New features and enhancements in SDL Contenta 5.5

This section lists features and enhancements introduced in SDL Contenta 5.5.

Client Certificate Authentication

Contenta Web can be configured to allow users to log in using Client Certificate Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication. To enable client certificate authentication, a public key certificate must be obtained from a certificate authority (CA) and installed on the user's web browser. Once the user has provided authentication to the operating system, such as with a Common Access Card (CAC), the Contenta Web server uses this certificate to authenticate the user's credentials. Contenta Web client certificate authentication is based on the X.509 standard issued by the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

To enable this functionality, a new login window, CWSSOLogin.jsp has been introduced. All Contenta desktops except the sysadmin can use this window to log into Contenta without supplying a password. For further information, refer to the section entitled "Using Client Certificate Authentication" in the Security chapter of the SDL Contenta Administration User Guide.

Search Enhancements

A number of enhancements were made to Crawler search functionality:
  • Multiple Crawlers can now simultaneously index the databases in a single database instance.
  • When a container is deleted using PcmPortal, Crawler now deletes all the indexes associated with the container and its contents.

Contenta Web List View Performance Enhancements

The Contenta Web (CW) List View has been enhanced to provide better performance when displaying a large number of records. For example, opening a container with hundreds of DMs or viewing the Assignments tab for a desktop with many notes could previously cause the system to hang or display incomplete list results. In addition, some tasks, such as creating a Project, would complete slowly. To address CW performance issues, a number of changes have been made:
  • By default, the List View now displays 100 items in a list per page. You can configure the number of items displayed in the Contenta Web preferences dialog by setting the Rows Per Page preference.
  • The Note view displays the newest 100 notes by default. You can click Show all my notes to display all your notes.
  • Child list queries have been improved to populate windows more quickly.
  • Contenta Web no longer sets or requires Internet Explorer compatibility mode.
  • The Internet Explorer progress indicator now more accurately shows progress as panels are loading.

Contenta and Contenta S1000D Java API and Web Services API

Contenta Web now uses the Contenta Java API instead of COM or CORBA API. Contenta CORBA API is desupported and Contenta COM API is deprecated as of this release. Support for custom Perl tools and programs is provided via a Perl API. The Contenta WS API provides a simplified URL structure for processing various operations on the SDL Contenta database. These URLs adhere to RESTful URL structures.
For further information about the Contenta and Contenta S1000D Java and WS APIs, refer to the following API reference documents:
  • SDL Contenta and Contenta S1000D Web Services API Programmer Guide
  • SDL Contenta and Contenta S1000D Perl API Programmer Guide