Changing sling:resourceType on existing pages?

[dylanmccurry]

In my website, I have a need to change the sling:resourceType for my homepage. I am introducing a new field to the homepage properties specifically.

I have:

•  Created a new component for my homepage under apps/mysite/components/pages/home-page
• Updated the sling:resourceType to point to this component for conf/mysite/settings/wcm/templates/home-page/initial and conf/mysite/settings/wcm/templates/home-page/structure
• Updated the JCR directly in my local sandbox's homepage, and verified that everything works as expected

However, in AEMaaCS, I cannot access the JCR and modify content there directly. I am noticing that even though the template is updated and deployed, the existing homepage is still leveraging the prior sling:resourceType.

What is the best way to get the sling:resourceType updated in AEMaaCS without losing existing content?

[Tethich]

Hi @dylanmccurry 

Is there a reason why you cannot access the CRX in AEMaaCS ? You don't have permissions ? Because it is accessible for Author tier and in theory you can also do the manual changes that you need. Only /apps and /libs are immutable, so they cannot be changed.

There are multiple ways you can change content, depending also on how much content you need to touch, what authorization/access option you have at hand an so on.

1. You can manually go in CRX and update the stuff. I believe this is what you are looking for to go with, assuming you have to change only the homepage. Btw, if the page is already created using previous template, does not matter if you change the template definition, it will use the stuff from previous template version. So you either recreate the homepage (loosing the content edited) or manually update the exiting page (as you intend).

2. Install a content package with the update content (previously maybe created on your local env or smth)

3. If content is too large for manual intervention, you need to think about custom servlet that you call once and does all the job in one go. Servlet would run a query to extract targeted content and make your updates.

4. Or you can make an authorized POST call using Javascript or cUrl, to update the target property with new value. Being in AEMaaCS you would probably need an access token. https://sourcedcode.com/blog/aem/update-a-node-jcr-property-in-aem-with-curl

[dylanmccurry]

Unfortunately in AEMaaCS, the CRXDE browser is blocked in staging and production. It is only available in the development environment. The Developer Console has a JCR browser for staging and production, but this appears to be readonly.

I am currently exploring the idea of a repository initializer config which adjusts the sling resource type of the target node.

[Tethich]

You can either add the content in your codebase to be installed upon deployment, as a one time thing.

Or see if you can leverage ACS Commons: https://adobe-consulting-services.github.io/acs-aem-commons/features/contentsync/index.html

[Ritesh_Mittal]

Hi @dylanmccurry ,

In AEMaaCS, direct modification of the JCR isn't possible (at least on PORD). I recommend making changes in a lower environment first, then packaging and deploying the updates across other instances. To update the content, you can:

1. Use the Bulk Editor Utility: Bulk Editor Documentation
2. Create a package, unzip the content, perform a Find & Replace for the sling:resourceType (in your favorite editor like notepad++), re-zip it, and then install the package.

Thanks,

Ritesh Mittal

[daniel-strmecki]

Hi @dylanmccurry,

we actually built a tool for doing exactly that kind of content updates, I will check if we can open source when I find some time.

However, in the lack of a proper tool, I would perform such actions using a script. My preference for building reusable scripts is Node.js/JavaScript (but you can use any scripting language).

In your script, you can authenticate with the AEM author using a token generated from the Developer Console. Then make use the OOTB AEM APIs to read the JCR data, as well as update it. See https://sling.apache.org/documentation/bundles/manipulating-content-the-slingpostservlet-servlets-po...on how to create/update content via POST requests.

Doing this type of operation with a script enables you to properly test it on lower environments before going to production, as well as reuse it in the future if the need arises.

Good luck,

Daniel

[arunpatidar]

Hi @dylanmccurry 

You can create the component and deploy with the build and run ondeploy script to change the resource type

https://github.com/valtech/aem-easy-content-upgrade 

[kautuk_sahni]

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