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.
Related
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 need to present Word and PDF documents in a read-only preview, via an ASPX/HTML page to my internal users. In a related requirement, I need to present editable Word documents, via ab ASPX/HTML page, to parties outside of our network - effectively the public.
We cannot rely upon Word or Adobe-type PDF plugins being available on the destination PC.
Can anyone suggest a way to do this?
Edit - For clarity, the document/data would ideally stay on our own servers.
What about using Google Docs API? You could use either their word-like doc or a form to get the data you need, and then present that internally.
Not sure if this meets all of your requirements, or is an available option.
For our company, we have a few tools that utilize Google Docs. We upload data dynamically to them for specific needs.
Based on your requirements, maybe it's best to just write your own. I haven't created a Rich Text Editor. But it looks like there are quite a few tutorials online. Here is a basic tutorial for a rich text editor. It's using javascript, HTML, & CSS. If you prefer to not use js, then you may need to look for other tutorials.
This isn't the most glamorous solution, as it looks like the users view would be HTML. I'd think you could have it updating dynamically off to the side with an actual rich text view (similar to how Stack Overflow has theirs below an answer or question being written).
Update
Over the weekend I was exploring HTML5's contenteditable attribute, I came across an editor that builds off of that called Aloha Editor. It's a WYSIWYG type editor. But if that's something that you desire for your clients, than this would probably be a pretty simple integration. I have yet to use it, but it seems like it would be a great fit - if you decide to go the route of building your own editor.
You could use the Zoho API or, if you need to keep all data on your own servers and validated clients at all times, you could try the Aspose components.
If you're interested to provide documents in a view-only way then you can try GroupDocs as well: http://groupdocs.com/. They offer viewers for different file types which you can add to your website very easily: http://groupdocs.com/apps/viewer.
Since you need to keep data on your own server, aceoffix can be one of your alternative. It is a plugin installed on your own server and save all data on your server too.
I'm new to Drupal, but I want to create an add-on. The add-on requires some sort of multi-page form with advanced jQuery (I already looked at the jQuery module).
The add-on requires details of the current logged in user and will also communicate with an external database.
I've been looking at tutorials concerning Module creation etc. But they mostly cover creation of simple forms, where as what I want to create is more of a plugin.
Multi page forms are a total drag. Pro Drupal Development, has a very good section on this topic, and I highly recommend that book if you are doing any Drupal development.
Online I found the following article pretty useful too (though I ultimately went with my own system).
http://www.nicklewis.org/using-chaos-tools-form-wizard-build-multistep-forms-drupal-6
There's a decent example here:
http://thedrupalblog.com/creating-multipage-form-using-forms-api
To make the most out of this, you're going to want to get pretty friendly with the Form API:
http://drupal.org/node/204270
Sadly Drupal.org seems to be missing a Drupal 6.x explanation (though plenty exist for 5.x and 4.7 oddly enough).
Multi step forms are complex by nature, but there are some methods to make it easier. I recommend that you have a look at the multistep form tools offered by the Ctools module. This blog post by Nick Lewis explains how you can use it.
I think you should think twice before going with javascript/jQuery to create your forms. Javascript is a great way to improve the user interface, but it can be easily manipulated because it's client side technology. You shouldn't rely on javascript alone for things like input validation, temporary storage of form values and controlling the flow between different steps of the form.
I feel odd saying this, but I don't think you want to use the Drupal Forms API.
The Forms API provides a lot of security features (unique token, rebuilds form after submit to compare to ensure correct form is processed, etc.) and allows other modules to modify your forms, but I think a lot of those features will get in the way of your jEditable form. Multi-page forms are not that challenging using the Forms API, but jEditable elements will be.
Your module could simply add a menu item with a page callback function that puts together your jEditable form for you. That is about as close to the world of a 'normal PHP' script as Drupal will let you get.
(I've posted this on the drupal forum too btw)
I'm converting the company websites to use Drupal, or at least trying to check that its going to be the best way forward. I have a background in PHP development, and I'm currently using the CakePHP framwork. I've built this site (not my design) and I can see how to replicate most of the functionality using Drupal, most likely using the CCK module.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yk6u8mt
As you can see from the homepage:
A user chooses a country.
The country is passed using an ajax call to a script that decides which phone is best based on 'in country' network coverage.
A div is shown recommending the visitor the best phone for that country.
I'm wondering how to go about this in Drupal, I'm definitely not after a step by step guide, I just want to know if this kind of thing is possible with Drupal, and what approach to use.
If someone can help that would be superb. Thanks.
Okay, so you've got a path you're defining in hook_menu, which is where your form is being presented - or else you've got it set up as a webform in a node, that could work too.
Either way, in your form you're going to be using AHAH - check out http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/developer--topics--forms_api_reference.html/6#ahah and http://drupal.org/node/348475 .
Basically, you're going to define another path in hook_menu that's of type MENU_CALLBACK, and which will receive the country as input, and then will return the div that you'll display on the screen.
One core example of AHAH that may be useful to you is where you're entering a password and it lets you know if the password is secure enough - check that out.
Edit: There's also some good examples at http://drupal.org/project/examples.
I would look into using CCK and views. you can set up filters for the views. If filters don't work, you have the ability to include php code. I have also successfully added jquery code in the header of a view through which I was then able to have my view filtered by what is typed in a text box.
Coming from CakePHP using Drupal is a pain in the a** - even more for developers.
It's application structure might be designed to ease extensibility but this only means you have a system to enable your own plugins and themes.
While modules are basically the M+C-part the themes are the V-part of an MVC-application. The problem is that this seperation is not very strict in Drupal - in fact you have to break it sometimes in order to make things work (e.g. you have to include a theme_mymodule_myfunction() into your module as default output which you then can override with your theme using mytheme_mymodule_myfunction() ) And don't even bother looking for classes ( see http://drupal.org/node/547518 ).
Also there is no real link from a module to a theme. On many occations this is a good thing as you can switch modules and themes seperatly without creating a problem. For application builders coming from CakePHP (or any other framework) you often feel a lack of "wholesomeness" - you create parts for a base software and have to live with it's drawbacks.
IMHO I wouldn't recommend this step. Drupal is fine if you have to manage a website and might add a few modules to add neccessary value (image gallery etc.) but I definetly don't recommend it as a base for a customized web-app.
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 :-)