Content spots

Content spots reserve space on your store pages in which site content displays. The content spots are used during page creation to reserve space for the content that will be shown to your customers. When a page is requested by a customer, any content spots present on the page will communicate with the server to determine the appropriate content associated with the spot. Content spots are supported by special data beans that are used in conjunction with JSP technology to generate Web page content using WebSphere Commerce.

Content spots are created using the Content Spot wizard in the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. Placement and creation of content spots must be determined cooperatively between the developer responsible for creating JavaServer Pages files, and the content author. This ensures that the spots are implemented in a way that provides adequate space and retains the site design's aesthetics. Content spots should be descriptively named so as to include their location, such as HomePageBrandImage, or ShoppingCartText. This helps to reduce confusion about where it will appear, and what content it should contain. If necessary, numbers can be added to the name to differentiate between two content spots appearing on the same page. Content spot names must be valid Java identifiers.

The developer is responsible for providing the appropriate content spots on the required pages and in the specified locations. The content spots are defined using a generic WebSphere Commerce bean; the EContentDataBean bean. The name property of this bean must be specified for each required content spot. This ensures that each content spot is unique. This bean can be found in the WebSphere Commerce development environment.

Selecting and scheduling the content that displays in a content spot is done using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. If your store has enabled workspaces, content spots may be managed using workspaces and inherit the benefits from that feature.