Assembler configuration

The Assembler implementation included with Tools and Frameworks is configured through Spring. The configuration in the Spring context file applies to both the in-process Assembler and the Assembler Service.

This guide assumes an application based around the included Assembler implementations. You can provide your own implementation if you need to use an alternate means of configuring the Assembler.

In the reference implementations, application-specific Assembler configuration is specified in the Spring context file located in WEB-INF\assembler-context.xml.

The AssemblerFactory is an interface for creating a new Assembler. The reference implementation uses the SpringAssemblerFactory implementation and defines it as follows: 

<bean id="assemblerFactory" class="com.endeca.infront.assembler.spring.SpringAssemblerFactory"
    scope="singleton">
    <constructor-arg>
        <bean class="com.endeca.infront.assembler.AssemblerSettings">
            <property name="previewEnabled" value="${preview.enabled}" />
            <property name="previewModuleUrl" value="http://${workbench.host}:${workbench.port}/ifcr" />
        </bean>
    </constructor-arg>
</bean>

For details about the AssemblerFactory interface and the SpringAssemblerFactory implementation, see the Assembler API Reference (Javadoc).

A cartridge handler is an Assembler component that takes the configuration model for a specific cartridge and interacts with an external system to produce a response model. Cartridge handler configuration is a subset of Assembler configuration.

The httpServletRequest bean provides access to the HTTPServletRequest object for the current request. 

<bean id="httpServletRequest" scope="request"
          factory-bean="springUtility"
          factory-method="getHttpServletRequest" />

Cartridge handlers that need access to the servlet request can specify a reference to this bean as follows: 

<property name="httpServletRequest" ref="httpServletRequest" />

The Assembler provides several utilities for parsing incoming requests and forming MDEX Engine queries.

The MDEX resource provides access to the MDEX Engine and manages information about the MDEX Engine and its schema configuration. Cartridge handlers can request data from their MDEX resource during the course of processing a cartridge.

The MDEX resource has the following properties:

MDEX resource property

Description

appName

The name of the application that the MDEX instance is associated with. Typically there is at least one MDEX per application.

host

The hostname or IP address of your MDEX Engine server.

port

The port on which the MDEX Engine server listens.

sslEnabled

Enables SSL communication for the MDEX Engine.

recordSpecName

The name of the property that serves as the record spec in your data set.

The navigation state builder is responsible for parsing the request URL into a NavigationState object and for generating URLs based on a NavigationState.

Navigation state builder property

Description

urlFormatter

Specifies the UrlFormatter object to use for parsing the request URL into a NavigationState object and for generating URLs based on a NavigationState.

Note

In the Discover Electronics application, this bean is configured in endeca-url-config.xml.

mdexRequestBuilder

The MdexRequestBuilder implementation to use for forming MDEX Engine requests. For more information, see "About configuring cartridge handlers that make search and navigation queries."

contentPathProvider

Specifies the ContentPathProvider implementation that provides the URL path info for a navigation query or a record query. A reference implementation, BasicContentPathProvider, is included as part of Discover Electronics. As configured in the example below, it returns /browse for navigation queries and /detail for record detail queries.

defaultSearchKey

The name of a property, dimension, or search interface against which searches (using the Search Box cartridge) are performed.

defaultMatchMode

The match mode to use for text searches. Valid values for this property follow the syntax of URL parameters for search mode, without the mode+match prefix.

siteState

Identifies the current site using the siteStateBuilder configuration.

siteManager

Reference to the siteManager component, which is used by NavigationStateBuilder to look up the site definition for the currently active site.

removeAlways

removeOnUpdateFilterState

removeOnClearFilterState

These properties configure which URL parameters from the request URL are preserved when generating action strings and which ones are removed, depending on the type of transition the action URL represents.

recordDetailsDimensionNames

A list of dimensions whose dimension values should be applied to the navigation state for a record query based on the values that are tagged on that record. This navigation state can be used for triggering configuration for the associated record detail page or for a spotlight cartridge that has the "restrict to refinement state" option enabled.

Filter state property

Description

rollupKey

A rollup key (used for aggregated records) to apply to all queries made with the default filter state.

autoPhraseEnabled

Specifies whether to apply automatic phrasing to text search queries. By default, automatic phrasing is enabled. For more information about automatic phrasing configuration, see "About implementing automatic phrasing" in this guide.

securityFilter

A default record filter to apply to MDEX Engine queries. For information about the record filter syntax, refer to the MDEX Engine Development Guide.

languageId

The language ID (as a valid RFC-3066 or ISO-639 code) to specify for MDEX Engine queries. For information about working with internationalized data, refer to the MDEX Engine Development Guide.

The NavigationState object contains two filter states:

For more information about filtering syntax, refer to the Assembler API Reference(Javadoc) content for the NavigationState interface.

Using com.endeca.infront.navigation.NavigationState.getFilterState() combines site-based filters and URL filters.

FilterState feature

Filter results

Search (Ntt, Ntk, Ntx)

Site and URL

Security (Cannot be security filter with a URL)

Site

Nav (N)

URL

Record (Nr)

Site and URL

Range (Nf)

Site and URL

Geo (Nfg)

URL

Featured Records (Rsel)

Site and URL

EQL Filter (Nrs)

URL

Rollup Key (Cannot be specified in a URL)

Site

Language ID (Ntl)

URL

Autophrase Enabled (Ntp)

URL

The site state builder is responsible for identifying the current site or SiteState object. The site state builder iterates through all siteStateParsers and determines the current site or site state. Site state is referenced in Assembler components that must know the current site, for example, NavigationCartridgeHandler and NavigationStateBuilder.

SiteStateBuilder has the following properties:

Site state builder property

Descritption

siteManager

Retrieves site definitions.

siteStateParsers

A list of site state parsers that are run in the configured order to resolve siteState. Oracle provides the RequestParamParser and URLPatternParser.

RequestParamParser returns SiteState if site id is provided by a request parameter called siteId.

URLPatternParser returns SiteState by matching patterns configured on each site with the incoming request.

defaultSiteStateParser

Returns the default site for an application. This is only used if siteStateParsers fails to return a SiteState.

contentPathTranslator

Retrieves the page contentPath from a request, for example, /browse.

Cartridge handlers that need to make MDEX Engine queries can reference the navigation state, record state, site state, user state, and MDEX request builder beans configured in the cartridge support section of the Spring context file.

The navigation state and record state represent the query parameters for each type of MDEX Engine query. The MDEX request builder consolidates requests from all the cartridge handlers in a single Assembler processing cycle into as few MDEX queries as possible. These beans are defined in terms of previously configured beans; their configuration should not need to vary between applications.

The NavigationCartridgeHandler references the navigationState, mdexRequestBuilder and siteState beans for making navigation queries. The RecordDetailsHandler references the recordState for record detail queries. Cartridge handlers (including many of the core cartridges) that need access to the navigation state, record state, site state or the MDEX request builder typically extend one of these handlers. Note that RecordDetailsHandler itself extends NavigationCartridgeHandler as shown below, thereby inheriting the references to the navigation state and MDEX request builder specified in the NavigationCartridgeHandler bean. 

<bean id="NavigationCartridgeHandler" abstract="true">
    <property name="navigationState" ref="navigationState" />
    <property name="mdexRequestBuilder" ref="mdexRequestBuilder" />
				<property name="mdexRequestBuilder" ref="mdexRequestBuilder" />
				<property name="actionPathProvider" ref="actionPathProvider"/>
    <property name="siteState" ref="siteState"/>
				<property name="userState" ref="${user.state.ref}"/>
</bean>

<bean id="CartridgeHandler_RecordDetails" 
  class="com.endeca.infront.cartridge.RecordDetailsHandler"
  parent="NavigationCartridgeHandler" scope="prototype" >
    <property name="recordState" ref="recordState" />
</bean>

Cartridge handlers that retrieve dynamic content based on trigger criteria can reference the content manager bean configured in the cartridge support section of the Spring context file.

The content manager depends on the content trigger state builder and its associated content trigger state, which perform similar functions to the navigation state builder and navigation state, only for the trigger query that retrieves dynamic content configuration, rather than the main navigation query.

Application-specific configuration for these beans relates to preview and auditing functionality. For more information about configuring preview, see "Setting up the Preview Application for Workbench."

The ContentSlotHandler references the content manager to make dynamic content queries. Other handlers that need to retrieve content items from a folder in Experience Manager should extend from this handler. 

<bean id="CartridgeHandler_ContentSlot"
  class="com.endeca.infront.content.ContentSlotHandler"
  scope="prototype">
    <property name="contentManager" ref="contentManager" />
</bean>

The Spring Assembler servlet extends the AbstractAssemblerServlet class, which requires a method for retrieving an AssemblerFactory, and another for retrieving a ResponseWriter that processes Assembler output.

The Assembler servlet references the same Spring configuration as the rest of the Assembler, with an additional dependency on response writer configuration.

The Assembler servlet uses JSON or XML response writers to serialize the results of a query. The Assembler includes default implementations of a JSONResponseWriter and an XMLResponseWriter. You can provide your own implementation if you need to output the Assembler response to a different format (such as a different XML representation). 

<bean id="jsonResponseWriter"
  class="com.endeca.infront.assembler.servlet.JsonResponseWriter"
  scope="singleton"/>

<bean id="xmlResponseWriter"
  class="com.endeca.infront.assembler.servlet.XmlResponseWriter"
  scope="singleton"/>

The reference content includes two Web applications that run the Spring Assembler servlet with the appropriate configuration for Discover Electronics in either an authoring or a live environment:

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