When using custom catalogs, you can run ATG Commerce in two separate modes, production mode or development mode. The mode that you run in determines how the values custom catalog-related properties are obtained.
development mode: Uses derived properties so that you can preview a product catalog on a web site while you’re making changes without having to run the batch service (
CatalogMaintenanceService). Development mode makes the updates incrementally so you can preview your changes throughout the development process.Development mode overrides the definitions of certain properties in the catalog repository that are normally computed by the batch service, and these properties are derived on-the-fly. Development mode is more resource intensive than production mode because these properties have to be computed at the time they are referenced, rather than being pre-computed by the batch service.
production mode: Uses computed properties. This mode uses the properties pre-computed by the batch service, so performance is upgraded over development mode because time is no longer spent deriving the property values.
For example, there is a catalogs property for products, which holds a list of all valid catalogs in which you can view that product. There are two “helper” properties that go with the catalogs property: computedCatalogs and derivedCatalogs.
When the batch service runs, it stores the value into the computedCatalogs property. If you are running in development mode and you access the catalogs property, it references derivedCatalogs, which derives the value at the time of the request. When running in production mode, it references computedCatalogs, which already has the value stored there.
When you run the batch service, regardless of what mode you are in, it stores the value in computedCatalogs. In the development mode, catalogs property refers to derivedCatalogs, so the value stored in computedCatalogs is not used. When you switch to running production mode the computedCatalogs value is used.
Using Development Mode
The development mode allows you to preview the custom catalogs as you edit them. For more information on assembling an ATG Commerce application with custom catalog in development mode, see the ATG Programming Guide.
Using in Production Mode
The production mode is the most efficient mode to run in when you won’t need to preview changes to the custom catalog. For more information on assembling an ATG Commerce application with custom catalog in production mode, see the ATG Programming Guide.
