Showing posts with label AEM 6.4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AEM 6.4. Show all posts

Saturday 13 June 2020

Configure the https(SSL) on AEM instance quickly


There are cases where during development we may need to setup https connection in our existing AEM instance.

By following procedure we can have both http and https on same AEM instance. This is very helpful while testing some of the AEM features which require SSL connections.

To start with, we need keys and certificates to configure SSL on AEM. We will use OpenSSL to set up keys and certificates. The method is tested on window, but should work on any other OS seamless way.

How to setup OpenSSL on Windows

  • Download OpenSSL from any URL - Ensure its relevant to your OS (including 86 Vs 64 Bit)
  • Unzip it.
  • Set the classpath


  • place the conf file in below path (Else you may get an error that openSSL conf cannot be found)

Now the OpenSSL is configured on your windows
  • Using command prompt execute below commands

### Create Private Key
$ openssl genrsa -aes256 -out localhostprivate.key 4096

### Generate Certificate Signing Request using private key
$ openssl req -sha256 -new -key localhostprivate.key -out localhost.csr -subj "/CN=localhost"

### Generate the SSL certificate and sign with the private key, will expire one year from now
$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in localhost.csr -signkey localhostprivate.key -out localhost.crt

### Convert Private Key to DER format - SSL wizard requires key to be in DER format
$ openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -outform DER -in localhostprivate.key -out localhostprivate.der -nocrypt

You will have the certificates now in local drive as shown below.




Use the SSL Wizard in AEM

Now login to AEM
http://localhost:4502/aem/start.html

Tools > Security > SSL Configuration

For store credentials provide the Key store and Trust store password. [I have used admin for all, since its a localhost]

Friday 14 December 2018

Working with Content Fragment Model in AEM 6.4

We know that AEM Content Fragments helps to describe and manage structured content, where in  Content Fragment Model helps to Define the structure of Content Fragment

Steps to work with AEM Content Fragment Models

  • Enable use of content fragment models in configuration manager.
  • Apply the configuration to Assets folder.
  • Creating a Content Fragment Model.
  • Update the definition of Content Fragment Model.
  • Publish it.
  • Delete it.

In this video we will see how to work with Content Fragment Model in detail.



Related Posts
https://aem-cq-tutorials.blogspot.com/2018/12/steps-to-create-custom-content-fragment.html

https://aem-cq-tutorials.blogspot.com/2018/06/create-content-service-end-point-in-aem.html

https://aem-cq-tutorials.blogspot.com/2018/05/aem-64-content-fragment-output-as-json.html



Create & Author Content Fragments in AEM

Previous post on this topic
How to create & Deploy a Progressive Web Application


Login to AEM, go to Assets > Files.
Let us create a folder now called 'My Samples' by clicking the create button.
Create CF Folder - click on it to see it big

Now go inside the folder and click on create > Content Fragment.

Then Select the Simple Fragment template. Enter title and description and then click on create.



Create Content Fragment AEM


In next dialog click on open and edit content fragment as shown below.

[Author CF]


To access the content fragment, we need to author it on a page. Let us author it on a sample we-retail page.

Now go to sites> we-retail > us >en > Men, open it for editing.

From component browser, drag and drop 'Content Fragment' component on the page.

[Author Content Fragment AEM 6.2 onwards


Click on Configure and add the newly created Content Fragment and save it.

[Authoring and landing]


We have the authored Content Fragment now. We can access it over the JSON Exporter API by invoking the '.model.json' in author instance, For me it was below URL.

http://localhost:4502/content/we-retail/us/en/men/jcr:content/root/responsivegrid/contentfragment.model.json

Note: This URL needs to be updated in file "retrieve_content_fragment.js" at line '$("button").click(function(){ $.ajax({url:'

The sample output is given below.


[AEM 6.4 Content Fragment Output]


Now Publish the page where Content Fragment is authored. So that all data is available in AEM Publish

Demo


Next post:
Integrate PWA & AEM and retrieve the AEM content from PWA.

Wednesday 12 December 2018

Steps to Create custom Content Fragment Templates in AEM 6.4

Hope you have gone through the basics of Content Fragments in AEM.
Create Content Fragments : Step By Step Tutorial

AEM 6.4 Content Fragment

[This tutorial works for versions AEM 6.2, AEM 6.3, AEM 6.4]

Generally AEM provides default content fragments template called 'Simple Fragment' [at location: /libs/settings/dam/cfm/templates]. But we may need to customize or create new templates based on our needs.

Here I will explain how we can create custom content fragment templates.

Where to create custom content fragment templates?


There are multiple places we can create custom content fragment templates.

  • Config: When we work with folder specific templates, use this location.
  • Apps: Usually general purpose templates are created here.


Content Fragment Templates Path


Let us create a template under /apps for general purpose use.

Steps
  • Traverse to /apps/settings/dam inside CRXDE lite.
  • Create a node of type cq:Page and name it 'cfm'
  • Under the newly created cfm node, create another node of type cq:Page and name it 'templates'.
  • Under templates node create a node of type cq:PageContent and name it 'jcr:content'.
  • Under jcr:content create a new boolean property called 'mergeList' with value 'true', this step ensures our new template is available in addition to /lib content fragment templates for authoring.
  • Now do 'Save All'.
Our crx looks like this now

Custom Content Fragment creation



We have the structure ready now, we will add properties for the template now by referring the /lib/ 'Simple Fragment' template.

  • Traverse to /libs/settings/dam/cfm/templates and copy 'simple' node.
  • Paste it on our structure under /apps/settings/dam/cfm/templates.
  • Now do a 'Save All'.

We now have below structure in crx.




We have a template similar to 'Simple Fragment' now. Let us customize the template for our need.

We will create title, description as elements and 2 variations for desktop and mobile.

Let us start by renaming 'simple' node to 'custom'

  • Select “jcr:content” under 'custom', Update the value of 'jcr:description' to 'A custom project specific fragment'.
  • Update value of 'jcr:title' to 'Custom Fragment'
  • Now rename 'main' under elements to 'title', update its 'jcr:title' to 'Title' and name to 'title'
  • Next create a new element – description by copying the  main and renaming. Update the 'jcr:title' to 'Description' and name to 'description'.
  • Now select node 'jcr:content' under node 'custom' and create a new node of type 'nt:unstructured' and name it 'variations'.
  • Create a new node for 'desktop' of type nt:unstructured under variations; add properties 'jcr:title' 'Desktop' and name 'desktop'.
  • Create a new node for 'mobile' of type nt:unstructured under variations; add properties 'jcr:title' 'Mobile' and name 'mobile'.
  • Now click on 'Save All'.

A new custom template is created now, which is ready for authoring.


Authoring Custom Content Fragment

Now go to AEM Assets >Files , click on 'Create' from top right hand corner and select 'Content Fragment'.
Here you can see the 'Custom Fragment'


Custom Fragment AEM 6.4



Select the 'Custom Fragment' and click 'next'.

Enter the values for title, description and click 'Create' then click on 'Open'.

Here you can see that a new Content Fragment is available with 'title', 'description'.
Similarly we can see that variations for 'desktop' and mobile also available for authoring.

In my upcoming blog, I will give a walkthrough on using Content Fragment with Progressive Web Applications.

Please dont forget to subscribe the blog.

Read More:

https://aem-cq-tutorials.blogspot.com/2018/06/create-content-service-end-point-in-aem.html

https://aem-cq-tutorials.blogspot.com/2018/05/aem-64-content-fragment-output-as-json.html




Monday 10 December 2018

Experience Fragment Use cases in AEM 6.4

An Experience Fragment is a set of content that grouped together forms an experience that should make sense on its own.







Experience Fragment :
- is a part of an experience.
- makes sense of its own.
- has one or multiple components.
- can be combined with other Experience Fragments.
- can be reused, reordered and resized across pages.
- can have different variations.
- is based on a template with its own structure.



Click on image to see it big

Below given a video series which gives a walk through of AEM 6.4 Experience Fragments

What is an Experience Fragment and its use cases
https://youtu.be/n19KjL_qm7Q

Create Experience Fragment in AEM 6.4 And authoring them
https://youtu.be/21hz7n-PWF8

Create Variations of Experience Fragment for web, Facebook, Pinterest and author them
https://youtu.be/KzF9ykHR0So

Deliver Experience Fragments on Webpage, or other cross channel applications like Facebook & Pinterest
https://youtu.be/Z22540FoADU



Thursday 25 October 2018

Modern AEM Component Implementation Patterns

AEM Core Components follow modern implementation patterns. There are two types of component patterns in AEM, General Component Pattern & Reusable Component Pattern




 1. General Component Patterns
 This set of patterns are recommended for any type of components(regardless whether the component is specific to a single project, or reused across multiple sites or projects).

 a. Configurable Components
 There are cases where we have a requirement of components which are having variation of similar elements. In such cases, it is recommended to have configurable components having dialogs with various options instead of creating multiple components.

 b. Separation of Concerns
 This patterns recommends the usage of separation of logic from markup.

 - HTL can be used for markup which is more secure.
 - SlingModels are the recommended option for Logic implementation 

2. Reusable Component Patterns
 These patterns are used for any kind of component, which are most suitable for components that are intended to be reused across multiple sites or projects(For eg. Core Components)

 a. Pre-Configurable Capabilities
 It is recommended to define the components/templates flexible as much as possible. Some examples could be using edit dialog (For Page authors), Design Dialog (For Template authors) and all these options are availabe under 'Policies' as part of editable templates.

 b. Proxy Component Pattern
 Here component inheritance is used as a proxy. Create second level components by referring the resourceSuperType property from core components.
Which offers more flexibility and avoid content refactoring if one site needs a different behavior for a component.

 c. Component Versioning
 Always introduce component versioning by adding a number in their resource type path, and in the fully qualified Java class names of their implementations, which will help keeping the components compatible over time. Useful when upgrade happens.

 d. Model Interfaces
 This pattern recommends the usage of  HTL's data-sly-use instruction to point to a Java interface, while the Sling Model implementation is also registering itself to the resource type of the component.

When there is a requirement to redefine the implementation of a Sling Model or  HTL markup of a component, this avoids complexity. Because they are loosely coupled.

Read More

Modern AEM Component Implementation Patterns

AEM Core Components

Proxy Components in AEM 6.4



Below video gives an overview of AEM Component Patterns

Proxy Components in AEM 6.4

What are proxy components?

Proxy Components are site-specific components which are inherited from core components, which define the desired component name and group to display for page authoring.
  • Proxy Components refer to a Core Component as their super-type.
  • Proxy Components follow the path  : /apps/my-site/components (Where core components path : core/wcm/components)
These site-specific components are called proxy components, for the reason they don't need to contain anything; they just serve mostly to define the version of a component to use for the site. Infact, when customizing the Core Components, these proxy components play an essential role for markup and logic customization.
[Click on image to see it big]

Advantages of creating Proxy Components
  • Proxy components helps categorization of components in a reusable way.
  • Better seggregation: It is a good practice to have 'sling:resourceType' property pointing to site-specific components, instead of pointing to components that are shared by multiple sites.
  • This provide more flexibility and avoid content refactoring if one site needs a different behavior for a component.
  • Customization can then be achieved on the site-specific component and won't affect the other sites.
  • Proxy components can be entirely empty if they fully inherit the functionality, or they can redefine some aspects of the component.
 Read More

Modern AEM Component Implementation Patterns

AEM Core Components

Proxy Components in AEM 6.4


See below video to understand more about Proxy Components. 

AEM Core Components

 AEM Core components are available from AEM 6.2. AEM 6.3 onwards Core Components were getting more stabilized. Now we have AEM 6.4 which has the more advanced Core components.



  Core Components were introduced to provide robust and extensible base components, built on the latest technology and best practices, and adhering to accessibility guidelines.

 Core Components leverage the latest technology to enable the creation of flexible, extensible, and feature-rich components to enable authors to easily create content.

 AEM Core components are with HTML Template Language, or HTL, Touch UI dialogs and Sling Models, Secure, robust, version-able

 There are 16 Core Components in AEM 6.4 at present (This count keep getting increased based on developer contrbutions in GitHub), which can be divided into two categories .

 Page authorable components

-Breadcrumb
-Content Fragment
-List
-Navigation
-Page
-Quick Search
-Social Media Sharing
-Text
-Title
-Language Navigation
-Image

Form specific core components
-Form Hidden
-Form Options
-Form Text
-Form Button
-Form Container

When to Use the Core Components?

New Projects - New projects should always attempt to use Core Components.

Existing Projects - Recommendation is keep using the foundation components, unless a site or component refactoring is planned.

New Custom Components - Assess if an existing Core Component may be customized. If not, recommendation is to build a new custom component following the Component Guidelines.

Existing Custom Components - If your components work as expected, then keep them as they are.
If not, refer to "New Custom Components" above.

Foundation Component Support
Since the foundation components have served as a basis of so much project development over many versions, they will continue to be supported into the foreseeable future.

However, Adobe's development emphasis has shifted to the core components and new features will be added to them whereas only bug fixes will be made to the foundation components

Core Components Advantages
  • 100% written in HTL.
  • Apache 2.0 License.
  • Allow versioning of components.
  • GitHub
  • latest features are supported, plus backward compatibility is also available.
  • Unit test coverage > 80%

Steps to create a sample core components:
  • Download and Install
  • Create Proxy Components
  • Load the Core Styles
  • Enable the Components
Read More

Modern AEM Component Implementation Patterns

AEM Core Components

Proxy Components in AEM 6.4



See below video to understand more about creation of Core Components. 



See below video of Core Components walk-through. 

Wednesday 19 September 2018

Content Approval workflows in AEM 6.4

I have given a step by step demo of content approval process in AEM 6.4 in the video. Here I will explains the steps involved in detail.

[Click on images to see them big]



There are 3 major steps involved in AEM content approval,
  1. Creating a simple workflow model
  2. Creating a content approval workflow based on the model created
  3. Verify the workflow
User Creation

Before we start, we need a set of users to understand our Workflow process. For this , we will create 3 users called author, editor, legal.

Go to tools> Security > Users and create 3 users author, editor, legal. This is quite simple and direct step.

Steps for workflow creation

1) Creating a simple workflow model

- Go to Tools, Workflow, Models

- Select 'Create', then 'Create Model'.

- Then Add Workflow Model dialog appears. Enter the Title and Name, then select Done.

Newly created model is listed in the Workflow Models console.

- Select your new workflow, then click on Edit to open it for modification:

The new workflow will contain:
  • Flow Start
  • Step 1
  • Flow End
- Delete Step 1

- From the Workflow selection of the steps browser, drag a Participant Step onto the workflow and position it between Flow Start and Flow End.

- Open the properties by clicking on configure option

- In the Common tab enter Validate Content - for both the Title and Description.

- Open the User/Group tab:

- Select Editor for the User/Group field.

- Confirm the updates by selecting the tick mark.

- Drag an Or Split onto the workflow and position it between Validate Content and Flow End.

- Open the Or Split for configuration.

Configure:
  • Common: select 2 Branches
  • Branch 1: select Default Route. - This option will be selected by default when the user reviews the content.
  • Branch 2: ensure Default Route is not selected.
  • Confirm your updates to the OR Split.
- Drag a Participant Step to the left hand branch, open the properties, specify the following values, then confirm the changes:

Title: Reject Publish Request
User/Group: Author - (Editor will reject the publish and notify the author).

Now,

- Drag a Participant Step to the right hand branch,
- In the properties section, specify the following values, then confirm the changes:

Title: Approve for Legal review
User/Group: legal - (If editor is fine with the content, he asks the legal person to review for legal adherence).

- Drag an Or Split onto the workflow and position it between Validate Content and Flow End.

- Open the Or Split and make configurations as below.
  • Common: select 2 Branches
  • Branch 1: select Default Route.
  • Branch 2: ensure Default Route is not selected.
  • Confirm your updates to the OR Split.
- Drag a Participant Step to the left-hand branch, open the properties, specify the following values, then confirm the changes:

Title: Reject Publish Request
User/Group: Author - We will reject the publish and notify the author.

- Drag a Participant Step to the right-hand branch, open the properties, specify the following values, then confirm the changes:

Title: Publish Page as Requested
Process: select Activate Page. This process publishes the selected page to the publisher instances.

Now the workflow model looks like this.




Note: Remember to sync the workflow so that the latest changes will be always updated in run time.

2) Creating a content approval workflow based on the model created

- Now login as user 'author'

We have two options to trigger the content approval workflow.

a) Go to workflow model (http://localhost:(port)/libs/cq/workflow/admin/console/content/models.html) select, click on start workflow and specify the payload.

b) Go to sites> a project specific page. Select the page and click on 'Create workflow' from top left menu. Then in new window select the workflow model and provide a title. In next window click on 'create' so that the workflow will start.

3) Verify the workflow

- Now login as user 'editor' and go to inbox and open the message and complete the workflow. Editor will have options Approve for Legal review , Reject Publish Request

 Now the workflow will be moved to legal person as per our workflow model definition,

- Login as legal, and from inbox he will have options like 'Reject Publish Request', 'Publish Page as Requested'. Complete the review and approve it. So that the page gets activated.

If any of the editor or legal person rejects, the payload goes back to author and asks for re-verification.

Below given a video recording of the above mentioned activity. Let me know if you face any issues through the comments section.

        

Tuesday 21 August 2018

Sample components Creation in AEM 6.4


Steps to create a simple component in AEM 6.4 .

Under /apps, create a project folder(I have create 'myproj'), under which create a /components folder.

Under components, create folders /content and /structure as shown below.

Below shown the component structure in AEM 6.4.

[Click on any image to see it big & clear]

[Component structure in AEM 6.4]

Under structure create a node called 'header'., rename the header.jsp to header.html.

Add property 'componentGroup' : myGroup for the header node.

Copy pasted below html content in 'header.html'

    <div>    
        <li>         
            <p>This is a sample component</p>
            <h3>Header</h3>
            <p>This is a sample text in body pf component</p>           
        </li>
      </ul>
    </div>

Under header node, create a 'dialog' [primary type : cqDialog; xtype dialog]
Under dialog node, we will have 'items' [primary type: cq:Widget; xtype:tabPanel]
Under items, we will have 'items' node [primary type: cqWidegtCollection]
Under items, we will have  'tab1' node[primary type :cq:Panel; title: Tab 1]

The component is ready now.

Author this component on a page:
Since this is a new component, we need to make this component available for our template.
Add this component to our template created earlier by following below steps.

We had placed the component under 'myGroup'.
Now go to template policy section and modify the property to add the component as part of this template. Procedure is shown in below image.



[AEM 6.4 add policy]


Now as you see the new component is available for our template for authoring.


[New component]


Author the component on template and create a new page, so that the newly created component is visible now.


[New component authored n AEM 6.4.png]


Now activate the page (which includes template, component activation), so that the page will be visible in publish environment.

AEM 6.4 Tutorials Video Series
 

Create a page from the template in AEM 6.4



The page creation in AEM 6.4 is very much similar to other previous AEM versions.

I will be using 'we-retail' content location for my page creation to save time.

Go to site admin and reach the path '/content/we-retail/language-masters/en',(remember this is the content path where I had configured my template in my previous post).

 Click on new page and select the 'Html 5 template' we created as part of previous post as shown below and create page from it.

[Click on the image to see them big & clear]

[site creation AEM 6.4]

The new page looks like this.



[Page creation aem 6.4]

Next post we will demonstrate how to create AEM 6.4 sample components.

AEM 6.4 Tutorial Series

Creating an editable template in AEM 6.4


Steps involved in creating an AEM 6.4 Editable Template.

1) Create template folder

To create a template folder, follow this steps.

Go to Global Navigation -> Tools > Configuration Browser.

All the existing folders are listed to the left rail including the global folder.

Click 'Create'.

In the Create Configuration dialog enter below details:

Title: Give a title for the configuration folder(For Eg.SampleFolder)
Editable Templates: Tick to allow for editable templates within this folder
Click Create



2) Creating a New Template - This is usually done by Template Author

Follow below steps.
  • Go to Tools -> General -> Templates
  • Select the previously created folder 'SampleFolder'.
  • Select Create, Select HTML5 Page template(content page), select 'Next'
  • Enter the name and description and select 'Create'

[Click on the image to see them big & clear]





Now we will see a Success message on completion

AEM 6.4 template creation success


Select Open to start editing the template or Done to return to the template console.

We now have the template created and it has below form.



Using structure option, I have authored a text and an image as shown below.


Using layout container[root],  I have unlocked the layout so that all pages which uses this template will have 'Drag Components Here' enabled and I will be able to author more components.




The 'policy icon' left to the lock icon helps to add policy like linking specific component to this template.

We have the template ready now.

3) Enable the template

Now go to templates folder and select the 'Enable' template so that it is activated. Enabling the template allows the template to be used for page creation.




4)Allowing a Template - Template Author

Now, we need to link this template to our content path. The configuration path is '/conf/SampleProjects/settings/wcm/templates'




Path format in general is : /conf/<your-folder>/settings/wcm/templates/.*

Add this path to page properties of the content root where you are creating page. I have selected 'we-retail' as may content root for ease(/content/we-retail/language-masters/en).

Here is how you can do this, open page from site admin, go to page properties, > advanced > Template settings and add allowed templates with current template path as shown below.

Template property in AEM 6.4

We are done with the template creation now. In next post, we will try to create a page using this template.

AEM 6.4 Tutorial Video Series 

 

Monday 20 August 2018

Useful AEM Consoles in AEM 6.4

 Below given all useful consoles from AEM 6.4. This is valid for versions AEM 6.3, AEM 6.2, AEM 6 etc.










AEM Tutorial Videos

AEM Admin Console
http://localhost:4502/aem/start.html

Site Admin Console
http://localhost:4502/siteadmin

DAM Console
http://localhost:4502/damadmin

Campaigns
http://localhost:4502/mcmadmin#/content/dashboar

Inbox
http://localhost:4502/inbox

User Admin
http://localhost:4502/useradmin

Tools Admin
http://localhost:4502/miscadmin

Tag Admin
http://localhost:4502/tagging

CRXDE Lite  
http://localhost:4502/crx/de/index.jsp

CRX Explorer  
http://localhost:4502/crx/explorer/index.jsp

Package Manager  
http://localhost:4502/crx/packmgr/index.jsp

Package Share Explorer  
http://localhost:4502/crx/packageshare/

Backup Console  
http://localhost:4502/libs/granite/backup/content/admin.html

Web Console  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/configMgr

OSGi Bundles Console/Felix console  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/bundles

Query Debugger Tool  
http://localhost:4502/libs/cq/search/content/querydebug.html

Search UI  
http://localhost:4502/crx/explorer/ui/search.jsp?Path=&Query=

Display Client Libraries in use by Component  
http://localhost:4502/libs/granite/ui/content/dumplibs.html

JVM Memory Usage  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/memoryusage

JVM Runtime Properties  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/jmx/java.lang%3Atype%3DRuntime

Performance profiler  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/profiler

Disk Performance Benchmarking  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/diskbenchmark

Product Version and License Information  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/productinfo

Node Type Administration Console  
http://localhost:4502/crx/explorer/nodetypes/index.jsp

Maintenance Tools  
http://localhost:4502/system/console/jmx/com.adobe.granite%3Atype%3DRepository

http://localhost:4502/libs/cq/workflow/content/console.html





Wednesday 1 August 2018

Enhance Language Translation capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager using Smartling’s Connector

As we know a bigger portion of the global audience accessing digital content doesn't speak English. So the content generated in English needs to be converted to other languages as required. In AEM we do this using various methods including manual process.

Necessity of agile global content management

  • Automate translation management and user experience.
  • Centralize all translation activity to a cloud based dashboard.
  • Take help of analytics to improve translation quality.

For almost all companies translation means manual process of copy paste content in spreadsheets.

Common components of a Translation Management System(For E.g: Smartling)

  • Cloud based and with translation services enabled
  • Having Workflows
  • Have a database
  • Have a good connectivity across channels
  • Ability to provide reports of any kind
  • Should be Secure
  • With a guidance and support

AEM With Smartling - Advantages

AEM with Smartling extend Adobe Experience Manager’s capabilities with seamless access to a powerful translation management platform.
The combination of Adobe Experience Manager and Smartling provides users with a robust solution for translation, with full visibility and control across the entire organization. Smartling builds on Adobe Experience Manager’s localization framework, which enables to request translations with the click of a button.

Smartling has almost all of the common components of a Translation Management System.

Some of the features are listed below.
  • Helps to create high quality translations automatically
  • Leverages any native frameworks for localization
  • Translate page, DAM asset metadata, dictionaries, custom attributes , database content etc,
  • Having a dashboard to control translation process and report generation
  • Highly customizable

Why Smartling?

Smartling is one of the leading translation management platform to localize almost anything. Smartling's translation management system streamlines the translation process into largely automated and hands free undertaking.

With a focus on automation, scalability, and connectivity, Smartling helps developers tackle translation with technology that addresses current and future requirements

Below are some of the Smartling features
  • Save Time & Money
  • Reliable Technology
  • Status and reporting
  • omni-channel
  • Highly extensible and secure
  • Support for all major localization file formats
  • Seamless integration with developer environment with Smartling SDK
  • Automated generation of visual context for dynamic web applications and mobile apps
  • Automatic data capture
  • machine learning insights
  • APIs with hundreds of endpoints

Site Link: SmartLing

Are there any other such translators?

Yes. Wordbee is one such tool for localization of content. It is a cloud-based collaborative translation and project management platform. Wordbee provides Beebox, a CMS connectivity solution to work with AEM.



Adobe AEM CMS can be integrated with Wordbee Translator via its Beebox connector. The AEM-Beebox helps to localize perfectly with minimal management time.

The Beebox Connector is a regular Adobe AEM package (bundle). This connector lets you automatically apply the right project workflow to the right content source. The package has a UI which enables translation jobs and activities. The AEM Connector communicates to the Beebox middleware.

Advantages
  • The Beebox server is installed at the AEM/CQ owner’s premises.
  • A single Beebox server can connect any number of content management systems with any number of Translation Management Systems or translation teams. 

Read about Wordbee
AEM connector page

Friday 27 July 2018

Understanding Indexing in AEM

Older version of AEM/ CQ, Jackrabbit index the content by default. But Oak doesn't index content by default. We need to do it like how we do indexing for a DataBase.

Why do we need to index?
When a JCR query gets executed, usually it searches the index first. If there is no index, the query executes for the entire content. This is time consuming and an overhead for the AEM. But keep in mind, if the frequency of queries executed are less, we can ignore the indexing.

Let us understand the Oak and AEM indexing in detail here.

In fact, there are three main types of indexes available in Oak
  • Property
  • Lucene
  • Solr
And below are the supported query languages from Oak
  • XPath (recommended)
  • SQL-2
  • SQL (deprecated)
  • JQOM
AEM allows writing queries in one of three ways:
  • QueryBuilder APIs (recommended)
  • Using XPath (recommended)
  • Using SQL2
Note: all queries are converted to SQL2 before being run,

Indexing modes
Different versions of the node data is compared to find indexes. The indexing mode defines how comparison is performed, and when the index content gets updated. Below given the indexing mode and details.

Sync Vs  Async Vs Nrt
  • Async - When we index in async mode, results returned by index may not always reflect the exact up to date state of the repository.
  • Sync - Sync Index ensures that index is updated as part of each commit.
  • NRT - This method indicates that index is a near real time index.
The flow of index is given in below image.
*Click on image to view it big and more clear.

[Indexing in AEM 6.4]



Below given various indexes in detail.

Property Index - Not a full-text indexing method. Index definition is stored in the repository itself.

Configuration
type: property;
propertyNames: jcr:uuid (of type Name)

Ordered Index - [deprecated] - This is an extension of the Property index. It keeps the order of the indexed property persistent in the repository.

Configuration
type: ordered;
propertyNames: jcr:lastModified

Lucene Full Text Index - This is a full text index method, which is asynchronous too.

Configuration
type: lucene ;
async: async

Lucene Property Index - This is not a full-text indexing.

Configuration
 type: lucene ;
 async: async ;
 fulltextEnabled: false;
 includePropertyNames: ["alias"]

The Solr Index - This is a full-text search but it can also be used to index search by path, property restrictions and primary type restrictions, which means the Solr index in Oak can be used for any type of JCR query.

Configuration
type:solr;
async:async;
reindex:true

Traversal Index - When no indexing is done; All content nodes are traversed to find matches to the query, slower and overhead to AEM.

A tabular version is given below



[AEM Oak Indexing]


Video description of the blog given below.



 Read about AEM 6.4 Oak Queries and Indexing

Best Practices for Queries and Indexing

Monday 23 July 2018

Single Page Applications and AEM

What is Single Page Applications - SPA?

Single Page applications are pages which dynamically update its content using AJAX calls to create a fluid & responsive experience.

In traditional applications, each request reloads/renders the HTML; but in SPA all interactions happens through AJAX calls. The return data is in JSON format. Previous versions of AEM had a miss on the SPA but with upcoming releases AEM SPA Editor provides a wonderful solution for supporting SPAs within AEM.

Single Page Applications - Features


  • This avoids page reloading.
  • Reusable Content.
  • Majority of the work happens in client side.
  • Good separation between content and UI
  • Provides interactive experience
  • RESTFul JSON


SPA(Single Page Applications) Basics

Below image gives an overview on the Single Page Applications in general.
As mentioned, only the first request is responded with a complete HTML. Further requests are made in AJAX way to the server and response in provided in JSON format.


SPA with AEM.
Latest AEM releases are enabling users to develop Single Page Applications using AEM. AEM SPA Editor allows user to author a page with Content Fragments in addition to other normal components like title, footer, images etc and AEM Sling models generate the Page equivalent JSON. This RESTFul JSON can be made available for other SPA frameworks like Angular React etc.


 In upcoming posts, I will explain, how to create SPA in AEM.


Video version of the post is available below.

 

AEM 6.4 related posts:
Create Content Fragments : Step By Step Tutorial
Content Fragment out put as JSON

Friday 22 June 2018

Why you should think of using Adobe Cloud Manager for AEM Projects?

Brief Overview:
As we all know, Adobe Cloud Manager(ACM) is part of the Adobe Managed Cloud Services. Using Adobe Cloud Manager(ACM) organizations can manage their AEM application in cloud themselves.

-It includes a continuous integration and continuous delivery.
-Code Inspection, performance testing and security validation.
-Automatic, scheduled or manual deployment.

ACM documentation can be found here.

Can we move existing projects in to ACM?
Yes. We can move any existing AEM projects into ACM with recommended option of upgrading AEM version to the latest.

How safe if Adobe cloud service?
Below given the security measures in Adobe Cloud Manager in detail.

Code push to Cloud Manager is encrypted in transit. Cloud Manager build binaries are also encrypted in transit and when stored.
Each customer gets their own Git Repository and code is secure and not shared with any other Organizations.
All the code push happens securely into the Git Repository over HTTPS protocol.
Any service with third party cloud providers are always secured.
ACM(Adobe Cloud Manager) provides Role Based Permissions, which ensure the user action on application is defined within limits, which means developer will not be able to delete the application from cloud, only the authorized product owner or person will have critical permissions.

Quality checks
There are 3 types of check provided by ACM CI/CD process.
  • Code Quality
  • Performance Testing
  • Security Testing
All critical issues reported by system must be fixed.

Technical details of ACM build environment
  • ACM uses below build environment for managing CI/CD process
  • Linux based container
  • Oracle Java version 8
  • Maven version 3.3.9
  • Adobe maven repository(repo.adobe.com) included default

Additional system packages include,
Imagemagick, Graphicsmagick, bzip2, unzip etc.

Types of build pipe line configuration

3 Ways we can configure the CI/CD pipeline process on stage.
  1. Manual
  2. On Git Changes
  3. Recurring schedule
For the production deployment, system provides options as below
  1. GoLive approval,
  2. CSE oversight
  3. Scheduled
Code quality in ACM pipeline

The ACM build does code inspection based on SonarQuebe, which includes around 110 rules like standard Sonar Java rules,FindBugs rules, Cognifide AEM Rules, Adobe-created Rules

Read More: 
Quality, Security, Performance Checks in Adobe Cloud Manager

Friday 15 June 2018

AEM 6.4 Experience Fragment Basics

Experience Fragment Basics in AEM 6.4

AEM 6.4 provides headless(Content as a  service) CMS capabilities through  Content Fragments and Experience Fragments.

What is an experience fragment?

The headless capability to create experiences can be used to deliver content to third party system/touchpoint through various methods. AEM provides experience  fragments which has content and layout, and third party applications then deliver to the end user. Experience Fragments helps reuse of content.

An 'Experience Fragment' is a collection of components with its own content and layout.
  • Each Experience Fragment is based on a template which gives a structure.
  • Each experience fragment has one/many components with its own layout.
  • Each experience itself makes sense.
  • Created with intention of reuse, re ordered, resized.
  • Experience Fragments works on Caas model, with each fragment can be created with multiple variations.


Scenarios when an AEM Experience Fragment to be used?

There are times when we need to replicate same type of page section in other pages. 'Experience Fragments' can help us saving time in this case. Also cases like AEM is used as headless CMS, where AEM to be just used as content storage, not for delivery. In this case AEM Experience Fragment will be available for a third party rendering system for consuming.

Cases when we need multiple version of content, Experience Fragments are a good option.

Additional notes:

Experience Fragments allow to manage sections of experiences that can easily be reused and distributed. They are template based and allow live copy relationship. At present AEM 6.3 supports Experience fragments to html5 web templates, Pinterest and Facebook templates. Custom templates can be created if required.

Monday 4 June 2018

Create Content Service End point in AEM 6.4

Content Services & its use

Content Services enable the creation of Page-based HTTP end-points. This end points helps to render the content to a normalized JSON format.

How to configure & access the content services in AEM 6.4?
We need to configure content service end points when ever we need to export a Content Fragment data to external applications(Like Single Page Application or mobile app etc). Let us see how it can be done. The end point pages are not to be accessed as HTML pages, they just export the content in JSON Format.

We have created multi variation Content Fragments following our previous blog Create Content Fragments : Step By Step Tutorial.

Say we have master, mobile , tab variations as shown below.
[Click om images to see it big]


[Mobile & Tab Content Fragment]


Go to Sites> We-retail, click on 'Create' > 'Page'
Enter details as below and click on create. A new page will be created. (/content/we-retail/content-service-for-sample-fragment.html)




Open the page and author the content fragment in this page(Steps are explained in my previous post).




As you see, I have authored master, variation1(Mobile), Variation 2 (Tab) in the same page.

Now go to the page url and append '.model.json' to invoke JSON exporter. (In my case: content-service-for-sample-fragment.model.json). You can see the JSON with all variations included.



[JSON portion of Content Fragment for Mobile]



[JSON format for tablet]



From this JSON, we can iterate over the content fragments section and by checking for the variation, we can render items across various channels.

Remember I have authored the Content Fragment utilizing an existing we-retail template. So the JSON will have all related items like header , footer etc. In real projects, create a stand alone template and then create a page from this.

Related posts:
Create Content Fragments : Step By Step Tutorial
Content Fragment out put as JSON