Friday, September 26, 2008

Tips & Tricks for Customizing iStore pages

Tips to develop JSPs:

1. Two types of block comments – JSP and HTML.

1.1. JSP Comments - "<%"-- these comments will not show in source code of HTML page --%>

1.2. HTML comments - 2. In iStore, pages you want to modify for template purposes almost always end in I.

2.1. IStore Naming Convention: ibeCZzdError.jsp

2.2. Ibe is the prefix indicating it’s an iStore page. (I think this may tie to being a customer facing page as well but I can’t confirm it)

2.4. The zd indicates it’s a display page. If it had tp it would indicate a processing page.

2.5. In display template pages, the JSPs are paired, with a processing page (e.g. ibeCZtpSpecialPage.jsp) and a display page (e.g. ibeCZzdSpecialPageI.jsp). The pairs are normally named the same with a differentiation on the zd and the appended I. The processing page will also reference the display page programatically through its Programattic Access Name, stored within oracle iStore. (you can find the programmatic display name via the processing JSP - find DisplayManager.getTemplate and you’ll see the programmatic accessname in all caps)

3. Directories where JSPs are held - $OA_HTML

4. Flags to set in zone.properties to speed development of JSP –

4.1. Autoreload.classes = true

4.2. Autoreload. file=true

4.3. developer_mode=true

Tricks to develop pages:

1) Always see if a profile option can do the trick. Lots of the iStore bins can be turned on and off via templates or profile options. Read Appendix A and D in the IBE Administrator guide prior to making changes to the JSP.

2) When modifying JSPs, set all border=0 to border=1 in the JSP. This will allow you to see the layout while you make changes.

3) Errors such as Catch without Try or If statement errors normally point to a missing closing bracket or semicolon.

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