Pre-rendering
Overview
Prerendering is snap-shot of an entire Web Content Management Site converted to HTML files which can be served by HTTP Server.
Included items...
- specified WCM site object
- all associated site areas
- all associated content
Library components referenced by prerendered site areas and content are rendered directly into the prerendered content object.
Resources, including images and files, are stored in...
pre_render_dir/sitename/resources
The web server used to display rendered content can be local or remote. If remote, a process must be created to automatically copy new content from local server to remote http server, for example using rsync.
The pre-rendering engine can be configured to run in two ways:
- At an interval in minutes
- At specified times
A site that is personalised can't be pre-rendered. If it is pre-rendered then every user will see the content that the chosen pre-renderer user is profiled to see
The path to the content item, including the directory path you are pre-rendering to...
/path/to/Site/SiteArea/Content
..cannot exceed the operating system's maximum path length...
- 255 characters in Microsoft Windows.
- 1024 characters in Linux.
Invalid Characters in Site, Site Area or Content Names
Sites, Site Areas, and Content obejcts can not contain characters that are considered invalid in filenames by the operating system you are prerendering to. E.g. - In a Microsoft Windows environment, these characters are invalid:
/ \ : * ? " < > |
Limited security
You can tell the pre-rendering which user to use when generating the snapshot, so the snapshot only contains what they can see
Entire site must be pre-rendered before it can be used
It can take a long time to pre-render a site.
The entire site must be pre-rendered before it can be used, otherwise users will get broken links
If content contains links to PDM documents, these links will be rendered intact, so the final HTTP Server will need access to the PDM server in order for those links to work
Force refresh of specified page
Use the CacherModule to flush the required pages and then rerequest them via the same module
To flush specified page:
<URL_TO_PAGE>?MOD=CacherModule&SRV=flushPageCache&library=<LIBRARY_NAME>
To pre render specified page:
<URL_TO_PAGE>?MOD=CacherModule
Pre-rendering as data feed
A client required WCM content to be used as a feed for an Adobe Flash program. A small pre-rendered site was created, which contained only the WCM element to be used as input for Flash. This file was propagated to the http server as an XML file using rsync.
Other rendering options
Other options for delivering static content to a web server or other service...
- Use the JSP c:import tags to call WCM servlet urls.
- Leverage RSS feed produced from WCM and then feed into your external sites. Options for doing so, include...
- Create a WCM JSP component that uses WCM API to generate RSS feed specifically for the requested content only. Reference the JSP component in a presentation template.
- Use a Navigator to generate RSS for content you want to publish. Parse the RSS feed and grab whatever you need.
- Use Rapid Content Integrator.