Client static content in the file system

Introduction

Before the version 7.11, at the request of client content (.js, .css files), the application server generated the content dynamically, based on the current structure of package connections and schema dependencies. Generated data were cached and sent to client application.

Starting with version 7.11 all client content is preliminary generated in special application folder i. e. it becomes static. When requesting client content, the IIS searches for requested content in this folder and sends it to the client application. Thus, the overall performance of the application is increased and the server load is reduced.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages and disadvantages of using the client static content are given in the Table 1.

Table 1. Advantages and disadvantages of using the client static content

Generating static client content

Client content is generated in the specific folder (.\Terrasoft.WebApp\conf). In contains .js files with schema source code, .css files of styles and .js files of resources of all cultures of the application.

The actions to start generation of client content

Primary or secondary generation of static client content starts when the following actions are performed:

• Saving a schema through client schema designer and client objects designer.
• Saving through section wizard and detail wizard.
• Installing and deleting applications from Marketplace and zip archive.
• Applying translation.
• The [Compile all items] and [Compile modified items] actions in the [Configuration] section.

Generation of client content with the WorkspaceConsole utility

The BuildConfiguration operation was added to the WorkspaceConsole utility and this operation performs generation of client content. Operation parameters are listed in table 2.

Table 2. Parameters of the BuildConfiguration operation

Use cases:

Terrasoft.Tools.WorkspaceConsole.exe -operation=BuildConfiguration -workspaceName=Default -destinationPath="C:\WebApplication\BPMOnline\Terrasoft.WebApp" -force=true -logPath=C:\wc\log

Terrasoft.Tools.WorkspaceConsole.exe -operation=BuildConfiguration -workspaceName=Default -webApplicationPath="C:\WebApplication\BPMOnline" -destinationPath="C:\WebApplication\BPMOnline\Terrasoft.WebApp" -force=true -logPath=C:\wc\log

Compatibility with the development in the file system mode

Currently, the development in the file system is no compatible with getting client content from preliminary generated files. For the correct work of the development in the file system you need to disable getting static client content from the file system. Set the “false” for the UseStaticFileContent flag in the Web.config file to disable this functions.

<fileDesignMode enabled="true" />
...
<add key="UseStaticFileContent" value="false" />

Generation of client content when adding a new culture

Execute the [Compile all items] action in the [Configuration] section after adding new cultures.

Changes in the parameter object that generates an image URL (version 7.11.1)

Images in the client part of bpm’online are always being requested by a browser with a specific URL specified in the src attribute of the img html-element. The Terrasoft.ImageUrlBuilder (imagurlbuilder.js) module with the getUrl(config) public method that gets the image URL is used in the URL generation. This method receives the config configuration JavaScript object that contains an object of parameters in the params property. The image URL is being generated on the basis of this object.

Till the 7.11.0 version the structure of the params object had the following view:

config: {
    params: {
        schemaName: "",
        resourceItemName: "",
        hash: ""
    }
}

In this code:

• schemaName – schema name (string)
• resourceItemName – image name in the bpm’online (string)
• Hash – image hash (string).

Starting with version 7.11.1 the resourceItemExtension string property that contains file extension (for example, .png) was added to the parameters list. A new structure of the params object:

config: {
    params: {
        schemaName: "",
        resourceItemName: "",
        hash: "",
        resourceItemExtension: ""
    }
}

An example of correct generation of configuration object of parameters for getting the URL of a static image:

var localizableImages = {
    AddButtonImage: {
        source: 3,
        params: {
            schemaName: "ActivityMiniPage",
            resourceItemName: "AddButtonImage",
            hash: "c15d635407f524f3bbe4f1810b82d315",
            resourceItemExtension: ".png"
        }
    }
}