Monday, December 8, 2008

Limitation of Dynamic Converter

Dynamic Converter is certainly a deal clincher for OracleUCM when it comes to Intranet or internet projects. Here are some things we should be aware when it comes to DC.
DC is a acquired product for stellent which they have not completly integrated with there Content Server and Site Studio. Below are some tricky things that DC does not support.
  1. Preserving your links in word documents: Links are indispensible part of websites, we create links for different sections of website, to partner sites, external websites. Some times we wish to open links in the same window if the link is for a section on the website else we want them to open in a new window if we are linking to a partner site or an external website. The option to open in the same window or a new window can be configured in our word documents but Dynamic converter due to its poor integration with SiteStudio cannot preserve this setting. DC can either open links in a new window or open in the same window. DC considers every link as an external link because DC does not share the SiteStudio project file. There is a workaround to this problem which many of your business users do not like.
  2. Create tables and apply CSS styles: One palce where DC misirably falls short is managing tables. I think this issue is not restricted to DC alone. Getting decent enough tables using WYSIWYG editor is equally challenging. Lets look at a scenario where we have a table with a Heading and Body and you have different colors for them. DC will not recongnise this for the heading and body sections. For DC every thing is Body hence to get different styles for TH and TD is difficlt unless you do some ugly little tricks.

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