Monday, September 28, 2015

Developing Page Content in AEM for a Future Release - Launches

We've had a requirement that has come from a customer who has basically said...
Each region/section of the home page is modified by a different content owner. They make changes independently of each other and they would like to have their region/section published independently.
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a page-centric content management system at its core. You build pages from templates and components. There are other CMS's, such as OpenText Web Experience Manager (WEM) that are content-centric. You build content items and assign them to channels and/or a template to build a page.

Our customer has been using a content-centric CMS for almost a decade and old habits die slow. There has been a huge push to get things working "like the old system".

When you dig to the root of this requirement, what they are really after is a way to efficiently develop the content on an activated page for a future release while still maintaining the production content. That's where AEM has offered Launches!

To create a Launch from the Touch UI console, navigate to any page within the Sites Menu, click on Create > Create Launch. There is no need to navigate to the page that you want to create a Launch for as you are forced to navigate to it through the Launch Wizard. Navigate through to your page and click Next.
There are two main options when creating a launch; to create the launch with existing content or to create a launch using a new template to replace the page.

If you create a launch using a new template, you are creating a new page with a new template that will replace the existing page. The final step you are asked to select the new template before you create the launch.

If you select to use existing content then you can select to exclude sub pages and/or inherit source page live dataBy default sub pages are copied over as part of a launch. Check the exclude sub pages box if you do not want the sub pages to be included as part of a launch. Inheriting source page live data is a feature that allows you to treat the launch page in the same way as a Live Copy page. Checking this option allows the launch page to stay in sync with any changes made to the source/live page unless you cancel inheritance.

The References section shows you how many Launches are associated with a page. To work with the content within a Launch, select the page and click References > Launches > Launch Title > Go to the page. This will open up the Launch Page.
If you have select to inherit the source page live data, you will need to Cancel inheritance on any component you want to modify. If the page does not inherit the source page live data, you can just change the page at will.

Launches also allow you to create a Nested Launches (Launch within a Launch). This is a very powerful feature but can also become very complicated! The key thing is that inheritance works from the point where it has been cancelled or from the source page. Sub Launches are labelled as the Launch Title (Parent Launch Title).

To promote a Launchselect the page and click References > Launches > Launch Title > Promote launch. From here you can specify the Scope (to promote the full launch or just the page changes and sub pages) and you can specify the Target if this is a Nested Launch. After the promotion has run, you can publish the page changes.

To delete a Launch from the Touch UI console, navigate to Tools > Operations > Launches. This will take you back into the Classic UI console. From here you can select and delete a configured Launch.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Scouting out The Cove Dirt Jumps

I couldn't stand being cooped up inside the house for another rainy weekend so I decided to head out to have a look at a second set of legal dirt jumps that I was able to find a little bit of information on. The Castle Cover dirt jumps are significantly larger than The Grove.
There's two main jump lines at The Cove. The beginner line is more of an intermediate compared to those at The Grove and the expert line is insane! The expert line had 10 feet high kickers and into 12 feet high landings!

The trails are well worn down and they need a lot of work. I think this is a combination of the bad weather and rain that's been hitting Sydney the last month, people not respecting the trains and local trail locals having moved on to other things. There are still signs posted up asking riders to sweep and water the trails before riding and to cover the trails after use.

I'll be back here in the next few months helping out to dig, reshape and ride!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

OOTB Forms VS AEM Forms

Adobe Experience Manager has two Forms products:
  • Default (Out Of The Box) Forms - The very basic form components to build simple forms within a page; and
  • Experience Manager Forms - Previously known as AEM Forms this is the full-blown, Lifecycle integrated Adaptive Forms suite. It's also an additional license cost!
The way the Adobe Doc's site has been reformatted makes it difficult to find any information. I'm posting this blog as an easy way for me to reference the documentation for each.

Default OOTB Forms
Experience Manager Forms (The Paid Version)

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

BMXPO Sydney 2015 (Part 3)

Here's the final set of the photos taken from Sydney's BMXPO 2015 and the 1986 King of the Skate Parks Reunion. Enjoy!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

BMXPO Sydney 2015 (Part 2)

Here's part two of the photos taken from Sydney's BMXPO 2015 and the 1986 King of the Skate Parks Reunion. Enjoy!

Monday, September 14, 2015

BMXPO Sydney 2015 (Part 1)

BMXPO 2015 combined forces with the 1986 King of the Skate Parks Reunion and Hell on Wheels BMX to put on an epic show of old school BMX's and some amazing skate park action! All of the proceeds went to the Children's Cancer Institute Australia and Beyond Blue charities. A total of $3100 was raised throughout the day! An awesome effort to the organisers and all of the participants in the show!

I entered two BMX's into the Show'n'Shine competition; my Toowoomba Bicycle Company (TBC) Cobra Quad and a First Generation Team Vector Unlimited FS Freestyle BMX. The Vector Unlimited FS is one of two known BMX's painted in yellow that were given to the Vector Team riders.

Here's the first part of the pics from the day!