Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: xml

  • Rote Loading

    With this specific application, we can import data, but there are limitations due to its 2000-era handling of XML files. HTML forms uploading files have to… Have all the packets be received by the server. Process the file with the browser connection still open. The server has to tell the browser everything was received and…

  • Another Way to Verify Cookie Domain

    Just finished a Oracle WebLogic Server 11g: Administration Essentials class today. So there are lots of things floating about in my head I want try. (Thankfully we have lots of development clusters for me to break beyond repair. Kidding. Sorta.) One of the common support questions Blackboard asks for those of us CE/Vista clients running…

  • Import Errors

    A couple issues I encountered yesterday loading XML files on Blackboard Vista 8. siapi output says: error invoking method in adapter, message is: cvc-complex-type.2.3: Element ‘extension’ cannot have character [children], because the type’s content type is element-only. Means the wrong type between luminis and ims was used. I created a files.properties file which sets the…

  • xmllint

    This Linux tool is my new best friend. We get thousands of XML files from our clients for loading user, class, and enrollment information. Some of these clients customize our software or write their own software for generating the XML. This means we frequently get oddities in the files which cause problems. Thankfully I am…

  • Useful User Agents

    Rather than depend on end users to accurately report the browser used, I look for the user-agent in the web server logs. (Yes, I know it can be spoofed. Power users would be trying different things to resolve their own issues not coming to us.) Followers of this blog may recall I changed the Weblogic…

  • LC Oddities

    IMS XML for Blackboard Vista 8: Say Division1 exists. We want to create Group1 inside Division1. Ignore that Division1 already exists and write XML to create it again. Create Group1 with relationship tag info for Division1. Starting with Group1 doesn’t work unless command-line overrides starting learning context to be Division instead of Group. Luminis XML for Blackboard Vista…

  • Better CE/Vista Web Server Log

    Some support tickets are more easily solved by knowing both user behavior and environment. An often helpful piece of information is what web browser they used. To add this, shut down the cluster, edit /VISTA_HOME/config/config.xml to include the cs(User-Agent), and start the cluster. This line will need to appear for every node. At startup, the…

  • Mail From Address

    It appears CE/Vista has several locations for defining the email addresses it uses for SMTP. $WEBCTDOMAIN/config/config.xml: mail.from= From address for messages sent. $WEBCTDOMAIN/customconfig/startup.properties: WEBCT_ADMIN_EMAIL= Some internal errors have a mailto: prompt to contact the server administrator. $WEBCTDOMAIN/serverconfs/log4j.properties: log4j.appender.EMail.To= Report fatal errors. $WEBCTDOMAIN/serverconfs/log4jstartup.properties: log4j.appender.EMail.To= Report fatal errors. $WEBCTDOMAIN/webctInstalledServer.properties: WEBCT_ADMIN_EMAIL= Installer picks up this value for populating…

  • Rock Eagle Debrief

    GeorgiaVIEW SMART (Section Migration Archive and Restore Tool) created for us by the Georgia Digital Innovation Group seemed well received. I’m glad. DIG worked tirelessly on it on an absurdly short schedule. Information is strewn about in too many places. There isn’t one place to go for information. Instead between Blackboard, VistaSWAT, and GeorgiaVIEW about…