CMS Connector between FrameMaker 11 and CQ 5.5 now available. And it is open source!

Dear Framers,

We are happy to announce the availability of CMS connector between FM 11 and CQ 5.5. If you recall, in September 2012, we had released a sample CQ connector with FrameMaker 11, for which Kapil blogged here. The sample connector was based on the new CMS Connector Framework and was open source so that the developers can take the connector code and build more functionality.

The new CQ connector is also open source, but it is ready to use for production environment. We have enhanced several of the features of the sample connector and added new ones. This connector is as good as other CMS connectors such as SharePoint and Documentum in terms of functionality. Furthermore, since it is open source, you can customize this connector and build even more functionality on top of what is available out-of-the-box.

We have enhanced the following sample connector workflows and made them robust and scalable in the new CQ Connector

1. Create Session and Logout: User can create a CQ session with the help of connection manager UI. After successful login, user can work on various other features like checkin, checkout etc.

2. Repository Browser: The repository browsing functionality will help user in browsing the contents of the CQ Server. The content shown in the repository browser will be of following types.

• Node: A node is a hierarchical entity in the workspace. Node can be container or non- container. Each container node contains folder and files. The folders can further contain sub-folders and/or files. Depending on the node type, a node may have required or optional sub-nodes and properties.
• Property: A property is a content entity. Properties can store text data and numbers.

3. Upload Functionality:

• Document: User will be able to upload a local file to the CQ Server. This operation will be also called import. Upload operation takes the document and all its dependents/file references to the repository. User can also upload active file.
• Folder: User will be able to upload a folder and its contents to the CQ Server. Upload folder operation takes all the folder’s documents and their dependents/file references to the repository.

4. File related features:

• Open Read-Only: User can open a file from the repository without checking it out. On read only operation the document and its dependents will be downloaded to the local cache in read only mode. The file will be opened in the FM.
• Checkout and Edit: User will be able to checkout the file and its dependents from the CQ server. The edit operation will open the file for editing if it is checked out. User can choose to checkout the file with or without its dependents.
• Checkin: User will be able to checkin the checkout file and it’s all dependents as minor version to repository.
• Cancel Checkout: User can cancel checkout a file and its dependents.

5. Delete: User can delete a folder, a file or file with all dependents.

6. Create Folder: User will be able to create a new folder in the CQ server.

7. File Information Features:

• Show Checkout Files: This option will list all the documents which are checked out in the selected folder.
• Show Dependents: This option will list all the dependencies of the selected document including the dependencies of the dependents documents.
• Show Versions: This option will list all the versions of a document. The user will be able to see the properties of selected object from the show version dialog.
• Properties: The property dialog will list the properties exposed by the CQ for a particular object i.e. container, folder and document. The property can be read only and it is not editable.
• Basic Search: In the Basic Search user will be able to type a text and FrameMaker will look for the text in the name of all the files which comes in the context of selected node. The search result will be shown in a search result dialog. The user can do the operation on the objects present in the search result dialog. User can also use wildcards in the search name instead of fulltext.

8. Import References: FrameMaker will also allow importing and insertion of references from CQ Server itself for e.g. importing of graphics from repository, add a component to the checkout book, insertion of cross ref etc.

Apart from making the core features robust, we have added the following new features in the CQ Connector

1. Support of DAM Assets: FrameMaker provides support for CQ DAM (Digital Asset Management), in addition to other node types such as nt:file. DAM is a digital asset management tool that enables users across an organization to manage, store, and access images, videos, documents, audio clips, and rich media such as Flash files for use on the web, in print, and for digital distribution.

2. Advanced Search: The users can now do advance search where can specify the folder path, file types, CQ Tags, and the date range during which the file was modified.

3. CQ Preferences: The user can customize the user experience of the CQ Connector by modifying the CQPreference.xml file in the FM installed directory. Following customization are possible by changing the preference file.

• Filename Restrictions: This flag allows user to define which characters will be allowed for any file of folder in CQ. The user will not be able to create or upload a file or a folder which contains a restricted character.
• Users Area: By default all the checked out files will be downloaded in the APPDATA folder. However, the user have the flexibility to define a specific folder location where they want to download files from CQ.
• Suppress Alerts: Users can choose to suppress various dialog alerts which come while uploading/downloading the documents for missing references. All the suppressed alerts will be logged in the FrameMaker console.
• CQ Repository Tree: The users can configure the folder which they want to see in the CQ Repository tree.
• Progress Bar: For low bandwidth networks or slower server connections the file operations can take a long time. Users have an option to see the progress bar for various UI operations such as upload/checkout/check-in/tree-browsing etc to signify work in progress.

4. Download Dependents: During the checkout user has the flexibility to download or not download the dependent files. This feature allows users to download the dependent files for those files which were checked-out without dependent files earlier.

**5. **Show Metadata: The Metadata dialog lists the metadata associated with a node such as node type, creator tool, modified dates etc. These properties are read only and cannot be edited from the connector.

6. Copy: This feature allows users to copy certain files from one CQ folder to another.

7. Move: This feature allows users to move/cut-paste certain files from one CQ folder to another.

**8. ****Resolve Missing File: **FrameMaker automatically resolves all dependencies for files uploaded outside FrameMaker when files are opened/checked-out from the connector. Hence, saving a lot of manual effort that goes into reference resolution.

Next Steps

You can download the Adobe CQ connector from here or simply visit the FrameMaker developer page and scroll down to the section titled “CMS Connector” to learn more about the connectors. After unzipping the contents, you can see the sample connector source, compiled DLLs, Readme etc.

Related Links

1. FDK documentation: [_http://_www.adobe.com/devnet/framemaker.html](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/framemaker.html)
2. Useful Adobe CQ/CRX resources: http://blogs.adobe.com/dmcmahon/adobe-cqcrx-resources/
3. How to get started with CQ: http://dev.day.com/docs/en/cq/5-5/getting_started/download_and_startworking.html
4. CQ and CRX documentation: http://dev.day.com/docs/en.html
5. CRX 2.3 documentation: http://dev.day.com/docs/en/crx/current.html
6. How to install, start, and stop CRX instances: http://dev.day.com/docs/en/crx/current/how_to/installing starting.html

We hope that you will find this CQ connector useful. Please let us know your feedback once you have tried and used it.

Vikram Verma – Product Manager, Adobe’s Tech Comm Products

Anchal Arora – Sr. Software Engineer, FrameMaker Team