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Wednesday 1 February 2012

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!)

The capability for a publish to include or exclude files is important. In SSPU a regex expression can be used to specify excludes but not includes (this may have been fixed in the latest release.) The guarenteed approach is to write a regex exclude that only traps specifc paths & files and ignores others that need to be included in the publish. Adding these excludes can only be done by editing the configuration file when SSPU is shut down. Furthermore, once a path has been published, it cannot be excluded! The task needs to be recreated.

Fortunately, SSP excludes can be updated on-the-fly using the web interface. Unfortunately the geniuses at Oracle have mangled the interface. They provide a "Exclude List" and "Include List" interface that between them do jack shit. To actually exclude items, click on the "Filterset list" instead and create a filter of type "Exclude." Enter a path (uses regex - single-slash escape characters, case sensitive) and by jingoes, it actually works.

Some paths you must exclude, like the Error Handler section or a Site Manager page. In fact, a site designed for a static publish must not have an error page. This is because the error page doesn't return a HTTP 404 header - the publish will treat all your broken links as legitimate pages and fill the site with your error page. If the Error Handler section is required, write a component to fix the header it returns.

It's actually a good idea to create a section specifically to be excluded. You can then create new pages and experiment inside the section without the risk of accidental publishing.

1 comment:

  1. You figuring this out is worth posting here and on the forum. Thank you for your research!

    ReplyDelete