We are building a Page with dynamic functionality using ASP.NET + Sitecore 7.0.
Is it practical and appropriate use Sitecore templates for:
SQL Stored Procedure Name to be invoked
JavaScript to be invoked
ColumnNames to be used etc (related to coding customization)
Or should these configuration properties remain inside the ASP.NET Project itself?
What is the primary purpose of Data Templates in Sitecore?
Are they for developer customization or customer-level customization?
The purpose of a data template in Sitecore is to define the set of fields for content items which inherit from that template. - Think of a data template as a class and the content items (pages) as instances of that class.
Templates are usually used to define the user-editable content of pages within a site, that being said you can have items to store information which is not managed by regular content editors. The question is where do you draw the line between things which should be put into Sitecore and things which should be a part of the solution. My advice is only put things in Sitecore if they need to be there. If you have to have the ability for editors or admins to configure those settings/properties.
I would say that putting SQL/ColumnNames is probably a bad idea unless you are building some sort of report builder interface in which case it may be essential?
Likewise with placing JavaScript into Sitecore; this can be OK in moderation (e.g. snippets of analytics code which content editors may want control over?). If you're placing whole libraries of JavaScript into Sitecore, you're probably doing it wrong.
One final point to note is findability/re-factorability of code: if you have code spread between Sitecore and your solution, it can make it very difficult to maintain as it is difficult to get a complete overview of code involved.
Related
I have an Episerver site with a JobDetailsPageController with a Index method that takes a jobId parameter and creates a view with some details about that job. The urls looks something like this: https://hostname/<root-depending-on-site-tree>/jobs/?jobid=44.
What I would like is having urls on the form .../jobs/manager-position-telco-44, essentiallly creating a slug of the job title and appending the id. I have done this in the past using standard ASP.NET MVC Attribute Routing on a non-Episerver site, but EpiServer has a routing of its own that I don't know too well and can't figure out.
Also, adding non-query strings after the slash consistently sends me (no surprise) to a 404 page, so I would need to somehow customise this behaviour. I need to use EpiServers standard routing to end up at the right "parent", but ignore the latter part (the pretty bit).
Is it possible to create such urls on a normal page in page tree in EpiServer? I do understand it is possible to create static routes, but this node can be moved around like any other page so I cannot avoid EpiServer.
Please see this blog post. What you're looking for is partial routing.
#johan is right, partial routing is one way of doing this. Just wanted to add other possible solutions that might or might not match your needs.
Import data as content
Instead of serving content dynamically, you could consider importing your job ads from whatever source you have directly in content tree as separate pages below particular root page. That would give you a lot benefits - pages would be cached, it would support multiple languages, editors would see content directly in EPiServer CMS, data could be adjusted manually, etc.
This would be a good solution if your data does not change often and you need to provide a way for editor to create a new job ad manually as well.
Implement you own content provider
Another way to serve your dynamic data to EPiServer is to write your own custom content provider. You can find documentation here: http://world.episerver.com/documentation/Items/Developers-Guide/Episerver-CMS/7/Content-Providers/Content-Providers/
This solution requires more coding and is more complex, but it has some benefits as well. If one wanted, it would be possible to not just serve content from external data source, but also update that data by changing values directly in EPiServer UI.
I have to display product and its description in listview/gridview,like any other eComm application.User want's to set the layout and attribute of product which he want to show while displaying the product.
I am planing to use templates, and provide user to generate templates(XSLT) based on the templates,the layout and attribute would be displayed,however I have no idea weather it is possible or not.Please guide
Check out how www.ventrian.com does their modules - especially the NewsArticles system.
Instead of providing the users an XSLT file to edit to control the layout they have their own templating / token system. There are a lot of modules that use this strategy, XSLT is a little serious if you are expecting 'users' to manage them. Even a lot of people who use DNN to build websites for others professionally have trouble wrapping their head around XML transformations.
But the answer to your question is definitely yes - you can provide XSLT files that transform your XML since it all works just like ASP .NET. But, most the popular modules provide a way for the user to customize layout that is not as complex as this.
I find the repetition of sets of controls for each of the EditItemTemplate, InsertItemTemplate, and ItemTemplate templates of a FormView to be tedious and risky, in terms duplicating layout and code etc. I would much rather create a xxxDetails user control, and use this in each template, cutting layout and code location down to one location.
However, this introduces several complexities for data binding scenarios. Are there any extablished patterns or practice guides for using user controls in these scenarios?
Microsoft just added really great support for this in ASP.NET 4.0. It is called DynamicData. They added methods on all data controls called EnableDynamicData(type). There are default templates included in ASP.NET, but you can make your own.
To use built custom templates, just add a DynamicData/Templates directory in your folder. Inside it you can add type views insert and edit templates for all of your data types. The default templates have validators built in so they are a great starting point!
Here is a sample I put together for using custom controls in DynamicData templates. I used a slider for editing integers, and CurrencyInput for money etc...
If you can go with using ASP.NET 4.0 I would highly recommend doing this. Also, even if you can't, you still might want to use the pre-built templates as guidance.
I downloaded GraffitiCMS the other day(now open source and free), and like a lot of what I see, but what I really want to use it for, is to add CMS capabilities to an existing asp.net database/application.
Without getting bogged down with all the details of my app, can someone give me the basic 'approach' that should be taken to add custom content to Graffiti; content that won't be a 'post'?
I've seen for example, how to add custom-widgets to Graffiti - basically inherit from the widget class, compile your dll and plop it into the correct directory and it becomes part of the system. Is there a way to do something similar for the main content areas?
For simplicity sake, pretend I have a non-graffiti database with gig's of data that I want to display on the website using standard asp.net grid's and forms. I realize I could just go in and hack apart the source code to integrate my existing app, but that is likely not the correct approach.
Not looking for a complete solution her, just a pointer and what areas to investigate...thanks.
If you check out the latest source of Graffiti (or the 1.3 branch that was recently created), support was added to put widgets anywhere you want on any page. There is a new chalk function - $macros.Widget - that provides you with this ability. Dan Hounshell wrote a blog post on how you can use this new functionality:
http://danhounshell.com/blog/graffiti-cms-1-3-add-a-widget-anywhere-in-a-view-with-new-widget-macro/
If you're looking for something different than that, just let me know - we're working to make Graffiti even better for situations just like you are currently in.
What we have done to be able to integrate Graffiti CMS with our current ASP.NET projects is to create a post in Graffiti called "hidden" and then with our standard .ASPX pages we call a class in our Render Override that pulls the "hidden" post (ie: site.com/hidden/) and uses the header and footer to wrap the Graffiti theme around our custom .ASPX page. We use some HTML comments in the "hidden" post to be able to parse the header and the footer. It is kind of a hack, but has worked out really well for us.
I think you're trying to put the cart before the horse - depending on the size and amount of functionality, I would be looking to rebuild it after learning the development platform of my CMS system of choice.
I'm pretty much in the same boat right now. I have avoided Graffiti because I have to learn "Chalk" (whatever that is) and Umbraco (using XSLT for layouts is retarded). So far, this leaves me with Sitefinity at the top of my list and Telerik have just pulled the free version!
I may end up grabbing a very basic CMS which is easier to customize. I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but it may give you some food for thought :-)
I have a few forms who's data needs to be written to the main database in their own tables. Just simple name-email collection forms, that are part of regular pages in drupal. I suspect the right way to do this would be to write a module that would have the query in a function, but this is just a guess. I've never written a module before, and don't know how the form would be processed that way.
It's also a guess that to perform the db query within a node would be insecure?
The only other idea I have would be to use a php file on the server to do the form processing, with the db query written there, but that seems very non-drupal, as far as I can tell.
How to??
http://drupal.org/node/508 is Drupal's info on module development
You'll be wanting to use the function "db_query()"
You can use Drupal's built in methods to build forms though that will save the data for you. Have a look at the module developers guide though and you should be able to figure it out. Module development sounds intimidating but it's not as hectic as it seems once you actually know what's going on with Drupal (hence, read the guide).
Have you checked what's already out there? Webform may be able to solve your needs without any custom code.
Also, I highly recommend the book Pro Drupal Development if you want to learn more about Drupal and basic module development.
I'd second the Webform module. Create a really simple webform with name and email (results can be emailed or stored automatically in the DB, and can be exported easily in several formats). Then check out the Webform Block module to put that webform in a block and place wherever you need it on your site. No custom coding required!
Here is an excerpt from the Webform Block project page:
Allows embedding a webform node into a block which can be positioned in any block region (theme space permitting).
Handles redirecting back to the current page on validation errors.
A good use for this is to add a site wide contact form inline on your pages, such as in the footer or sidebar.
Multiple webforms can appear on the same page. The contents of the block is simply a node, so theme work can be done in the node-webform.tpl.php file as usual.