o Close xcp Designer o Delete <app home>/target/m2e-webby folder. o Restart the designer (turn on Build Automatically) Alternatively, this can happen if the Webby container fails to load within the specified timeout value. Increase the container timeout using the webby.containertimeout configuration parameter. Conclusion This whitepaper aims to make you easily understand the preview mode usage with various use cases and also provides troubleshooting tips around commonly encountered problems. 13