Backward Compatibility and Upgrading

All custom element forms compatible with Site Studio releases before Site Studio 10gR3 (10.1.3.3.3) are not compatible with Site Studio 10gR4 (10.1.4) and later releases, and they must be manually upgraded (re-authored). The primary reason for not maintaining backward compatibility is due to Site Studio's prior dependency upon Internet Explorer's proprietary 'window.external' functionality. This is because Contributor used an ActiveX control. The window.external functionality blocked at the point of code execution and is not easily duplicated in a cross-browser/platform DHTML solution. The upside to breaking backward compatibility is that the new custom elements are much more flexible and better integrated into the Contributor application architecture (in addition to being a cross-browser/platform solution).

Detecting Legacy Custom Element Forms

A legacy custom element form (that is, pre-10gR3, 10.1.3.3.3), if loaded into the new Contributor application, is detected (by default) and an error message is displayed in its place within the Contributor form. The Contributor application does this by first downloading the custom element form, parsing the source code, and ascertaining whether the custom element form is compatible with the new Contributor application.

The functionality and overhead to detect legacy custom element forms is unnecessary on production installations and should be turned off when all legacy custom element forms have been upgraded. To turn off legacy custom element form detection, add the following line to the Content Server's config.cfg file and restart the server:

SSValidateCustomElements=false