dc-delivery-sdk-js

Official Javascript SDK for the Amplience Dynamic Content Delivery API

This sdk is designed to help build client side and server side content managed applications.

Features

• Fetch content and slots using the Content Delivery 1 and/or Content Delivery 2
• Fetch preview content using Virtual Staging
• Transform content using the Content Rendering Service
• Localize content
• Transform images on the fly using the Dynamic Media Service

So we can have nice things:

• ES6 module & tree-shaking support for tools capable of using ES6 imports (like Rollup, Webpack, or Parcel)
• Backwards compatibility for Node.js-style (CommonJS) imports
• TypeScript type definitions
• Universal Module Definition (UMD) to support direct use in the browser

Installation

Using npm:

npm install dc-delivery-sdk-js --save

Using cdn:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/dc-delivery-sdk-js/dist/dynamicContent.browser.umd.min.js"></script>

for legacy browsers:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/dc-delivery-sdk-js/dist/dynamicContent.browser.umd.legacy.min.js"></script>

Usage

This sdk supports browser and node.js applications using ES6 or CommonJS style imports.

ES6:

import { ContentClient } from 'dc-delivery-sdk-js';

const client = new ContentClient({
  hubName: "myhub"
});

CommonJS:

const ContentClient = require('dc-delivery-sdk-js').ContentClient;

const client = new ContentClient({
  hubName: "myhub"
});

If your application does not use a package manager you can directly include the pre-bundled version of the sdk and access the features using the global "ampDynamicContent".

<script src="https://unpkg.com/dc-delivery-sdk-js/dist/dynamicContent.browser.umd.min.js"></script>

const client = new ampDynamicContent.ContentClient({
  hubName: "myhub"
});

If you need to support old browsers a legacy version of the bundle is provided, however we strongly recommend using a tool like babel in your project to compile the sdk to your exact browser requirements.

Configuration options

* see Content Delivery versions

Content Delivery versions

In order to use the client, it must be configured with either account or hubName.

If account & hubName are supplied, the SDK will only use the Content Delivery 2 API.

Fetch content by delivery ID

Once your client is created you can request content for a slot or content item id. This will return a promise which will resolve to the JSON of your slot or content item. If no content is found with the provided id the promise will reject with an error.

const slotId = 'cb671f37-0a66-46c3-a011-54ce3cdff241';
client
  .getContentItemById(slotId)
  .then(content => {
    console.log(content.body);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.log('content not found', error);
  });

The format of the content object will be specific to your content types, which define the JSON structure of content items and slots, however a set of standard metadata is always included in a property called "_meta".

If the slot or content item requested returns a graph of content, for example a carousel may also return linked slides, these will be included inline in the JSON.

Example:

{
  "_meta": {
    "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/carousel.json",
    "deliveryId": "543246b7-5948-4849-884c-b295402a95b4",
    "name": "example-carousel"
  },
  "slides": [
    {
      "_meta": {
        "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/slide.json",
        "deliveryId": "d6ccc158-6ab7-48d0-aa85-d9fbf2aef000",
        "name": "example-slide"
      },
      "heading": "Free shipping until Sunday!"
    }
  ]
}

Fetch content by delivery key (Content Delivery 2 only)

Note: Fetching content by delivery key via getContentItemByKey() is only supported when using Content Delivery 2

Once you have set a delivery key for a slot or content item, the content item must be published before it can be retrieved using this SDK.

The getContentItemByKey() method will return a promise which will resolve to the JSON of your slot or content item. If no content is found with the provided key the promise will reject with an error.

const client = new ContentClient({
  hubName: 'myhub'
});

const slot = 'homepage-banner-slot';
client
  .getContentItemByKey(slot)
  .then(content => {
    console.log(content.body);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.log('content not found', error);
  });

The format of the content object will be specific to your content types, which define the JSON structure of content items and slots, however a set of standard metadata is always included in a property called "_meta" along with the deliveryKey on content items that have it defined.

If the slot or content item requested returns a graph of content, for example a carousel may also return linked slides, these will be included inline in the JSON.

The delivery key

Example:

{
  "_meta": {
    "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/carousel.json",
    "deliveryId": "543246b7-5948-4849-884c-b295402a95b4",
    "deliveryKey": "homepage-banner-slot",
    "name": "example-carousel"
  },
  "slides": [
    {
      "_meta": {
        "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/slide.json",
        "deliveryId": "d6ccc158-6ab7-48d0-aa85-d9fbf2aef000",
        "name": "example-slide"
      },
      "heading": "Free shipping until Sunday!"
    }
  ]
}

Preview staging content

By default, the content client will request content from the production content delivery services. When a user wants to preview content before it is published you can re-point the client to a virtual staging environment (VSE):

const client = new ContentClient({
  account: 'myaccount',
  stagingEnvironment: 'fhboh562c3tx1844c2ycknz96.staging.bigcontent.io'
});

Dynamic Content generates a VSE for each user and typically passes the "stagingEnvironment" value into your application using a URL parameter. This allows each user to effectively have their own staging environment which allows content producers to work in parallel.

Previewing staging content for a given Snapshot or at a given point in time (time machine)

You can use the StagingEnvironmentFactory to generate a new staging environment that is 'pinned' to a Snapshot or a timestamp, which then can be passed into the ContentClient.

Previewing content for a given Snapshot:

const factory = new StagingEnvironmentFactory(
  'fhboh562c3tx1844c2ycknz96.staging.bigcontent.io'
);
const stagingEnvironmentAtSnapshot = await factory.generateDomain({
  snapshotId: 'abcdef123456'
});

const client = new ContentClient({
  account: 'myaccount',
  stagingEnvironment: stagingEnvironmentAtSnapshot
});

Previewing content at a given timestamp (epoch milliseconds):

const factory = new StagingEnvironmentFactory(
  'fhboh562c3tx1844c2ycknz96.staging.bigcontent.io'
);
const stagingEnvironmentAtTimestamp = await factory.generateDomain({
  timestamp: 1546264721816
});

const client = new ContentClient({
  account: 'myaccount',
  stagingEnvironment: stagingEnvironmentAtTimestamp
});

Localize content

Content types can make use of field-level localization to give content producers the ability to enter locale specific values for a field.

By default, every locale value will be returned in the content object:

{
  "_meta": {
    "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/slide.json",
    "deliveryId": "d6ccc158-6ab7-48d0-aa85-d9fbf2aef000",
    "name": "example-slide"
  },
  "heading": {
    "_meta": {
      "schema": "http://bigcontent.io/cms/schema/v1/core#/definitions/localized-value"
    },
    "values": [
      {
        "locale": "en-US",
        "value": "Free shipping until Sunday!"
      },
      {
        "locale": "de-de",
        "value": "Kostenloser Versand bis Sonntag!"
      }
    ]
  }
}

If desired, you can configure the sdk with a locale query. If set, the locale matching is performed server side and only a single value will be returned.

const client = new ContentClient({
  account: 'myaccount',
  locale: 'en-US,en-*'
});

Returns

{
  "_meta": {
    "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/slide.json",
    "deliveryId": "d6ccc158-6ab7-48d0-aa85-d9fbf2aef000",
    "name": "example-slide"
  },
  "heading": "Free shipping until Sunday!"
}

Transform images

In addition to serving image and Video content, Dynamic Content can also transform media on the fly allowing you to target multiple channels and deliver just the pixels required from a single master asset.

The sdk attaches helper functions to Image and Video properties to simplify constructing Dynamic Media URLs:

const ImageFormat = require('dc-delivery-sdk-js').ImageFormat;

const imageUrl = content.body.imageProperty
  .url()
  .width(500)
  .height(500)
  .sharpen()
  .format(ImageFormat.WEBP)
  .build();

See the sdk reference documentation for further details.

Transform content

Using the Content Rendering Service, you can convert the JSON content into any format you choose by applying a template previously setup in the back-office. This is typically used to convert content into fragments of HTML, XML or even rewrite the JSON.

client
  .renderContentItem('b322f84a-9719-42ff-a6a0-6e2924608d19', 'templateName')
  .then(response => {
    console.log(response.body);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    console.log('unable to find content', error);
  });

Advanced

Detecting content types

When displaying content you may need to detect the content type to decide which UI widget should be used to display the content.

Every content item in the body includes a built-in property _meta.schema which identifies the content type that was used to create that fragment of content. This can be used by your application to influence how the content is processed.

Example:

{
  "_meta": {
    "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/slot.json",
    "deliveryId": "62ece7d6-b541-411c-b776-0a6704ede1fb",
    "name": "homepage-hero"
  },
  "slotContent": {
    "_meta": {
      "schema": "https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/banner.json",
      "deliveryId": "28583572-c964-4755-825b-044718312a29",
      "name": "example-banner"
    },
    "heading": "Free shipping until Sunday!"
  }
}

import React from 'react';
import { Banner, Carousel, Empty } from './components';

class App extends React.Component {
  //...

  getComponentForContentType(contentItem) {
    switch (contentItem._meta.schema) {
      case 'https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/banner.json':
        return Banner;
      case 'https://www.anyafinn.online/content-types/carousel.json':
        return Carousel;
      default:
        return Empty;
    }
  }

  render() {
    const slotContent = this.props.content.slotContent;
    const TagName = this.getComponentForContentType(slotContent);
    return <TagName content={slotContent} />;
  }
}

Strongly typed content

Applications that support TypeScript can optionally create interfaces to represent content types within the code. This can be passed as a generic parameter when loading content which will result in a typed content body.

interface Banner extends ContentBody {
  heading: string;
}

client.getContentItem<Banner>('ec5d12cc-b1bb-4df4-a7b3-fd7796326cfe');

Custom media CNAMEs

If you have previously configured custom CNAMEs for your media hosting, you can override the hostname used by the sdk when constructing image URLs as shown below:

const client = new ContentClient({
  account: 'myaccount',
  mediaHost: 'images.mybrand.com',
  secureMediaHost: 'images.mybrand.com'
});

Documentation

Please use the following documentation resources to assist building your application:

• Dynamic Content SDK Reference documentation
• Dynamic Content Delivery API Reference documentation
• Dynamic Content User guide

Getting Help

If you need help using the sdk please reach out using one of the following channels:

• Ask a question on StackOverflow using the tag amplience-dynamic-content
• Open a support ticket with Amplience Support
• Contact your Amplience Customer Success representative
• If you have found a bug please report it by opening an issue

License

This software is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0,

Copyright 2019-2021 Amplience

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.