The recommended way to modify existing configurations provided in an out-of-the-box task configuration file is by creating a custom task configuration file that overrides them. Although you could modify an out-of-the-box task configuration file directly, it’s a good idea to preserve the originals and instead make modifications in a different file, so that you can easily incorporate settings provided by a new version of the ATG Business Control Center.
Multiple task configuration files are combined into one file using XML File Combination, so that all information can be parsed appropriately and made available to JSPs. Because you want to supply new settings to activities, task, or workflows that have already been given settings in a previous file, you need to use the attributes defined for use with XML File Combination, which is different from the syntax you use when you overwrite settings in the same task configuration file.
To begin, you need to specify the resource with settings you want to override as well as the xml-combine attribute and appropriate value. Consider this example: Before you create a user segment, you want to see how your external site visitors are divided geographically. The best way to view contact information is to search for users by contact information, which you can do if you add support for the contact info item descriptor to the Search tab:
<default-activity> <tabs> <tab id="search"> <views> <view id="form"> <item-types xml-combine="append-without-matching"> <item-type>/atg/userprofiling/ProfileAdapterRepository:contactInfo </item-type> </item-types> </view> </views> </tab> </tabs> </default-activity>
This code uses the append-without-matching value so that the item type is added to the existing list of searchable types provided in the default configuration file. For a complete list of xml-combine values and to learn more about the XML File Combination process, see the XML File Combination section of the Nucleus: Organizing JavaBean Components chapter in the ATG Programming Guide.
