Development Article Request

Hi,

I have been struggling with custom modules for weeks now, some of that is down to myself and not understanding the structure, some of it is down to the documentantion and samples which do not really explain much (although i know Josh has released some articles recently that are exmplaining more concepts) and some of it is down to the fact that the samples are too simplistic in their design, i.e. the products module only has one object in the model.

Anyway, i have been looking at the ECommerce module and it is an impressive look at what is possible within the customisation aspect of sitefinity, but the issue for me (and i hope i am no alone) as that for many stakeholders of sitefinity who have smaller teams and resource this sort of level of customisation is out of our grasp simply becuase the concepts behind them are not outlined. some of this may change next week with the 4.2 release and the corporate starter kit which may give more insight into larger developments with added complexity (which i am hoping will give more away then the other starter kits).

The point of this post really was to ask for a article/blog post/explenation on how you created the images portion of the products module (images attached).  I.e. you can select mutiple images from either already uploaded images or uploading images yourself.  this i feel would show some of the complexity of a module (i.e assigning a list of media images to a custom model and how the fluent mapping works between these two items) and also show how you guys built in the selection process and how that side of things works i.e. the user control and the javascript, this will be a sort of how too and best practices.

Now i appreciate that this may divolve some of your source, although i dont think it would be very much in the grand scheme of things (as i am not talking about the whole module just a property of one, as to be honest i would just buy the ecommerce module if it was required not write my own), and this image upload feature is probably missing in some of the already built in modules (i.e. News) and i understand that source is reserved for your enterprise clients, but in reality i and others are not interested in source as we trust you guys to deliver the platform that we can extend so giving away a little insight into how you guys truly do something (the products module is too simple in its architecture) real world would help everyone in the process.

Sitefinity 3x was a great great product and truly encompassed the developer and rapid development. SF4 i am sure will be a great product (the majority of the built in stuff is great) but the development of modules is something that is so fundemantal but not explained enough from the more technical aspects of more complex models and the advanced selection controls (this image control being one of them) and becuase of this progress is just so slow that it can kill productivity.

Rob

Hello Roberto Modica,

This control for selecting multiple images and associating them with a content item is indeed something that a lot of customers have asked for. Now that it is available in the ECommerce module, we also plan to document how it can be reused in other modules.

We understand that a lot of the concepts behind module development may seem too complex and scary. The reason is that when we develop a module we always try to follow best practices and allow further customizations that clients ask for in the future. This of course creates a steep learning curve. We've identified this as a problem and will dedicate a lot of effort in the next quarter to solve it. One of our goals will be to make the developer life easier and module development is the area where this can be best seen.

I cannot promise any specific resource now, except a blog post on using the multiple image selector and using selectors in general. This is why telling us what is important for you and where we should focus is important. Thank you for this feedback. We will take all of it into account when we plan resources for documentation, samples and extensions.