I've been trying to learn how develop websites with ASP.NET as well as setup a personal website to use as a online porfolio/resume. With my website I've decided to not try to reinvent the wheel and thus decided to use a premade ASP.NET based CMS.
After reading a lot of reviews I settled on Umbraco, but now I'm seeking out alternatives. I like Umbraco a lot but I keep running into problems. Since installing it on my host I haven't made any changes through the file system, or database directly. All changes have been through the admin site. Yet somehow I kept getting it into some state where I could not delete a datatype, and now I'm having problems removing or renaming one of my templates. I've searched for Umbraco forums for solutions and usually find that I have to run some SQL script workaround on the database to clean things up. This kind of thing is really not something I want to fiddle with for my personal site.
Has anyone else had a lot of problems with Umbraco like I have? Are there other free CMS systems out there that are more reliable, yet similar to Umbraco? Specifically I really like how Umbraco gives me total control over the HTML generated by my site. Simple is also better in this case. I'm not trying to create some kind social network/community portal/forum/blog site. There won't be multiple people logging onto this site or anything like that.
I've been reading a bit about N2, which I'm now starting to consider. I like that it's more developer based and that you setup page types through real .NET classes in Visual Studio. Again I don't want to attempt to build my own CMS from scratch, but at the same time I really don't like how hard it is to see what's going on under the hood with most other CMS systems.
I haven't used N2 so I can't comment on that, but alternatives you can consider are Orchard or FunnelWeb, both are on MVC 3 and Razor.
If you're wanting a blog that is mostly just a blog then FunnelWeb is a good option.
I'm currently writing a comparison between Orchard and Umbraco if you're interested as well.
I think you'll be happy you stuck with Umbraco. I was so frustrated with Umbraco when I first started working with it for the exact reasons you stated above. The issue with not being able to delete data types could mean that it's connected to something (IE: document or media type) somewhere and if you force delete it (IE: via the db) you could really mess up your install. <- speaking from experience.
I'm absolutely in love with Umbraco now though. I am completely confident that I can build just about anything I need with it now.
I think that my best piece of advice I can pull from my own experience is make sure that you've got your site architecture planned out thoroughly before starting to build it out in Umbraco. You don't want to be fiddling around in there afterward changing things and that's where you can really get yourself into some hot water.
Have fun!
if you want a minimal .net mvc4 cms with good performance check out puck https://bitbucket.org/yohsii/puck/overview
it adds very few concepts on top of what you need to know for .net mvc but it does require .net4.5 (and therefore VS2012) to work with.
it also uses localdb out of the box but if you don't want to install that just attach the database mdf file to regular sql server and change the connection string
Related
I am taking part in Imagine Cup and got only three months for building a site in ASP.NET. Is it possible to learn enough to build a working site containing an cms, login system in a month. Its not that I am beginning web development, I already know a little asp.net and know AJAX, JAVASCRIPT, CSS, HTML, SQL but have never worked with databases. I was never into web development but started because of Imagine cup. In 2 months I already know HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, HTML and AJAX but I am worried about the complexity of server-side scripting and ask for the best way to get me working in ASP.NET in a month. I know c#.
Although you can't be an expert in a month, you can get up and running fairly quickly with webforms. Since it already includes a login system, you can get that up and running quickly.
As far as CMS, it depends what you need. An advanced CMS system is a major undertaking.
Getting going with ASP.NET
Actually, if you want to re-apply everything you know about creating JS enabled static html sites, you'd have a smoother path using MVC because you don't have to guess what the tag id's are, you don't have to guess what kind of HTML a server side control is going to create, etc.
That said, Jonathan Wood is correct, to just create a page with labels and buttons, Web Forms has fewer concepts you need to learn, but you will find it harder to apply the same techniques that work well with JS + static html.
Data bases
If you use SQL Compact, then it is easier to get started because you needn't learn to mess with the numerous things going on with SQL Server (like a security model appropriate for big companies, but not for learners). Another easy alternative is MS-Access because the "Query by Example (QBE)" query designer is still better than anything that the Visual Studio or SSMS teams ever put together.
Keep in mind that if you use MS-Access, while it will be really easy to learn (more so than SQL Compact), MS-Access uses Jet SQL and has many other differences from SQL Server, where as everything you learn about SQL Compact will apply to SQL Server.
Not sure what the conditions etc of Imagine cup are, but I strongly recommend to use an existing CMS (in particular Umbraco) instead of developing all from scratch. Some advantages are:
No need to dive into SQL and databases right away
Building blocks are available (login system) and leverage existing ASP.NET technologies
Razor can be used instead of xslt which will be a skill you'll be able to apply to pure ASP.NET MVC development later on
Very friendly and helpful community if you need some help
Starter kits available - basic web sites can be created easily
By diving into any detail of the CMS, you'll learn a lot (source code available)
You could probably pick up the basics with a few good books. Sam's, Wrox, APress and O'Reilly are great. You can also check http://www.asp.net/get-started for Microsoft's official tutorials.
You can also download the express versions of Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server. If you want to continue on after the competition I'd strongly recommend you learn database programming on SQL Server 2010 Express. (It'll help you down the road)
Good luck with it.
I've started to wondering whether ASP.NET Webforms/MVC even have a place in the web developers toolbox anymore... It seems that CMS systems like Umbraco have replaced the web developers job. Yes I know that those CMS systems are built with ASP.NET Webforms/MVC - however is there even any reason for learning those things if all you gonna do is to use a CMS system anyway? - Also I cant find any situation where a CMS system can be replaced by your own web application.
My question is therefore: Is there any reason for learning Webforms/MVC when using a CMS?
EDIT:
My question might be more like: When should I use a CMS, and when should I go and build my own web app?
The problem with CMS solutions, and I mean all CMS solutions (not just Umbraco, or other .NET solutions, but in any language) is that you will always pay a price for using them. You may gain more from the time-savings afforded by using the CMS, but there are trade-offs to consider:
You will sacrifice a great deal of flexibility
You could pay a significant performance penalty. Many CMSs load a large amount of modules and code to service every request, and much of this is not relevant to a particular page function. (though some CMSs are more monstrously heavy than others!)
The future of your project is tied to yet another vendor, and their own choices
Very often, you rule out the possibility of using other databases that might have better fit your customer's needs (Umbraco doesn't support PostgreSQL, Kentico only supports SQL Server)
Once you start using a CMS you will be tied into satisfying the architectural decisions and API of the CMS framework, and you could eventually be backed into a corner.
This can be particularly problematic if your 'site' is more of a web application than a pure content delivery site. In such cases it can make more sense to choose to build using the full flexibility of the web application framework, rather than risk getting backed into an architectural corner.
On the other hand, if you are building a web site that has potentially hundreds of pages, with a lot of user-contributed content and is much less of a web application, then often a CMS is the way to go, and makes a lot of sense. But remember, you now have two frameworks and two APIs to learn and manage (your platform's framework and the CMS framework).
Writing a CMS is like invading Afghanistan.
Everybody gets a turn but nobody wins.
I don't think that Stack Overflow could have been built with a CMS. Does that answer your question? =)
Update
To answer your updated question.
If you want a regular corporation web containing news, articles, forum etc: Go ahead and use a CMS.
If you need to build a more custom web site like stackoverflow, a web interface for a system or anything like that: Built it using MVC etc.
I personally use a CMS for our corparate website and a MVC framework to build user and administration interfaces for our products.
Not every problem needs a CMS. In the same way not every problem needs a bespoke MVC/webforms website. It depends on what your requirements are. You pick the technology to solve the problem.
Build vs buy is the hardest decision to make. As a developer build always looks best. You can do better than that pile of carp they want to buy. Nevermind that you're reinventing the wheel, axel, cart, etc. To users/management buy always looks best. They don't have to think to hard about what they want and can have it now, not 3 months later after you write it. They forget it'll cost the same again to customise & make it impossible to upgrade.
I'll stop ranting now.
Umbraco is a pretty bare minimum CMS. To customize it (e.g. Version 7+) you'll need to know Heavy MVC, JSON, XML, Sql, etc.
In fact a Site built on Umbraco 7+ is entirely based on MVC views you set yourself and assign to SurfaceControllers (which are MVC controllers) and all you are really getting is the ability for users to edit things about your pages and have Umbraco manage it for you in a DB.
In short you still need experienced web developers to build a site on Umbraco, they just save a lot of time by not having to build the entire backend from scratch.
You use Umbraco to organize Document Types that define what Templates (MVC Views) are used for rendering different types of documetns (e.g. Web Pages) and then you built the template from the ground up with 100% control over the HTML, Css, and Javascript that get's output.
Imo Umbraco is more of a Framework like Django than a complete CMS.
Sure you can build a site in Umbraco and not customize anything, but it would be a pretty cheesey site.
The whole point to Umbraco is to give skilled .Net Developers a good platform for building a site on top of it, but they still have to build it.
Now sharepoint would be more of a complete CMS out of the box that you can do a lot with, but let's see a few problems with SharePoint...
Resource Heavy, eats 50+ Gig's to install
Eats 16 GB of ram just to boot it up (Sharepoint 2013)
Requires Sql Server 2008 R2 or equivalent (enterprise license, $$ chaching)
Requires Windows Server ($$chaching)
It's a monster basically, if all you need is a user editable blod platform... man what a waste of money. Foundation is free, but doesn't include things like the Blog Site Template, so you buy a server enterprise license ($$ big cachinge, 40,000$+ in some scenarios...)
Agreed. A CMS like Umbraco provides a (very) good out-of-the-box solution for the most basic applications. Any sort of specialized purpose is going to require additional programming knowledge. Anymore, though, and your major, if not primary need is going to be a good understanding of the business need. I think we're getting away from building the Legos themselves and on to building the neat toys with the Legos. Cheers!
A CMS (or similar application framework) will provide you with a lot of functionality out of the box, and many of them also have a good library of plug-ins. But you'll still need to write WebForms/MVC code if you want to add any custom features.
I would like to ask those who are experienced with building a website with Drupal. I got a job like this, but I'm more interested in programming. I got also another job offer and cannot decide!!
How often do I get to programming/changing code in Drupal, when building a site in it? Isn't it just about clicking around and downloading modules?
the other job is different but i didn't want to write long descriptions here. This job with drupal got all the positives, but im afraid that its less programming, more clicking and im trying to learn more programming. the other job is classic php programming with company internal framework.
thanks guys
I work in a company where I mostly do Drupal development. Now it's hard to say anything concrete about your job offer, since we don't really know the company etc. There's not really a reason why doing development with Drupal should be any less coding than doing development with some other PHP framework.
You get a lot for free with Drupal, the whole CMS part, all the modules on drupal.org, and yes there will be some AI configuration, but it's usually not that much. All the configuration part of a Drupal and modules is pretty easy if you know what you're doing. For me I spend around 5% of my time for a project doing configuration, making views (a drupal module you can use to create displays) etc, the rest of my time, I use hacking away in my code editor.
As a drupal developer, you mainly do two things.
Write code to add functionality
Write code to alter existing functionality.
Drupal is run is procedural, so there's not much classic OO, instead you write code that gets executed when something happens. Fx a user logs in, then you get a chance to modify the user, do some things like counting how many times the user has logged in.
An important part of Drupal is also presentation. In Drupal we call this theming. Theming is also very code heavy. Drupal is very flexible, so you can overwrite functions used to generate the markup in your theme. These are classic PHP functions. Then there is the whole css, html js part as well.
If you have the chance to do Drupal development, I think you should take it. There is a massive demand for good Drupal developers, that know how Drupal work, and how to use the APIs. It will be something you can use to find your next good job. Knowing some random in house PHP framework, will probably not help you as much in terms of finding your next job.
It's going to depend on how much you want to customize Drupal. You'll typically get to spend some time altering code to change the layout or whatever other UI-related requirements your employer/client would like.
As far as altering the core of Drupal, you wouldn't want to do that anyway or you could run into trouble when a new version becomes available and you want to upgrade. Any custom coding would instead be done in the form of writing Drupal modules or plug-ins.
Comparing your two brief job descriptions, the "classic php programming" option sounds more like what you want to do. There simply wouldn't be a comparison between doing development in Drupal vs. doing development on some company's internal framework, but either way you would get some experience.
Don't let this answer guide your decision on the offers. Pick the one that feels right and works best with your lifestyle. You can always do your own research and development outside of work if you wish to gain experience or knowledge.
It heavily depends on the project. I work as a professional Drupal developer for 2 years.
Normally making a Drupal site consits the following steps:
the site builder gets the spec
the site builder makes a research what modules to use
the themer makes a wireframe
client accepts the wireframe
the designer makes the actual design
the themer starts implementing the design
the site builder starts installing and configuring the modules
if there are problems which can't be solved with the available modules, then the developer gets a specification
the site builder finishes site functionality and applies the theme
testing
deploying
As you can see, your job will be depend on which role do you work. If you apply for a site builder, then you don't have to code much. If you get hired as a developer, you will most likely end up writing bigger or smaller modules for different projects (this is what I do most of the time). At smaller companies, the site builder and the developer (sometimes even the themer) are often the same person.
However if you want to make sure that you will write code all day (and you don't know what roles will you fulfill at the Drupal company), I rather recommend the second job.
I want to port an existing, legacy, ecommerce website from ASP to ASP.NET.
What approaches do I have ?
is there a way to run an ASP file with an ASP.NET engine ?
are there tools to automatically convert ASP to ASP.NET and do they work on complex websites ?
other approaches ?
Thanks for your help
Jerome Wagner
No, but if you have Asp.NET on the server, that doesn't mean the Asp pages won't run anyway. Having Asp.Net installed does not break classic asp. However, newer versions of Windows come with classic Asp turned off by default, so you have to go into add/remove programs/add/remove windows components and drill down to install asp. And there's nothing to prevent you from having asp pages sitting side-by-side with Asp.Net pages in te same website, or even the same directory, so really the first question si not really an issue.
I've never heard of them. Classic ASP is so different from Asp.NET that it's just not feasible.
Manually, one page at a time. And that is an approach that has issues because sharing session between Asp and Asp.Net is not trivial and relies on hacks.
I know this isn't an answer to your question and it's probably none of my business, but in my experience, this may be a good time to look at a commercial ecommerce site. Several are out there at good prices. The amount of time you'll spend on this may be way less than you'd spend. Also, PCI rules and security issues have changed so much since classic Asp was a "real" development platform that you're definitely better off with a commercial app.
I say this from experience. We just replaced our old shopping cart with a commercial one after spending quite a bit of time going back and forth on our best approach. If you can afford it, i strongly recommend it.
The other answers are valid, so I'll only add that there is a migration tool of sorts provided by microsoft: The ASP to ASP.NET 1.x Migration tool . It doesn't claim to completely migrate a site, but may assist with a large portion of it. Of course, this assumes that a asp.net 1.1 site will run just fine on the latest incarnation of asp.net.
Step 1. Gather requirements for the new system
Step 2. Does anything exist that already meets your needs? if so, stop here and buy it.
Step 3. Build a data model and screen designs.
Step 4. Does the new system jive with the stake holders expectations. Go back to step 1 if necessary.
Step 5. Code new site
If necessary, review various standard project templates (scrum, waterfall, whatever). Pick one and stick to it.
You'll notice a distinct lack of anything remotely related to "converting" the old code / data files to the new platform. This is to preserve your sanity and help ensure the project will be a success.
To answer the actual question: no. You might as well have asked if there were tools to convert a php site to java. They are radically different things with their own approaches.
We have a series of ASP.Net applications that have been written over the course of 8 years. Mostly in the first 3-4 years. They have been running quite well with little maintenance, but new functionality is being requested and we are running into IDE and platform issues. The apps were written in .Net 1.x and 2.x and run in separate spaces but are presented as a single suite of applications which use a common navigation toolbar (implemented as a user control). Every time we want to add something to a menu in the nav we have to modify it in all the apps which is a pain. Also, the various versions of Crystal reports and that we used tables to organize the visual elements and we end up with a mess, especially with all the multi-platform .Net versions running. We need to streamline the suite of apps and make it easier to add on new apps without a hassle. We also need to bring all these apps under one .Net platform and IDE.
In addition, there is a WordPress blog styled to match the style of the application suite "integrated" into the UI and a link to a MediaWiki Wiki application as well.
My current thinking is to use an open source content management system (CMS) like Joomla (PHP based unfortunately, but it works well) as the user interface framework for style templating and menu management. Joomla's article management would allow us to migrate the Wiki content into articles which could be published without interfering with the .Net apps. Then essentially use an IFrame within an "article" to "host" the .Net application, then...
Upgrade the .Net apps to VS2010, strip out all the common header/footer controls and migrate the styles to use the style sheets used in the CMS.
As I write this, I certainly realize this is a lot of work and there are optimization issues which this may cause as well as using IFrames seems a bit like cheating and I've read about issues with IFrames.
I know that we could use .Net application styling, but it seems like a lot more work (not sure really). Also, the use of a CMS to handle the blog and wiki also seems appealing, unless there is a .Net CMS out there that can handle all of these requirements.
Given this information, I am looking to know if I am totally going in the wrong direction? We tried to use open source and integrate it over time, but not this has become hard to maintain. Am I not aware of some technology out there that will meet our requirements? Did we do this right and should we just focus on getting the .Net streamlined? I understand that no matter what we do, it's going to be a lot of work. The communities considerable experience would be helpful. Thanks!!
PS - A complete rewrite is not an option.
Hmm, we're in the midst of a project to do something that sounds familiar. We're using www.sitecore.net CMS but you could use the Open Source alternative Umbraco again both of these will have a learning curve, but they're .Net apps and aren't targetted specifically at blogs. SiteCore ultimately can use normal .Net user controls if you want, though it's slightly against their model, but it works.
One thing I'll warn you of is SiteCore Must be the root of your website, it has to control the root of the domain (it has a urlrewriting module that needs to be at the root) and you can tell it to exclude certain folders where your applications might live. You can obviously put your navigation in a folder under the root of the site. Also note SiteCore's a .Net 3.5 application running under the 2.0 runtime.
Are your sub-applications.. Actual seperate applications in virtual dirs or something I'm guessing?
Depending on the nature of the .Net apps, you may find DotNetNuke to be a useful choice.
It's a CMS where you write widgets ('modules') in .Net, then add them to the pages of the CMS. In your case, you'd wrap your existing functionality in such widgets. I've done exactly this several times, and now that I'm used to it it's no big deal.
The downside is you have to learn to swim in the DNN environment, which (like any CMS) has a bit of a learning curve.
I'd have to know a lot more about your existing apps to be sure this is a plausible option. If it looks appealing, you should probably contact someone who's dealt with a situation like yours (such as myself) and go into detail. It's very easy to find yourself in a dead end with these CMS frameworks.
Edit: Like a product mentioned in a different answer, DNN has to control the top level of its subdomain -- all requests begin by going through Default.aspx and are then dispatched in various ways.