CMS
Workaround – Placing red dots inside of OpenText CMS Render Tags
Have you recently tried adding a red dot inside of a render tag? Chances are (100% chance) the code below will stop the render tag code inside the template from working.
Red dots inside a render tag - currently buggy. Can we fix this? Yes we can 
The problem is that OpenText has changed the mechanism on how to represent a RedDot dot in the script code which caused the XML parser working differently as before. Here’s a workaround a friendly helper from OpenText recently shared with me to get this working:
Based on the parser change, there is a way to replace “//<![CDATA[" and "//]]>” code within the Render Tags.
You need to modify the main.config file, which is locating at ASP folder(<Open Text Install directory>WSMSASP).
Insert these two new replacement instructions into the main.config file:
<Replace trim="true">
<OldValue>//<![CDATA[
</OldValue>
<NewValue><![CDATA[]]>
</NewValue>
</Replace>
<Replace trim="true">
<OldValue>//]]>
</OldValue>
<NewValue>
<![CDATA[]]>
</NewValue>
</Replace>
This piece of code has to be inserted into at the beginning of the <Configuration><Rendering><Preparse><SpotParse> block, eg:
====================================================
<Configuration>
.........
......
<Rendering>
<Preparse>
<SpotParse>
THESE TWO NEW REPLACES
..........
............
</Configuration>
=====================================================
Save the main.config file (make sure you backup the original one), then restart the RedDot CMS Services to let the changes take effect.
As always try this one your testing environment first. Good luck and godspeed.
No related posts.
About the author:
Markus Giesen is a Solutions Architect and RedDot CMS Consultant, formerly based in Germany. Travelling around the world to find and offer solutions for a better world (in a very web based meaning). He just found a way to do this as part of a Melbourne based online consultant house. On this blog Markus shares his personal (not his employers) thoughts and opinions on CMS and web development. In his spare time you will find him reading, snowboarding or travelling. Also, you should follow him on Twitter! 
Tags: Discussion
13 comments for “Workaround – Placing red dots inside of OpenText CMS Render Tags”
Post a comment
Stay up to date! - Get notified about followup comments
If you don't feel the urge to comment but wish to stay in the loop:Just enter your email and subscribe to new comments.
Categories
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Boris Crismancich on Clear the bloody cache in Open Text WSMS
- Boris Crismancich on Clear the bloody cache in Open Text WSMS
- Vijay Karthik on Two free RedDot CMS plugins – CMS User Chat & Batch Publish
- Stefan Renneke on Render Tags – An Overview
- Stefan Renneke on Render Tags – An Overview
Recent Tweets
- RT @AirKraft: Transport Canada breakout: they manage 80K pages and 300K assets with WSM(RedDot). Wow! #OTCW 2010-11-11
- The RedDot usergroup session 'Future of WCM' is in National Harbor 7, now. See you there! #otcw 2010-11-11
- RT @yttergren: @AirKraft: Calling all WSM(RedDot) devs: share your solutions on http://bit.ly/bgPIof EVERY solution can win an iPad #OTCW 2010-11-10
- Come to the Solution Exchange session. Enhance your (#reddot) CMS project! Chesapeake 12, 3:20pm #otcw Looking forward to see you there! 2010-11-10
- More updates...
Recent Posts
- OpenText enhancements with the rdQuery Framework – Finally RedDot CMS with less clicks!
- Merge variables available in the workflow’s Email task
- Clear OpenText Web Site Management CMS Cache
- OpenText Content World 2011 – Have you registered yet?
- OpenText WSM 11 – Is the “Swan” release going to fly?
- RQL development with OpenText Web Site Management Server 11
- Workaround – Placing red dots inside of OpenText CMS Render Tags
- How to show CMS authors the page status
- Project Database Schema
wow that’s a pretty nasty workaround.. have you heard of any plans for a hotfix for this? I’ve just been pulling all my reddots out of rendertags to mitigate the issue
No plans of a hot fix yet. However I’m extremely happy that I got pointed to this workaround by OpenText, their support seems to be a lot better recently when it comes to actually solving issues or finding feasible workarounds.
Sweet, this has been an issue in a few projects now, will make it much easier to create some of the functionality I need now.
I am wondering if main.config would reset on application update.
Would modifying the main.config would void the product warranty?
If modifying the main.config and RDServer.ini became a trend, then any project troubleshooting would need to include those files as a package sent to OpenText.
Also, any future update may make this work around non-functional, just like the islink=2, islink=10.
With all of those issues in mind, I would probably put in the initial time investment and place red dots outside rendertag, maybe show/hide using javascript.
You could argue the undocumented (unless i missed it) change to the reddot/render tag behaviour caused a few internal support issues after people ran application updates. What i saw was whole blocks of content disappearing without any error messages – the standard render tag behaviour.
If there is no intention of resolving this issue/changed behaviour within the product than i think this workaround can only be a short term fix and the longer term is to take out the reddots from within render tags. Some official advice/clarity from OT on this change i think would be appreciated and an update to the official documentation to warn people of this problem also.
Here’s a (perceived) simple solution… fix the bug, document that it’s been resolved the update will reset the main.config to the default supported version and everyone is happy!
I tried to integrate this workarround in version 10 sp2 hf6. but it doesn’t work. After restarting the services I get .NET-Error that there is something wrong with the XML.
Hi Markus, what’s your version number?
We’ve got this working on: Management Server 10.1 Build 10.1.1.334
Great… but why isn’t it working at our version? I see the content within the render-tags if the page is not in edit-mode. But if I open the page for editing I see nothing. Doesn’t matter We have done a workaround for the specific content-class.
Hi guys,
It has been reported that this workaround do not work in SP2_HF8_Build_10_1_2_341
The following code works in Management Server 10.1 Build 10.1.2.341 (= SP2_HF8_Build_10_1_2_341):
<![CDATA[//
<![CDATA[//
]]>
]]>
…another try to show the code here, sorry:
<pre>
<Replace trim=”true”>
<OldValue>
<![CDATA[//<!]]><![CDATA[[CDATA]]>
</OldValue>
<NewValue>
<![CDATA[//<~~CDATA]]>
</NewValue>
</Replace>
<Replace trim=”true”>
<OldValue>
<![CDATA[//]]]]><![CDATA[>]]>
</OldValue>
<NewValue>
<![CDATA[//~~>]]>
</NewValue>
</Replace>
</pre>
Hi,
I played it simpler with preexecute in php without changing any files.
<?php
$editcode = <<<EOT
EOT;
?>