The View Mapping System is a repository that contains items used to assemble the Details pane for a given item in a particular context. For example, the properties you see in the Details pane when you select a content group are controlled by the View Mapping System. The foundation of this system is defined in ATG Content Administration as described in the Overview of the View Mapping System section of the Customizing Asset Display chapter in the ATG Content Administration Programming Guide.
The Asset Manager extends the View Mapping System provided by ATG Content Administration in order to display the properties of personalization items appropriately in the UI. The Asset Manager includes new view mapping items, but no new item types or subtypes.
The Asset Manager implements view mappings to construct the Details pane and display item properties using the following process, which is different from the process used by ATG Content Administration:
At runtime, a JSP interacts with the parsed task configuration file to determine the appropriate mapping mode to use. For more information, see How the Task Configuration File is Processed.
Then, the JSP passes the map mode, item type (including repository path and item type), and item mapping name to the View Mapping System.
The View Mapping System returns an item mapping object that contains item view mapping, item view, property view, property view mapping, and form handler items, which are used to assemble the Details pane for the requested item. Each view mapping item represents a part of the Details pane.
Most view mapping items have display names that begin with “Asset Manager” when they represent items, such as those included in ATG Merchandising and ATG Personalization, that are supported by the Asset Manager framework. When you create custom view mapping objects, you should adopt a similar convention so all of your objects are easily recognized as your customizations.
Note: The term “view mappings” refers in general to items in the View Mapping repository. There is no specific type of item called a view mapping.
