Would you like to improve Oracle WebCenter Sites (OWCS) 12c for better performance, personalization, and increased productivity? OWCS offers customization possibilities, but it is important to make sure the customizations are implemented and deployed using the best possible practices suggested by Oracle, so the product remains eligible for support. In this blog series, we will give you 3 Pro Tips for effective customization options within OWCS.
Pro Tip #1: Java libraries – extend.sites.webapp-lib.war
From 12C PS1 or 12.2.1 onward, OWCS provides extend.sites.webapp-lib.war as a shared library, typically located under <ORACLE_HOME>/wcsites/webcentersites/sites-home/ directory.
The extend.sites.webapp-lib.war is a shared library deployed on the Weblogic which shares the same context root as the Sites webapp. This is intended to extend the functionalities of Sites with the customer’s desired customization. This is not intended to override the default functionality of Sites. As such, the Sites webapp takes precedence by Weblogic class loader followed by the shared libraries.
Any implementation specific customizations, such as static web resources or Java libraries, can be included in this WAR file.
If the same resource exists in sites.war, then it is going to be picked up from sites.war not from the extend.sites.webapp-lib.war. For example, if there’s a requirement to add a new permanent logger by tweaking existing logging-config.xml available in sites.war, then this new customized file would rather go into extend.sites.webapp-lib.war, because it is not supported to make changes to any file within the Sites war.
However, there are some exceptions. This does not apply to weblogic.xml or web.xml modifications.
Any conflicts between the Sites webapp and the shared library with existing properties in the Sites webapp that have been modified in the shared library are not supported.
All the customized files can go into the same folder structure that they belong to in sites.war, for example a new custom JAR(s) in /WEB-INF/lib/.
Stay tuned for the next two blogs in this series for Pro Tips #2 and #3. And if you’d like help upgrading your Oracle WebCenter Sites environment from 11g to 12c before the December Premier Support deadline, contact us at Inspired ECM to let our experienced consultants get your environment running efficiently and successfully today.
