Our test environment is the regular DD4T training environment. It uses SDL Web 8.5 and has a working DD4T 2.2 application.
We will test the following version: UNKNOWN
DXA 2.0 source code can be found here: https://github.com/sdl/dxa-web-application-dotnet
This document describes the backwards compatibility as SDL envisions it: DD4T migration support.pdf.
Configuration options
| Data source | Data format | Application | Test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content service | DD4T 2 | DD4T 2 | If time permits: scenario 4 |
| Model service | DD4T 2 | DD4T 2 | Scenario 1 |
| Content service | DXA 2 | DD4T 2 | Not supported |
| Model service | DXA 2 | DD4T 2 | Scenario 2 |
| Content service | DD4T 2 | DXA 2 | Not supported |
| Model service | DD4T 2 | DXA 2 | Scenario 3 |
| Content service | DXA 2 | DXA 2 | Not supported |
| Model service | DXA 2 | DXA 2 | No (SDL will test this) |
Test scenarios
We will test the following scenarios:
| Number | Description | Result .Net | Result Java | Issues found / remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Install the model service. In the original application, replace the SDLWeb85 provider with DD4T.Providers.DxaModelService. Data is still DD4T 2 |  | |
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| 2 | Upload the DXA templates and modify our templates. Republish all pages so that the broker contains DXA2-style JSON. Retest #1. | | |
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| 3 | Create a DXA 2 application, create some models and views, and test against DD4T2-style JSON through the model service | | | .NET version:
Java Version: Stopped testing. We were using publication Id 8 to test DD4T 2 style Json against a DXA web app, but in that publication, the required _all.json and presumbably other required config wasnt published. I don't have access, so Quirijn Slings, would it be possible to publish that in publication 8? The new URLs to test with, are: Discovering the content service capability: Model service - request a page published with DD4T JSON and converted to R2: Model service - request a page published with DXA R2 JSON and converted to DD4T: Note: the publication ID has changed to 2. Note: for the 2.1 release we should have a full template migrate guide as well to properly resolve views. Then everything will work end to end. |
| 4 | Replace DD4T Nuget packages with DLLs built from the DD4T copy inside DXA | NA | NA | I would like to remove those packages because there is no added value. See issue 8 - TSI-3024 below. |
| 5. | Load the dd4t dependencies in the Java DXA from Maven | NA | | Java: confirmed latest code is in. The problem is that if the the dd4t 2 code needs to be fixed we need to update both code bases. |
Test data
We used a single test page with 4 component presentations and copied that. In one version we used DD4T TBBs, in the other we used the DXA R2 TBBs. We set the Entity TBBs to include template related data and follow linked components to level 2 (just like the DD4T TBBs).
For each page, we captured the output of three times:
- The result of the preview process in the CM
- The output of the model service when called from the browser
- The output of the model service provider
This gives us the following JSON:
- DD4T output (preview): dd4t2-preview.json
- DD4T output (retrieved from model service in the browser): dd4t2-from-modelservice.json
- DD4T output (model service provider): dd4t2-from-modelserviceprovider.json
- DXA output (preview): dxa2-preview.json
- DXA output (model service): dxa2-from-modelservice.json
- DXA output (model service provider): dxa2-from-modelserviceprovider.json
Issues (to be solved before the release)
| Number | Prio | Issue |
|---|---|---|
| 2 - ? | Medium | Links are resolved in the model service. This makes it impossible for customers to write their own linking logic, which many of them have done. Please make this a configurable feature and default to false. DXA publishes rich text like this: <p>Hello <a href="tcm:90-123">world</a></p> It resolves this into: <p>Hello <a href="/world">world</a></p> Although this is great, DD4T has link resolvers in the application which expect xlink:href attributes. The rich text should therefore be resolved into this: <p>Hello <a href="/world" xlink:href="tcm:90-123" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">world</a></p> NOTE: latest version allows you to chose whether or not to resolve links AND remove namespaces. SDL is still discussing internally whether to split these to settings into:
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| 3 - TSI-3034 | Low | When you start the model service before the discovery and content services are started, it returns the following error (even after the other services have been started): { This may not be high prio or even a real issue, as long as there is a dependency configured from the model service to the discovery service. (QS) |
| 8 - TSI-3024 | High | There should be no copies of the legacy DD4T libraries in the DXA codebase. This is confusing to the customers and does not have any real advantages. We need to align releases (and hopefully not release DD4T at all anymore, other than defect fixes). |
| 9 - ? | High | The model service resolves links in rich text as well as the LinkUrl property in the DXA model, into hyperlinks without an extension. I understand why, because it is clean and many customers want it that way. But there are customers who currently route only **.html to their DD4T page controller. For these customers, the links will not work. Could you make this behavior configurable? E.g.: dxa.defaults.converter-extensionless-urls=true|false It can default to true, so the default behavior remains the same as in the CTP. |
Fixed issues
| Number | Issue | Fix |
|---|---|---|
DD4T.Providers.DxaModelService DLL is built with dependency on DLLs that are not added to the dependencies section in the Nuspec. Dependencies used in the DLL, are:
This should be reflected in the Nuspec so they are installed automatically. The result right now is a type loading exception. Workaround is to manually configure bindings in the Web.config, but this shouldn't be necessary. | ||
ASP.NET MVC presents the URL to the action method WITHOUT a leading slash (so 'en/index.html' instead of '/en/index.html'). In DD4T, the slash is not prepended to the URL in the framework itself. Instead, it is normally done in the concrete controller implementation (in other words: the customer knows they have to add the leading slash themselves). The DXA 2 model service provider (I think it is in the provider, could be in the client as well) prepends the slash to the URL itself. As a result, all existing implementations return a 404, because the URL that is looked up in the broker, is '//en/index'. | Fixed by checking if the URL starts with a single slash, and only prepend a slash if it doesn't. | |
Page cannot be deserialized when JSON is generated by DXA R2 TBBs. The error thrown in the application is 'Value cannot be null, parameter name: source'.  The line that causes the error, is made red below (from the ContentModels.cs class file in DD4T.Model): [XmlIgnore] Looking at the JSON generated by the model service, I think it is simple: the conversion to DD4T-style JSON is not happening. The DD4T and DXA2 models are the same for the top level properties of the page (like Id and Title) but fail on the ComponentPresentations element, which does not exist on that level in DXA2. Update QS 23 Jan: the root cause has been identified by Alexey: it fails if the navigation.json page is not published. Since the point of this compatibility is to support existing DD4T customers who want to profit from the model service, it makes no sense to force them to create this page and publish it (they probably have an alternative navigation mechanism in place already). We need a version of the model service that does not fail when the navigation.json page is missing. Update QS 23 Jan (later on the day): the process also needs schemas.json. Bart is recommending to publish the Publish Settings page, which in turn publishes the above-mentioned JSON files as BinaryVariants. We will do that and retest. Update Jan 25: When running a dd4t-2-java app against http://ec2-52-17-130-35.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8081/content.svc, it seems that the ModelService doesnt convert PageTemplate info. We need to decide whether this is a blocking issue or not. Quirijn Slings - we first also need to know how this page was published (with DXA or DD4T TBBs) Update Jan 30: everything works if a. you have published the publish settings page and the navigation page, and b. you have assigned DXA metadata to your DXA page template. This is something that must be made clear in the release notes. | ||
Access any page, for example and 500 error is returned. In the site.log file, errors related to the model service are found and a URL it is trying to call. The errors are always similar to: DXA Model Service returned an error response: Status=500, Error='Internal Server Error', Exception='java.lang.NullPointerException', Message='No message available', Path='/PageModel/tcm/16/further-information' Copy the model service URL found in the log file and request it in the browser. A perfectly normal JSON is retrieved. Access again and now it works great. When trying to access any other page, the error cycle appears. Update KS: Tested on a fresh 8.5 instance with the latest hotfix CD_8.5.0.8403. The same results are observed as the last time. The only difference is that this time cachine was left as default (web.config of the web application wasn't changed at all) so that returning to the previous page did not return 500 since it was probably retrieved from the cache. Still, the main issue is there: Requesting of the new pages does not work unless the model service is not requested directly and via the web application. Update KS: Issue fix after the new version of DXA app was delivered by SDL. | ||
| 5 | Fatal | Model conversion from R2 to DD4T fails. I request a page containing DXA R2 JSON and publish it with URL /dxa.html. The JSON looks like this (when retrieved with raw=true): dxa-raw.json. I then try to convert it to DD4T by calling the model service with this url: http://ec2-52-214-122-181.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8089/PageModel/tcm/2/dxa?modelType=DD4T This results in this error: { The dxa log of the model service shows this error: 2018-01-30 13:18:29,943 INFO c.s.d.m.s.DefaultPageModelService - Found R2 model while requested DD4T, need to process R2 and convert, request PageRequestDto(publicationId=2, uriType=tcm, path=/dxa, includePages=INCLUDE, contentType=MODEL, dataModelType=DD4T, expansionDepth=100, depthCounter=com.sdl.dxa.common.dto.DepthCounter@9f) Note that the DXA page template that we used on this page, has metadata assigned to it. |
| 4 | High | Model conversion (to R2) fails if page template has no metadata (which is a valid scenario in DD4T). The error is in the class ToR2ConverterImpl, in the _loadIncludes method. Please check if the pageTemplate has metadata at all before checking if it contains a certain field. |
| 1 | Low | XHTML namespaces are removed by the model service. This is probably not a problem for any customer, but it is a difference so we should put it in the release notes. |
| 7 - TSI-3028 | High | Importing the DXA CMS-items into an existing BluePrint hierarchy which already has a configured Topology with discovery services and everything, is too hard. It can really only be done by importing too much and then rewiring the topology manually. We cannot assume that customers will figure this out. Update: it is really much easier now with the new verison of the master-only.zip! The scenario should be described in the documentation, but it looks good now. |
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