Using the Assembler to connect to Lifestyle Endeca Application

In my earlier posts, I have detailed on how to create a new Endeca Appication 'Lifestyle' based on discover-data deployment template and new reference web application based on discover-electronics reference application.

I shall now detail how to connect to Endeca Application using an Assembler

CREATE A NEW SERVER INSTANCE

• Windows>Preferences (Expand server and select Runtime Environments) and click ADD
• Select Apache Tomcat and provide the tomcat installation directory path (C:\Endeca\ToolsAndFrameworks\3.1.2\server\apache-tomcat-6.0.32)
• Once done, create a new server using the 'Servers' tab and provide the server name as 'lifestyleWebServer'
• Start the 'lifestyleWebServer' and confirm it starts up successfully using the console tab

CREATE A NEW WEB APPLICATION

• Create a new dynamic web project 'Lifestyle'
• Add the JARs in the directory (C:\Endeca\ToolsAndFrameworks\3.1.2\reference\discover-electronics-authoring\WEB-INF\lib) to the Web App using Java Build Path. Also click on the 'Order and Export' tab and select the JARs that we have just added
• Right-click on Web App, select properties -> Deployment Assembly. Click Add and select the Java Built Path Entries and Click Next. Select all the entries and finish
• Importing classes from discover-authoring to Lifestyle web app
• Lifestyle>Web Content>WEB-INF and choose import from file system. Navigate to directory (C:\Endeca\ToolsAndFrameworks\3.1.2\reference\discover-electronics-authoring\WEB-INF\classes)
• Select the 'classes' folder, and check the two options (Override existing resources and create top-level folfers)
• Configure Assembler
• Copy the files (assembler.properties, assembler-context.xml, endeca-url-config.xml,perf-logging-config.xml,urlrewrite.xml and web.xml) from the directory (C:\Endeca\ToolsAndFrameworks\3.1.2\reference\discover-electronics-authoring\WEB-INF) to a local directory (C:\Endeca|Lab\AssemblerFiles) and do the below modifications
• Replace the web-app xmlns entry in web.xml as (<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">)
• Ensure that you are pointing to the correct application and mdex host by verifying the configured values in assembler.properties
• Search for 'endeca-seo-url-config.xml' entry in assembler-context.xml and replace it with 'endeca-url-config.xml'
• Search for 'urlFormatter' entry in assembler-context.xml and replace the text ref="seoUrlFormatter" to ref="basicUrlFormatter"
• Lifestyle> Web Content>WEB-INF and choose import from file system. Navigate to directory (C:\Endeca|Lab\AssemblerFiles)
• Select all the files, but ensure that 'Create top-level folder is not selected'

INVOKE ASSEMBLER USING A JSP

• Right click on WEB-INF directory and create a new folder 'services'
• Create a new JSP file 'lifestyleAssemble.jsp'
• Remove all the HTML content and replace the same with below

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.assembler.Assembler"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.assembler.AssemblerFactory"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.assembler.ContentItem"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.cartridge.ContentInclude"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.serialization.JsonSerializer"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.serialization.XmlSerializer"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.infront.navigation.UserState"%>

<%@page import="com.endeca.mobile.services.detection.DeviceManager"%>

<%@page import="org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext"%>

<%@page import="org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationContextUtils"%>

<%@page import="java.util.Properties"%>

<%@page import="java.util.LinkedHashMap"%>

<%@page import="java.util.Map"%>

<%@page import="java.util.ArrayList"%>

<%@page import="java.util.List"%>

<%@page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"%>

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>

<%

WebApplicationContext webappCtx = WebApplicationContextUtils

.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(application);

AssemblerFactory assemblerFactory = (AssemblerFactory) webappCtx

.getBean("assemblerFactory");

Assembler assembler = assemblerFactory.createAssembler();

ContentItem contentItem = new ContentInclude("/pages/browse");

ContentItem responseContentItem = assembler.assemble(contentItem);

String format = request.getParameter("format");

if ("json".equals(format)) {

response.setHeader("content-type", "application/json");

new JsonSerializer(response.getWriter())

.write(responseContentItem);

} else if ("xml".equals(format)) {

response.setHeader("content-type", "application/xml");

new XmlSerializer(response.getWriter())

.write(responseContentItem);

}

%>

• Search for the servlet entry 'assemble' in web.xml and change the jsp-file entry to 'lifestyleAssemble.jsp'

DEPLOY THE LIFESTYLE WEB APPLICATION USING LIFESTYLEWEBSERVER TOMCAT INSTANCE

• Click on the servers tab, right click on 'lifestyleWebserver' and choose Add and Remove. Add the 'Lifestyle' web app 
• Restart the tomcat server instance
• Navigate to the URL (http://localhost:8080/Lifestyle/browse?format=json') from browser and you should see the JSON reponse for the browse page as configured in Endeca Experience Manager rendered using the Assembler