I'd like to be able to generate an Asp.Net bundle at runtime but change the contents of it based on the result of a database query.
Here's the scenario: working within a CMS system, I build up a page of content based on lots of little "snippets" of Html, each of which can potentially have their own set of stylesheets and javascript files. Each content page can be created at runtime by the user, so at design time I don't know which assets I will need.
So what I would like to be able to do is something like this:
#Styles.Render("~/contentPage/?id=2")
Where id is the page ID that the snippets are part of. Then, I would like to be able to take that ID, load the page, load the snippet entities which are associated with it, get a set of stylesheet names then produce the bundle.
Is this possible within the current confines of the framework? If not, is it possible to build my own handler for this which leverages the power of the existing framework to do the minification and all the other cool stuff that I get out of the box?
Thanks in advance
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.
In jsp and php it's very common to have files with pieces of HTML/Java/PHP code and have other jsp/php files consume them. That's fundamental for reusability.
In asp, M$ created another approach, master pages. But I'm having trouble to get used to it, to be forced to have ALL reusable code in a unique file. In example, some apps with many pages may have a breadcrumb area, while simpler apps won't need it.
Yes I can put those blocks inside a ContentPlaceHolder and just add them empty to asp pages they aren't needed. But I'd rather have them on their own files and include them when needed, instead of "removing" them when not needed.
Another example is about menus. Each app has its own menu. In jsp and PHP I can have a local file with the HTML menu and add it. In asp, the best I could imagine is have the "master master page" with an example menu code, then have a local "nested master page" only with local app's menu, and have asp files consume that "nested master page".
Is it the only way to do these stuff? Or is there a better way for doing it?
You have many choices with ASP.NET web forms.
If you just need to share server code, such as utility functions, you can add additional classes to your web project and instantiate/call them just like any other code. Classes added in this manner are accessible to all of your pages.
If you want to share server side code across multiple projects, you can create a new project of type "Class Library," compile it, and set a reference to the resulting DLL from all of your web projects.
If you have a page snippet or section (e.g. a menu system) that is common across pages, you have two choices: custom controls or user controls.
Custom Controls: these are controls written from scratch exclusively using code. Essentially, you write a class which extends Control (directly or indirectly), and you take care of everything. You need to write logic to create child controls that you want to use, and you override the Render method to perform rendering. Typically, you build this control into a redistributable assembly (i.e. a DLL), which can then be used by any ASP.NET applications, simply by placing the assembly in the 'bin' directory of the app (or in the Global Assembly Cache).
User Controls: these control are written using an ascx file, which looks much like an aspx page. i.e. you can simply drag and drop the UI elements that you want to use into the design surface. You don't need to worry about control creation, nor about overriding the Render method.
Sounds to me like you want a user control in this scenario. Here is a helpful walkthrough to get you started.
I will echo scheien's sentiment and tell you that you might want to look carefully at MVC, which is totally different but might fit better with your PHP mindset.
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.
I'm very new to Alfresco. My question is, how can we use a dashlet (created from scratch) into a page (created from scratch too)? What are the files and configurations to deal with, for including a dashlet into a page.
Moreover, the newly created page has to be similar to dashboard page but without authentication. The idea here is to do away from the default "Share" dashboard login flow.
Thanks.
A dashlet is simply a special type of web script, so yes, it is quite possible to place the same web script into a custom page by binding it into a component region.
The relationship between pages, templates, components and regions can be a little complex if you're new to Share development, so I'd recommend reviewing Dave Draper and Erik Winlof's Share Customizations Live presentation from last November's DevCon, where they introduce a sample project including an Ant build script and which includes a custom web script and page definition. The code can be downloaded from this Git repo as a basis for your own project.
You should not find that too many changes if any are required to your dashlet web script to make it work inside a custom page, but remember that if the user is unauthenticated then you will not have access to any information about them, nor will you be able to retrieve any data from the repository.
Let me try to answer this with some examples:
Alfresco page
To create an Alfresco Share page (you use share?), you need to create three files:
<TOMCAT>/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/pages/my-page.xml
<TOMCAT>/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-data/template-instances/my-page.xml
<TOMCAT>/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/templates/org/alfresco/my-page.ftl
The first one defines your page, the second one defines what components (dashlets) you will use on the page, and the last one is a HTML template (in Freemarker) arranging your components.
The first two files are XML, a bit alfresco specific, but simple XML, and the last one you could put static HTML and it'd work, or you could put some freemarker macros.
What is in each of those files (examples), you can read on this page, written specially for you and this question :) (Don't ask, I felt like writing about it)
No authentication
To not use authentication, you can just put <authentication>none</authentication> in the page definition file (the first XML file).
Dashlet files
Basically, a dashlet can be at the minimum two files, usually 4-5 or something like that. The dashlet.get.desc.xml file signifies two things: desc.xml part says it's for a new component (dashlet), and get part says this component will answer to HTTP GET calls.
is usually placed somewhere bellow /webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components. Doesn't really matter where bellow, but you would want to put it in some folder to manage all your code easier.
This file contains one important thing: url. Url defines what url your dashlet will answer to. And when you defined your page in the page definition above, you would put this url there to access the dashlet.
You could even access the dashlet directly, using the link http://localhost:8080/share/my/url/to/dashlet.
The other file, dashlet.get.html.ftl is, again, a freemarker template file. You put HTML there. You can also have a controller file for the dashlet, dashlet.get.js which prepares some dynamic content (it is written in server-side javascript and has access to some of Alfresco Javascript API).
Finally, you can put some internationalized text (translations) into bundles (basically, dashlet.get.properties, dashlet.get_DE.properties, dashlet.get_ES.properties etc, by browser lanugages).
There are also options to include client-side javascript or css files to this dashlet.
To see how exactly to assemble all this, you could try reading this page. Probably not really a good read, but it will hopefully clear some things up.
Sorry, just to be clear, you want to reproduce a share interface on an Alfresco repository, but without the login? Dashlets and interface components are webscripts, and webscripts are stored inside the repository, so in order to access them you need to be authenticated. You could use tag in the webscript xml description a runas="admin" or runas="guest" in order to achieve something. If i misunderstood, please let me know, and I'll try to help..
How to create dynamic views in asp.net mvc 2.0?
A better way to think about this is to have a generic view page that renders some HTML that administrator defines and which gets stored in a database. Another alternative would be to create static HTML files -- assuming the content is fixed or could be retrieved via AJAX -- and have a view which dynamically chooses which of these HTML files to from your generic view. I use this latter method to make certain parts of a link aggregator site I've put together maintainable by others. It renders HTML fragments (stored in content/static/*.htm) onto fixed parts of the index page/view using jQuery load. The admins have access to modify these files to rearrange/add/delete the links contained on that part of the page. The app is at an early stage of development and eventually these will migrate either into configuration files, and I will generate the HTML, or perhaps I'll develop an administrative interface to manage them and keep them in the DB.