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..
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.
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.
We had a client ask us to redisign their Volusion site. I understand that Volusion gives you access to, basically, 1 main HTML file and a small handfull of CSS files. But, if I understand correctly, they do NOT give you access to edit the .ASP files for the site/template.
Beyond simple CSS changes, How do you create your own custom Volusion Template without access to .ASP files?
You do not have access to the code that makes up the product or category content areas for example.
You are able to edit the primary template (ie template_yourstore.htm) and its corresponding CSS. If you want to go further than this you are dependent on javascript to makes changes client-side.
To be totally clear, you can use asp but only on your own asp pages. You cannot change Volusion's code.
I'm an ASP.NET newbie, but not so new at programming in general.
I'm creating a commercial website, and I want to allow an admin to add new articles (an article consists of text, images and various properties such as category).
I am trying to decide the optimal Modus Operandi. This site is commercial, so SEO is a major consideration. This means that I want each url to be "unique". That is, if someone navigates to an article about raccoons, he should be redirected to www.mysite.com/articles/raccoons. This means - I can't have one page that loads the appropriate article dynamically a-la AJAX (gotta use deep-linking)
So how exactly do I do this? suppose the admin entered his text, uploaded the images and set the article properties. I create a new subfolder, save the images to the server (I understand that saving images to a DB is a big no-no), their addresses in a DB, and the content itself to the DB. But now what?
How do I go about creating the actual page?
Is there a function for creating a new aspx file? then what about its corresponding cs file? Or is it unwise to use aspx? Maybe plain html? but then how does it work with my site's master page? Or maybe just create another copy of a general aspx file which is populated with an article according to a parameter?
I would like to know what is the "smartest" approach before I dive in too deep.
You can Consider ASP.Net MVC for this. What you need is more like a Content Management System rather than a Blog, as you mentioned an administrator will add articles.
By Using ASP.Net MVC, you have a very clean implementation there, your urls will stay as you need it for SEO, You dont have to create aspx pages on the fly but the framework will let you deal with new urls from your class files.
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.