WebCenter PS5 - Framework Folders

Looks like the long overdue PS5 is released. The main change is from Contribution Folders to Framework Folders. Oddly enough both are still supported even though Contribution Folders are obsolete. And of course you shouldn't confuse the two with Records Folders, although the new functionality blurs the lines even further.

SSP Exclude and other quirks

SSP (Site Studio Publisher) is a welcome replacement to the awkward SSPU. Like its predecessor, it is a tool for publishing a dynamic website as a bunch of simple HTML files. But it's got a few quirks you should know about if you want to get it working (and the manuals don't mention this stuff!)

More on OracleTextSearch deficiencies

I was so focussed on exploring multiple sort criteria with OracleTextSearch that it was pointed out to me afterwards that even a single sort criteria fails. Shonky stuff!

The MultiSort component was "fixed" in late 2009 to identify optimised fields and ignore the rest. That means it provides sorting on 5 fields only - date, title, ID, security and type. Considering there are typically just a few security groups and content types it's hardly worth using. Installing URM gives one more field. Whoopdie doo.

I'm sticking with Database.Fulltext search. Sure it's slower to rebuild and doesn't have fancy drilldown features - but it works the way it is supposed to.

OracleTextSearch: sorting by multiple fields = multiple problems

OracleTextSearch mangles the multi-sorting functionality of UCM search results. The MultiSort or SearchSortOptions components won't work, I don't know if there are newer versions that will. But the ability to sort on multiple fields is still possible, read on to figure out how to do it.

Tinkering with the search query

Sometimes the search query isn't enough. Sometimes the administrator needs to add a few restrictive clauses or maybe inject some SQL to tweak the results. Content Server is very careful about tidying up search strings which means that modifying search behaviour is not something that can be done with Idoc. But access points do exist that provide a safe way to unobtrusively alter the query.