Documentation AEM as a Cloud Service User Guide

Extending the Multi Site Manager

Last update: February 5, 2025

Applies to:
Experience Manager as a Cloud Service

Topics:
Developing

CREATED FOR:

Admin
Developer

This document helps you understand how to extend the functionality of the Multi Site Manager and covers the following topics.

Learn about the main members of the MSM Java API
Create a new synchronization action that can be used in a rollout configuration
Modify the default language and country codes

TIP

This page is more easily understood in the context of the document Reusing Content: Multi Site Manager.

CAUTION

The Multi Site Manager and its API are used when authoring a website and as such are only intended for use on an author environment.

Overview of the Java API

Multi Site Management consists of the following packages:

The main MSM API objects interact as follows (see also the section Terms Used):

Main MSM API objects

Blueprint - A Blueprint (as in blueprint configuration) specifies the pages from which a live copy can inherit content.
- The use of a blueprint configuration ( Blueprint) is optional, but:
  - It allows the author to use the Rollout option on the source to explicitly push modifications to live copies that inherit from this source.
  - It allows the author to use Create Site, which allows the user to easily select languages and configure the structure of the live copy.
  - It defines the default rollout configuration for any resultant live copies.
LiveRelationship - The LiveRelationship specifies the connection (relationship) between a resource in the live copy branch and its equivalent source/blueprint resource.
- The relationships are used when realizing inheritance and rollout.
- LiveRelationship objects provide access (references) to the rollout configurations ( RolloutConfig), LiveCopy, and LiveStatus objects related to the relationship.
- For example, a live copy is created in /content/copy/us from the source/blueprint at /content/wknd/language-masters. The resources /content/wknd/language-masters/en/jcr:content and /content/copy/us/en/jcr:content form a relationship.
LiveCopy - A LiveCopy holds the configuration details for the relationships (LiveRelationship) between the live copy resources and their source/blueprint resources.
- Use the LiveCopy class to access to the path of the page, the path of the source/blueprint page, the rollout configurations and whether child pages are also included in the LiveCopy.
- A LiveCopy node is created each time Create Site or Create Live Copy is used.
LiveStatus - LiveStatus objects provide access to the runtime status of a LiveRelationship. Use to query the synchronization status of a live copy.
LiveAction - A LiveAction is an action that is executed on each resource that is involved in the rollout.
- LiveActions are only generated by RolloutConfigs.
LiveActionFactory - A LiveActionFactory creates LiveAction objects given a LiveAction configuration. Configurations are stored as resources in the repository.
RolloutConfig - The RolloutConfig holds a list of LiveActions, to be used when triggered. The LiveCopy inherits the RolloutConfig and the result is present in the LiveRelationship.
- Setting up a live copy for the very first time also uses a RolloutConfig (which triggers the LiveActions).

Creating a New Synchronization Action

You can create custom synchronization actions to use with your rollout configurations. This can be useful when the installed actions do not meet your specific application requirements.

To do so, create two classes:

An implementation of the com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.LiveAction interface that performs the action.
An OSGi component that implements the com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.LiveActionFactory interface and creates instances of your LiveAction class

The LiveActionFactory creates instances of the LiveAction class for a given configuration:

LiveAction classes include the following methods:
- getName - Returns the name of the action
  - The name is used to refer to the action, for example, in rollout configurations.
- execute - Performs the tasks of the action
LiveActionFactory classes include the following members:
- LIVE_ACTION_NAME - A field that contains the name of the associated LiveAction
  - This name must coincide with the value that is returned by the getName method of the LiveAction class.
- createAction - Creates an instance of the LiveAction
  - The optional Resource parameter can be used to provide configuration information.
- createsAction - Returns the name of the associated LiveAction

Accessing the LiveAction Configuration Node

Use the LiveAction configuration node in the repository to store information that affects the runtime behavior of the LiveAction instance. The node in the repository that stores the LiveAction configuration is available to the LiveActionFactory object at runtime. Therefore, you can add properties to the configuration node to and use them in your LiveActionFactory implementation as needed.

For example, a LiveAction must store the name of the blueprint author. A property of the configuration node includes the property name of the blueprint page that stores the information. At runtime, the LiveAction retrieves the property name from the configuration, then obtains the property value.

The parameter of the LiveActionFactory.createAction method is a Resource object. This Resource object represents the cq:LiveSyncAction node for this live action in the rollout configuration.

See Creating a Rollout Configuration for more information.

As usual when using a configuration node, you should adapt it to a ValueMap object:

public LiveAction createAction(Resource resource) throws WCMException {
        ValueMap config;
        if (resource == null || resource.adaptTo(ValueMap.class) == null) {
            config = new ValueMapDecorator(Collections.<String, Object>emptyMap());
        } else {
            config = resource.adaptTo(ValueMap.class);
        }
        return new MyLiveAction(config, this);
}

Accessing Target Nodes, Source Nodes, and the LiveRelationship

The following objects are provided as parameters of the execute method of the LiveAction object:

A Resource object that represents the source of the live copy
A Resource object that represents the target of the live copy.
The LiveRelationship object for the live copy
- The autoSave value indicates whether your LiveAction should save changes that are made to the repository
- The reset value indicates the rollout reset mode.

From these objects, you can obtain information about the LiveCopy. You can also use the Resource objects to obtain ResourceResolver, Session, and Node objects. These objects are useful for manipulating repository content:

In the first line of the following code, source is the Resource object of the source page:

ResourceResolver resolver = source.getResourceResolver();
Session session = resolver.adaptTo(javax.jcr.Session.class);
Node sourcenode = source.adaptTo(javax.jcr.Node.class);

NOTE

The Resource arguments may be null or Resources objects that do not adapt to Node objects, such as NonExistingResource objects.

Creating a New Rollout Configuration

You can create a rollout configuration when the installed rollout configurations do not meet your application requirements be following two steps:

Create the rollout configuration
Add synchronization actions to the rollout configuration

The new rollout configuration is then available to you when setting rollout configurations on a blueprint or live copy page.

TIP

Create the Rollout Configuration

To create a rollout configuration:

Open CRXDE Lite at https://<host>:<port>/crx/de.
Navigate to /apps/msm/<your-project>/rolloutconfigs, your project’s customized version of /libs/msm/wcm/rolloutconfigs.
- If this is your first configuration, this /libs branch must be used as a template to create the new branch under /apps.
Under this location, create a node with the following properties:
- Name: The node name of the rollout configuration, for example, contentCopy or workflow
- Type: cq:RolloutConfig
Add the following properties to this node:
- Name: jcr:title
  Type: String
  Value: An identifying title that will appear in the UI
- Name: jcr:description
  Type: String
  Value: An optional description.
- Name: cq:trigger
  Type: String
  Value: The Rollout Trigger to be used
  - rollout
  - modification
  - publish
  - deactivate
Click Save All.

Add Synchronization Actions to the Rollout Configuration

Rollout configurations are stored below the rollout configuration node that you have created under the /apps/msm/<your-project>/rolloutconfigs node.

Add child nodes of type cq:LiveSyncAction to add synchronization actions to the rollout configuration. The order of the synchronization action nodes determines the order in which the actions occur.

In CRXDE Lite, select your Rollout Configuration node, for example, /apps/msm/myproject/rolloutconfigs/myrolloutconfig.
Create a node with the following node properties:
- Name: The node name of the synchronization action
  - The name must be the same as the Action Name in the table under Synchronization Actions such as contentCopy or workflow.
- Type: cq:LiveSyncAction
Add and configure as many synchronization action nodes as you require.
Rearrange the action nodes so that their order matches the order in which you want them to occur.
- The topmost action node occurs first.

Creating and Using a Simple LiveActionFactory Class

Follow the procedures in this section to develop a LiveActionFactory and use it in a rollout configuration. The procedures use Maven and Eclipse to develop and deploy the LiveActionFactory:

Create the maven project and import it into Eclipse.
Add dependencies to the POM file.
Implement the LiveActionFactory interface and deploy the OSGi bundle.
Create the rollout configuration.
Create the live copy.

The Maven project and the source code of the Java class is available in the public Git repository.

Create the Maven Project

The following procedure requires that you have added the adobe-public profile to your Maven settings file.

For information about the adobe-public profile, see Obtaining the Content Package Maven Plugin
For information about the Maven settings file, see the Maven Settings Reference.

Open a terminal or command-line session and change the directory to point to the location of where to create the project.

Enter the following command:

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=com.day.jcr.vault -DarchetypeArtifactId=multimodule-content-package-archetype -DarchetypeVersion=1.0.0 -DarchetypeRepository=adobe-public-releases

Specify the following values at interactive prompt:
- groupId: com.adobe.example.msm
- artifactId: MyLiveActionFactory
- version: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
- package: MyPackage
- appsFolderName: myapp
- artifactName: MyLiveActionFactory package
- packageGroup: myPackages
Start Eclipse and import the Maven project.

Add Dependencies to the POM File

Add dependencies so that the Eclipse compiler can reference the classes that are used in the LiveActionFactory code.

From the Eclipse Project Explorer, open the file MyLiveActionFactory/pom.xml.
In the editor, click the pom.xml tab and locate the project/dependencyManagement/dependencies section.

Add the following XML inside the dependencyManagement element and then save the file.

 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq.wcm</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-msm-api</artifactId>
  <version>5.6.2</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.api</artifactId>
  <version>2.4.3-R1488084</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq.wcm</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-wcm-api</artifactId>
  <version>5.6.6</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.commons.json</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.6</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-commons</artifactId>
  <version>5.6.4</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.jcr.jcr-wrapper</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.0</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-commons</artifactId>
  <version>5.6.4</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>

Open the POM file for the bundle from Project Explorer at MyLiveActionFactory-bundle/pom.xml.

In the editor, click the pom.xml tab and locate the project/dependencies section. Add the following XML inside the dependencies element and then save the file:

 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq.wcm</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-msm-api</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.api</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq.wcm</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-wcm-api</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.commons.json</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-commons</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.sling</groupId>
  <artifactId>org.apache.sling.jcr.jcr-wrapper</artifactId>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
  <groupId>com.day.cq</groupId>
  <artifactId>cq-commons</artifactId>
 </dependency>

Implement LiveActionFactory

The following LiveActionFactory class implements a LiveAction that logs messages about the source and target pages, and copies the cq:lastModifiedBy property from the source node to the target node. The name of the live action is exampleLiveAction.

In the Eclipse Project Explorer, right-click the MyLiveActionFactory-bundle/src/main/java/com.adobe.example.msm package and click New > Class.
For the Name, enter ExampleLiveActionFactory and then click Finish.

Open the ExampleLiveActionFactory.java file, replace the content with the following code, and save the file.

package com.adobe.example.msm;

import java.util.Collections;

import org.apache.felix.scr.annotations.Component;
import org.apache.felix.scr.annotations.Property;
import org.apache.felix.scr.annotations.Service;
import org.apache.sling.api.resource.Resource;
import org.apache.sling.api.resource.ResourceResolver;
import org.apache.sling.api.resource.ValueMap;
import org.apache.sling.api.wrappers.ValueMapDecorator;
import org.apache.sling.commons.json.io.JSONWriter;
import org.apache.sling.commons.json.JSONException;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import javax.jcr.Node;
import javax.jcr.RepositoryException;
import javax.jcr.Session;

import com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.ActionConfig;
import com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.LiveAction;
import com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.LiveActionFactory;
import com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.LiveRelationship;
import com.day.cq.wcm.api.WCMException;

@Component(metatype = false)
@Service
public class ExampleLiveActionFactory implements LiveActionFactory<LiveAction> {
 @Property(value="exampleLiveAction")
 static final String actionname = LiveActionFactory.LIVE_ACTION_NAME;

 public LiveAction createAction(Resource config) {
  ValueMap configs;
  /* Adapt the config resource to a ValueMap */
        if (config == null || config.adaptTo(ValueMap.class) == null) {
            configs = new ValueMapDecorator(Collections.<String, Object>emptyMap());
        } else {
            configs = config.adaptTo(ValueMap.class);
        }

  return new ExampleLiveAction(actionname, configs);
 }
 public String createsAction() {
  return actionname;
 }
 /************* LiveAction ****************/
 private static class ExampleLiveAction implements LiveAction {
  private String name;
  private ValueMap configs;
  private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ExampleLiveAction.class);

  public ExampleLiveAction(String nm, ValueMap config){
   name = nm;
   configs = config;
  }

  public void execute(Resource source, Resource target,
    LiveRelationship liverel, boolean autoSave, boolean isResetRollout)
      throws WCMException {

   String lastMod = null;

   log.info(" *** Executing ExampleLiveAction *** ");

   /* Determine if the LiveAction is configured to copy the cq:lastModifiedBy property */
   if ((Boolean) configs.get("repLastModBy")){

    /* get the source's cq:lastModifiedBy property */
    if (source != null && source.adaptTo(Node.class) !=  null){
     ValueMap sourcevm = source.adaptTo(ValueMap.class);
     lastMod = sourcevm.get(com.day.cq.wcm.msm.api.MSMNameConstants.PN_PAGE_LAST_MOD_BY, String.class);
    }

    /* set the target node's la-lastModifiedBy property */
    Session session = null;
    if (target != null && target.adaptTo(Node.class) !=  null){
     ResourceResolver resolver = target.getResourceResolver();
     session = resolver.adaptTo(javax.jcr.Session.class);
     Node targetNode;
     try{
      targetNode=target.adaptTo(javax.jcr.Node.class);
      targetNode.setProperty("la-lastModifiedBy", lastMod);
      log.info(" *** Target node lastModifiedBy property updated: {} ***",lastMod);
     }catch(Exception e){
      log.error(e.getMessage());
     }
    }
    if(autoSave){
     try {
      session.save();
     } catch (Exception e) {
      try {
       session.refresh(true);
      } catch (RepositoryException e1) {
       e1.printStackTrace();
      }
      e.printStackTrace();
     }
    }
   }
  }
  public String getName() {
   return name;
  }

  /************* Deprecated *************/
  @Deprecated
  public void execute(ResourceResolver arg0, LiveRelationship arg1,
    ActionConfig arg2, boolean arg3) throws WCMException {
  }
  @Deprecated
  public void execute(ResourceResolver arg0, LiveRelationship arg1,
    ActionConfig arg2, boolean arg3, boolean arg4)
      throws WCMException {
  }
  @Deprecated
  public String getParameterName() {
   return null;
  }
  @Deprecated
  public String[] getPropertiesNames() {
   return null;
  }
  @Deprecated
  public int getRank() {
   return 0;
  }
  @Deprecated
  public String getTitle() {
   return null;
  }
  @Deprecated
  public void write(JSONWriter arg0) throws JSONException {
  }
 }
}

Using the terminal or command session, change the directory to the MyLiveActionFactory directory (the Maven project directory). Then, enter the following command:
mvn -PautoInstallPackage clean install

The AEM error.log file should indicate that the bundle is started, visible in the logs at https://<host>:<port>/system/console/status-slinglogs.

13.08.2013 14:34:55.450 *INFO* [OsgiInstallerImpl] com.adobe.example.msm.MyLiveActionFactory-bundle BundleEvent RESOLVED
13.08.2013 14:34:55.451 *INFO* [OsgiInstallerImpl] com.adobe.example.msm.MyLiveActionFactory-bundle BundleEvent STARTING
13.08.2013 14:34:55.451 *INFO* [OsgiInstallerImpl] com.adobe.example.msm.MyLiveActionFactory-bundle BundleEvent STARTED
13.08.2013 14:34:55.453 *INFO* [OsgiInstallerImpl] com.adobe.example.msm.MyLiveActionFactory-bundle Service [com.adobe.example.msm.ExampleLiveActionFactory,2188] ServiceEvent REGISTERED
13.08.2013 14:34:55.454 *INFO* [OsgiInstallerImpl] org.apache.sling.audit.osgi.installer Started bundle com.adobe.example.msm.MyLiveActionFactory-bundle [316]

Create the Example Rollout Configuration

Create the MSM rollout configuration that uses the LiveActionFactory that you created:

Create and configure a Rollout Configuration with the standard procedure using the properties:
- Title: Example Rollout Configuration
- Name: examplerolloutconfig
- cq:trigger: publish

Add the Live Action to the Example Rollout Configuration

Configure the rollout configuration that you created in the previous procedure so that it uses the ExampleLiveActionFactory class.

Open CRXDE Lite.
Create the following node under /apps/msm/rolloutconfigs/examplerolloutconfig/jcr:content:
- Name: exampleLiveAction
- Type: cq:LiveSyncAction
Click Save All.
Select the exampleLiveAction node and add a property to indicate to the ExampleLiveAction class that the cq:LastModifiedBy property should be replicated from the source to the target node.
- Name: repLastModBy
- Type: Boolean
- Value: true
Click Save All.

Create the Live Copy

Create a live copy of the English/Products branch of the WKND reference site using your rollout configuration:

Source: /content/wknd/language-masters/en/products
Rollout Configuration: Example Rollout Configuration

Activate the Products (english) page of the source branch and observe the log messages that the LiveAction class generates:

16.08.2013 10:53:33.055 *INFO* [Thread-444535] com.adobe.example.msm.ExampleLiveActionFactory$ExampleLiveAction  ***ExampleLiveAction has been executed.***
16.08.2013 10:53:33.055 *INFO* [Thread-444535] com.adobe.example.msm.ExampleLiveActionFactory$ExampleLiveAction  ***Target node lastModifiedBy property updated: admin ***

Changing Language Names and Default Countries

AEM uses a default set of language and country codes.

The default language code is the lower-case, two-letter code as defined by ISO-639-1.
The default country code is the lower-case or upper-case, two-letter code as defined by ISO 3166.

MSM uses a stored list of language and country codes to determine the name of the country that is associated with the name of the language version of your page. You can change the following aspects of the list if necessary:

Language titles
Country names
Default countries for languages (for codes such as en, de, amongst others)

The language list is stored below the /libs/wcm/core/resources/languages node. Each child node represents a language or a language-country:

The name of the node is the language code (such as en or de), or the language_country code (such as en_us or de_ch).
The language property of the node stores the full name of the language for the code.
The country property of the node stores the full name of the country for the code.
When the node name consists only of a language code (such as en), the country property is *, and an additional defaultCountry property stores the code of the language-country to indicate the country to use.

Language definition

To modify the languages:

Open CRXDE Lite.
Select the /apps folder and click Create, then Create Folder.
Name the new folder wcm.
Repeat the previous step to create the /apps/wcm/core folder tree. Create a node of type sling:Folder in core called resources.
Right-click the /libs/wcm/core/resources/languages node and click Copy.
Right-click the /apps/wcm/core/resources folder and click Paste. Modify the child nodes as required.
Click Save All.
Click Tools, Operations then Web Console. From this console click OSGi, then Configuration.
Locate and click Day CQ WCM Language Manager, and change the value of Language List to /apps/wcm/core/resources/languages, then click Save.

Configuring MSM Locks on Page Properties

When creating a custom page property you may need to consider whether the new property should be eligible for roll out to any live copies.

For example, if two new page properties are being added:

Contact Email:
- This property is not required to be rolled out, as it will be different in each country (or brand, and so on).
Key Visual Style:
- The project requirement is that this property is to be rolled out as it is (usually) common to all countries (or brands, and so on).

Then you need to ensure that:

Contact Email:
- Is excluded from the rolled out properties.
- See Configuring Live Copy Synchronization for more information.
Key Visual Style:
- Make sure you are not allowed to edit this property unless inheritance is cancelled.
- Also ensure that you can then reinstate inheritance. This is controlled by clicking the chain/broken-chain links that toggle to indicate the status of the connection.

Whether a page property is subject to roll out and therefore, subject to cancelling/reinstating inheritance when editing, is controlled by the dialog property:

cq-msm-lockable
- This will create the chain-link symbol in the dialog.
- This only allows editing if inheritance is cancelled (the chain-link is broken).
- This only applies to the first child level of the resource
  - Type: String
  - Value: Holds the name of the property under consideration and is comparable to the value of the property name
    - For example, see
      /libs/foundation/components/page/cq:dialog/content/items/tabs/items/basic/items/column/items/title/items/title

When cq-msm-lockable has been defined, breaking/closing the chain will interact with MSM in the following way:

If the value of cq-msm-lockable is:
- Relative (for example, myProperty or ./myProperty)
  - Breaking the chain will add and remove the property from cq:propertyInheritanceCancelled.
- Absolute (for example, /image)
  - Breaking the chain will cancel inheritance by adding the cq:LiveSyncCancelled mixin to ./image and setting cq:isCancelledForChildren to true.
  - Closing the chain will revert inheritance.

NOTE

cq-msm-lockable applies to the first child level of the resource to be edited and it is not functional on any deeper level ancestor regardless if the value is defined as absolute or relative.

NOTE

When you re-enable inheritance, the live copy page property is not automatically synchronized with the source property. You can manually request a synchronization if this is required.

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