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HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
HCL Digital Experience 8.5
Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
Developing
This section includes developer documentation on extending applications and development assets for HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
REST service for Web Content Manager
Application developers can use Representational State Transfer (REST) services to work with Web Content Manager. The REST service for Web Content Manager provides authoring access to content items and elements. The service follows the Atom Publication Protocol, and Atom feeds, and entries are accessible in XML (application/atom+xml) and JSON (application/json) format.
How to manage web content items by using REST
You can use the Web Content Manager REST Service to create, read, update, and delete the following item types.
How to use REST with authoring templates
You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete content templates and site area templates. You can also set default values for items that are created by using these authoring templates.

HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5 [Legacy Content]
- HCL Digital Experience 9.0
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 9.0 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
- HCL Digital Experience 8.5
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
  - Overview
    HCL Digital Experience (formerly IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager) empowers you to create, manage, and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to virtually all audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications, and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile. and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).
  - Roadmaps to deploy your system
    Review the roadmaps to understand the common deployment, configuration, migration, and integration patterns.
  - Roadmaps to create your website
    Review the roadmaps to understand how to create your website.
  - Online Help
    This Online Help is made available in the HCL Digital Experience Help Center for quick references on how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Digital Experience.
  - Installing
    HCL Digital Experience provides flexible deployment options that range from proof-of-concept where you can examine and test functionality to a highly available and scalable production environment. Review the planning information to learn more about hardware and software requirements, high availability, scalability, supported topologies, and much more. Select your operating system and then select the installation pattern that most reflects your business needs.
  - Configuring
    Run the following tasks after you install and deploy HCL Digital Experience. They address tasks that are typically run one time and have a global effect. Some configuration changes are made more frequently or do not have a global effect. These tasks are addressed in the Administering section.
  - Backup and restore
    Backup and recovery of data files and databases is an essential operation for any business system, particularly for data and applications that run in production environments. Create and follow a plan for backing up and recovering data on all tiers of your HCL Digital Experience deployment. IBM Installation Manager must also be included in backup and recovery planning. If you back up the HCL Portal file structure and then install a fix pack, your HCL Digital Experience and IBM Installation Manager become out of sync after you restore the HCL Portal file system. This condition is not recoverable.
  - Migrating
    Successful migration requires significant planning and preparation, understanding the tools that are involved, and careful execution of the appropriate steps in the order provided.
  - Integrating
    Integrate HCL Digital Experience with software such as HCL Sametime to enable your users to collaborate more easily. You can also use the unified task list portlet to integrate HCL with your backend business process software, such as IBM Process Server.
  - Administering
    Use the administration tools that are provided with the portal to do various day-to-day administration tasks. There are two methods for editing portal setup: using the administration portlets or the XML configuration interface. The administration portlets are a convenient way to make real-time updates to the portal's configuration. While the XML configuration interface is suited to more advanced administration, including batch processing of updates.
  - Securing
    Security tasks include setting up property extension databases and custom user repositories, configuring and activating SSL, and configuring authentication. In addition, tasks such as activating Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and NIST SP800-131a security modules and configuring external security managers such as Security Access Manager might be required to secure your portal environment.
  - Monitoring
    HCL Portal includes tools and features to help you monitor the portal site.
  - Setting up a website
    Setting up a website includes, creating pages, adding navigation, setting up search, and adding content to the site. Themes are used to customize the portal's look-and-feel. Out-of-the-box templates and the site wizard can help you set up your portal site faster. You can add wikis and blogs to your site and let users tag and rate content on your site.
  - Staging to production
    During portal solution development, the solution is initially developed, tested, and refined on one server or a limited number of servers. The solution is deployed later on live systems, referred to as the production environment. The process of moving the solution from the development environment to the production environment is called staging.
  - Developing
    This section includes developer documentation on extending applications and development assets for HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
    - Changing to a developer mode environment
      Install HCL Digital Experience and then immediately change to a developer mode environment. Use this environment when you develop applications, themes, portals, and portlets. Startup performance is improved within a developer mode environment.
    - Dojo and HCL Digital Experience
      HCL Digital Experience contains an instance of the Dojo Toolkit, a JavaScript library that is based on the Dojo Toolkit. When you develop components that use Dojo, you must be aware of how the portal uses Dojo, and the tips and restrictions when you use Dojo.
    - Extending HCL Portal class path
    - Developing themes and skins
      You can create themes using modules to contribute to separate areas of pages to provide flexibility, enhance the user experience, and maximize performance. To optimize themes on your website, use the theme optimization module framework. The framework separates feature-specific logic and capabilities from the theme code.
    - URL generation in HCL Portal
      Generating Portal URLs correctly is one of the most important tasks in programming an HCL Portal based application. There are several programming tools and techniques available for generating HCL Portal URLs in custom code. The following section introduces the programming tools available and discusses when it is most appropriate to use each of the tools.
    - Model SPI overview
      Models provide information that is needed by HCL Digital Experience to perform tasks such as content aggregation or building navigation to browse the aggregated content. The information that is aggregated is represented through models that can be accessed programmatically by using the Model SPI (read-only). The information of a model is usually persistent (stored in a database) but can also be transient (computed and stored only in memory). Models can be represented by using a tree structure (nodes have a parent-child relationship), a list structure, or a selection structure (a selected element in a tree structure).
    - Controller SPI
      You can use the Controller SPI for portal administration. It allows you to modify portal resources. It enhances the read-only portal Model SPI by adding writable aspects.
    - User and group management
      The Portal User Management Architecture (PUMA) System programming interface (SPI) provides interfaces for accessing the profiles of a portal User or Group.
    - Portal Access Control interfaces
      Portal Access Control provides interfaces for retrieving and modifying and access control information of portal resources, such as portlets or pages.
    - Developing portlets
      Get an overview of the process of creating portlets, learn about the concepts of the APIs used to develop portlets, and view the samples to get you started. Also, learn about integrating features such as single sign-on, cooperative sharing of information using the property broker, and migrating Struts applications to the portlet environment.
    - HCL DX Portlet Bridge support for JavaServer Faces 2.2
      HCL Digital Experience 8.5 and 9.5 includes the HCL Portlet 2.0 Bridge for JSF 2.2. The bridge provides customers an interface to developing and running JSF Portlets.
    - Web Developer Toolkit for HCL Digital Experience
      Learn more about what you can do with the Web Developer Toolkit for HCL Digital Experience.
    - The Script Application
      The Script Application enables script developers to create portlets for HCL Digital Experience with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
    - The HCL Web Content Manager API
      You can use the Web Content Manager API to extend functions of HCL Web Content Manager.
    - Search REST API specification
      The following document describes the API call to search HCL Digital Experience. You can search HCL Digital Experience to find content that contains a specific text string in its title or content, or is tagged with a specific tag.
    - Extending tagging and rating by using service APIs
      Developers can enhance and extend the tagging and rating features of the portal. For this purpose the portal tagging and rating feature provides service APIs that you can use to enhance tagging and rating by your requirements.
    - How to create a custom launch page
      You can configure an authoring portlet to use a launch page of your own design instead of the default user interface.
    - How to create a custom HTML editor integration
      You can use custom HTML editors in all HTML fields of the authoring interface or specific HTML elements that are defined in an authoring template. Custom HTML fields are used to integrate third-party editors into the authoring interface.
    - How to use remote actions
      Remote actions are used to trigger actions from the HCL Web Content Manager application.
    - How to create custom plug-ins
      A custom plug-in is a reusable Java class that you create to run a task. You can create custom plug-ins such as custom workflow actions, plug-ins to run when a page is rendered, plug-ins to store multi-locale text strings and plug-ins to run when a file is uploaded.
    - Digital Data Connector (DDC) for HCL Portal
      You can use the Digital Data Connector (DDC) for HCL Portal framework to integrate data from external data sources on your portal pages by using HCL Web Content Manager presentation components. External data means that the data does not need to be stored directly in HCL Web Content Manager. For example, you can use DDC to render social data that you have on your HCL Connections server or on other social platforms in the context of your portal pages. Other possible data sources include news feeds, task lists, product catalog information, to name just a few.
    - Determining the current web content context
      To determine the current web content context of a portal page or Web Content Viewer portlet, you can use the WCM Page Context Service. This service provides the ID of the currently rendered item of a page or portlet.
    - REST service for Web Content Manager
      Application developers can use Representational State Transfer (REST) services to work with Web Content Manager. The REST service for Web Content Manager provides authoring access to content items and elements. The service follows the Atom Publication Protocol, and Atom feeds, and entries are accessible in XML (application/atom+xml) and JSON (application/json) format.
      - Getting started with the REST service for Web Content Manager
        Before getting started with the REST service for Web Content Manager you should become familiar with how it works and how to use it.
      - How to use REST with Web Content Manager items
        Different processes are used when items are created and updated by using REST.
      - How to Use REST to Work with Deleted Content Items
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to purge delete, and restore previously deleted content items.
      - REST content formats for components and elements
        When you use REST with components or elements, use these content formats. These examples can be used as templates for your own REST solutions.
      - REST Query service for web content
        The REST service for Web Content Manager comes with a defined set of query parameters. You can also define your own query parameters in a white list. You can also predefine a query to run more complex searches, and control the allowable filters on these searches by using a white list.
      - How to manage web content items by using REST
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST Service to create, read, update, and delete the following item types.
        How to use REST with libraries
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, query locale information, and delete libraries.
        How to use REST with content items
        You can use the HCL Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete content items.
        How to use REST with components
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete some types of components.
        How to use REST with elements before version 8.5 CF03
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete some types of elements that are stored in site areas and content items. All element types are supported.
        How to use REST with elements with version 8.5 CF03 or higher
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete elements.
        How to use REST with authoring templates
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete content templates and site area templates. You can also set default values for items that are created by using these authoring templates.
        How to use REST with content templates
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete content templates. You can also set default values for items that are created by using these content templates, also create or update an option selection element for a Content Authoring template.
        How to use REST with site area templates
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete site area templates. You can also set default values for items that are created by using these site area templates.
        How to use REST to retrieve the settings of the elements for content templates
        The Enhanced Web Content Manager Content Template API available with HCL Digital Experience 9.5 CF_172 and CF18 higher releases adds the ability to retrieve the configuration of the elements, for example, if an element is required or not. This option is also available to HCL Digital Experience 8.5 and 9.0 CF18 users.
        How to REST with presentation templates
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete presentation templates.
        How to use REST with site areas
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete site areas.
        How to use REST with managed pages
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to read managed pages.
        How to use REST with drafts and workflows
        You can use the REST services for HCL Web Content Manager to create drafts, approve items in a workflow, retrieve workflow comments from content items, and move items through different stages of a workflow.
        How to use REST with workflow items
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete workflow items.
        How to use REST with workflow stages
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete workflow stages.
        How to use REST with workflow actions
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete all workflow action types.
        How to use REST with projects
        You can use the REST services for Web Content Manager to create and work with projects.
        How to use REST with folders
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete folders. You can also use the Web Content Manager REST service to query for the preset folders in a library.
        How to use REST with taxonomies
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete taxonomies.
        How to use REST with categories
        You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete categories.
        How to use REST to work with item identity controls
        The way identity controls are used with REST depend on whether a text provider is enabled or not for an item.
        How to use REST with access controls
        The access control section in an Atom entry or JSON entry that is generated by the REST service for Web Content Manager links to resources from the Portal Access Control REST API.
        How to use REST to work with author and owner parameters
        Information for the author and owner of an item can be specified by using the REST service.
        How to use REST with versions
        Item versions can be listed and read by using the REST service.
        Using REST to work with recent items
        You can use REST service to display a list of recently accessed items. This is the equivalent of the Recent Items view in the library explorer.
        How to use REST to work with favorite items
        You can use REST service to display a list of favorite items. This function is the equivalent of the Favorite Items view in the library explorer.
        REST: Attachments
        You can use the REST service to attach images to some item types. This is equivalent to using the Insert An Image icon in the authoring portlet.
        Generic reading by using REST services for Web Content Manager
        Although not all item types are handled by the REST service, all item types can be read in a generic fashion by using the REST service.
      - How to manage web content image renditions interactions by using REST
        The REST service for Image Element Renditions supports access to and interactions with image component and elements having different versions to optimize display to desktop, tablet, and smartphone channels.
      - How to use REST to lock and unlock Web Content manager components and items
        The Web Content Manager Lock/Unlock API lets you lock and unlock WCM content components, authoring templates, and item.
      - How to use REST to control Syndication
        The Web Content Manager Syndication REST APIs let you control syndication processes.
      - How to use REST to find any page that has a WCM Rendering or a Script Portlet reference
        This API allows you to find any page that has a WCM Rendering or Script portlet on it referencing the given WCM content UUID.
      - How to use REST to interact with library components
        DX supports an image or file element in a content or authoring template to point to an existing library component. The API is added to retrieve the references to library components from content and authoring templates and to update/add these references.
      - Reference material for the Web Content Manager REST service
        Reference material for REST response codes, links, media types, and attachments.
    - Digital Experience Version 2 REST APIs (Beta)
      The API design for version 2.0 of the DX REST API is intended to facilitate the creation of HCL Web Content Manager assets.
    - How to display data from external sources
      You display data from external sources, such as SQL databases, by using the same methods as you would when you create a website.
    - Instrumenting web content for Active Site Analytics
      You can collect information from web content for Active Site Analytics.
    - Java messaging services for web content
      Web Content Manager supports for the notification of events such as item state changes, or services starting and stopping. These notifications can be delivered as messages to the Java messaging service.
    - Reference documents
      Reference copy of API, SPI, Javadoc, and more, for HCL Digital Experience 8.5 and 9.0.
    - Developing basic PAA file applications
      Solution developers can create their own Portal Application Archive (PAA) files. The developers can then use the Configuration Wizard to add on their applications to their HCL Digital Experience environment.
    - Developing advanced PAA file applications
      Developers can create their own advanced Portal Application Archive (PAA) file. The advanced PAA file contains custom content. The developers can then use the Configuration Wizard to add on their applications to their HCL Digital Experience environment.
    - HCL UX Screen Flow Manager
      The HCL UX Screen Flow Manager helps operators, developers, and dialog modelers develop fine-granular, small split portlets. Learn to configure the sequence, transitions, and workflow of a set of screens.
  - Troubleshooting
    This section helps you resolve problems, use diagnostic tools and tracing to capture HCL Digital Experience system errors.
  - Reference
    View information that can help you use the Digital Experience Help Center including directory conventions, terms of use, trademarks, a glossary, and more.
  - Glossary
    This glossary includes terms and definitions for HCL Digital Experience.
  - Content Template Catalog 4.4
    The Content Template (CTC) is a set of templates that accelerate the process of building a website.

How to use REST with authoring templates | HCL Digital Experience

You can use the Web Content Manager REST service to create, read, update, and delete content templates and site area templates. You can also set default values for items that are created by using these authoring templates.