Preface
This is the second part of our blog series about Web Page Composer
(WPC) focusing on the new XML editor framework. Please be
aware that all the information given below is subject to change, as WPC
hasn't been released yet and several parts are still in the development
phase.
If you're also interested in other, already published blogs of
this series, please follow these links:
The Author's View - Creating Web Content
A typical web page often is composed of several textual content
snippets, e.g. news, articles or link lists. For this kind of
document-based web content Web Page Composer offers a new form-based
XML editor. Thus, the typical flow for an author (who's just
contributing content) would be to use a document-specific command in
the menu bar of the Web Content Browser (part of the page editor, see
next blog) or the KM explorer to open the XML editor with the
corresponding form (e.g. an article).
Figure 1: Creating an article with the form-based XML editor.
Now the author may fill out the default elements of this form (e.g.
synopsis, heading, paragraph) or dynamically add new elements (Add
Element button) if required. In addition, some elements can be
completely removed (trashcan icon) or moved to a different position
(arrow icons). Which elements are available as well as their attributes
is part of the document type definition (see below).
Moreover, the author can maintain all the metadata of this document in
the blue column on the right. To see how the content will look like
with the chosen layout and style an author may use the editor's preview
mode (Preview button). Finally, by hitting the save button the
resulting XML document including its properties is stored in a KM
repository. Thus, almost all of the functionality and services offered
by KM may be applied to these XML document (e.g. versioning, approval
workflow).
The Administrator's View - Providing new Document Types
Now let's take a look at the administrator's perspective who would be
responsible for providing the right document types for the XML editor
and the corresponding layout and style definitions. So the first step
for providing a new document type would be the definition via XML file
according to the editor's document schema. An example of a document
type definition file is shown below:
2. The resulting XML document stored in KM:
!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/30149/feature_xml_doc.gif|height=231|alt=image|width=572|...!
3. HTML representation of the document after the transformation has
been applied:
!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/30149/feature_example.jpg|height=101|alt=image|width=370|...!
To sum up: Using the new XML editor framework of Web Page Composer it's
quite easy for administrators to provide custom document types for the
authors with several alternative HTML representations (different XSL
transformations). The resulting XML documents are managed and stored in
a KM repository, so most of the functionality and services offered by
KM may be applied to these XML document.
Feature Summary (Part 2)
Outlook
In the next part of this blog series we'll try to illustrate how the
documents created with this XML editor framework and all other web
content is used to build and update web pages. In other words, we'll
focus on the page editor of Web Page Composer.
This is the second part of our blog series about Web Page Composer
(WPC) focusing on the new XML editor framework. Please be
aware that all the information given below is subject to change, as WPC
hasn't been released yet and several parts are still in the development
phase.
If you're also interested in other, already published blogs of
this series, please follow these links:
The Author's View - Creating Web Content
A typical web page often is composed of several textual content
snippets, e.g. news, articles or link lists. For this kind of
document-based web content Web Page Composer offers a new form-based
XML editor. Thus, the typical flow for an author (who's just
contributing content) would be to use a document-specific command in
the menu bar of the Web Content Browser (part of the page editor, see
next blog) or the KM explorer to open the XML editor with the
corresponding form (e.g. an article).
Figure 1: Creating an article with the form-based XML editor.
Now the author may fill out the default elements of this form (e.g.
synopsis, heading, paragraph) or dynamically add new elements (Add
Element button) if required. In addition, some elements can be
completely removed (trashcan icon) or moved to a different position
(arrow icons). Which elements are available as well as their attributes
is part of the document type definition (see below).
Moreover, the author can maintain all the metadata of this document in
the blue column on the right. To see how the content will look like
with the chosen layout and style an author may use the editor's preview
mode (Preview button). Finally, by hitting the save button the
resulting XML document including its properties is stored in a KM
repository. Thus, almost all of the functionality and services offered
by KM may be applied to these XML document (e.g. versioning, approval
workflow).
The Administrator's View - Providing new Document Types
Now let's take a look at the administrator's perspective who would be
responsible for providing the right document types for the XML editor
and the corresponding layout and style definitions. So the first step
for providing a new document type would be the definition via XML file
according to the editor's document schema. An example of a document
type definition file is shown below:
2. The resulting XML document stored in KM:
!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/30149/feature_xml_doc.gif|height=231|alt=image|width=572|...!
3. HTML representation of the document after the transformation has
been applied:
!https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/weblogs/images/30149/feature_example.jpg|height=101|alt=image|width=370|...!
To sum up: Using the new XML editor framework of Web Page Composer it's
quite easy for administrators to provide custom document types for the
authors with several alternative HTML representations (different XSL
transformations). The resulting XML documents are managed and stored in
a KM repository, so most of the functionality and services offered by
KM may be applied to these XML document.
Feature Summary (Part 2)
- form-based XML editor with flexible document structures
- XML-based document type definition
- complete separation of content, layout and style
- XSLTs for several alternative HTML representations
- XML documents stored and managed by KM
- public API for the creation of new document elements
(planned for SP13)
Outlook
In the next part of this blog series we'll try to illustrate how the
documents created with this XML editor framework and all other web
content is used to build and update web pages. In other words, we'll
focus on the page editor of Web Page Composer.
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