Teamsite 7.2 comes with 2 new features: a Dependency Manager and a Globalized Content Manager. I will discuss the Globalized Content Manager later. Today I will focus on the Dependency Manager.
The Dependency Manager full fills a long running wish: how to manage relations (or links) between files in Teamsite, like a dcr that refers to an image. The dependency manager keeps track of these links, by storing them in an internal database. The information in this database is then used:
- to show all related files of a file
- to show a warning when the user tries to delete a file that is used by another file
- to add all related files (images, pages, etc) to the SitePublisher workflow if you submit a file
The dependency manager finds these links by simply storing all references in any dcr- or .page-file:
- any browse field (browse, image, file, page, etc)
- an image-element ({img src=”image.gif”/}) in a dcr textarea field (but not flash/css/js files!).
This storage is triggered by the save action of a dcr. No need to take extra action for this.
Teamsite users can then view the related files via the gui:
There is also a few new methods in the CsSdk api available like CsFile.getParentAssociations() which allows you to query the related files of a file. Automonomy has not bothered to create a CLT for this so if you use perl you are on your own.
So nothing to complain about. Well, yes. The warning message that appears if you try to delete a referenced file is really not that clear. Compare:
Deleting image.JPG will remove it from TeamSite. The items that use this file may need to be manually updated to replace or remove references to this file.
vs.
Deleting image.gif will remove it from TeamSite.
No highlighting, no colors, no red-lights. Next version maybe. And please include some proper documentation on this tool at the same go!
