Creating Modules - Seems Time Consuming

Hi Everybody,
I'm looking the Products Module example, and I cant help but think its very long winded and convoluted to create a module. I mean the project is quite large then you have all the ORM Enhancer stuff to deal with etc.

I know a lot of it is boiler plate stuff, but I think it would great if there was some sort of module creator much like the site creator. Maybe its just me, but I think making your own modules should be made easier, or am I missing something fundamental in regards to module creation?

It would be great if some sort of code generator could be build to take parameters that could then generate a basic module for you and create the project? so you dont have to go through and change thinks like Product to <what ever you want> and possibly add your data feilds etc, and please some VB.NET too, Its just as valid as C# but i guess not as fashionable now :)

Well thanks, any advice input welcome

Gary, unfortunately you're not missing anything. Creating custom modules is extremely complicated, magnitudes more complicated than it was in SF 3.x The sample Products Module is far from complete and even if you are able to figure it out, you can only deploy it once as there's no way to upgrade or uninstall the module once it's been added. I think you'll need to way for another couple revisions (maybe a year) before module development is simplified and bug free. Just my 2 cents based on working w/ SF 4 since beta and RC versions.

Cheers,
Phill

I came to the same conclusion after studying how to make custom modules and go for the examples. I thought it would be like "create new module" and then "create field" as long as you want. Even to have the option to add a custom field would be great! 

In my project i would have needed 4 modules. But now i'm down to 2 modules, and i made these old school in a sql table because it's much faster and reliable then these modules.

Another thing are Image and Page Selectors.... these are complicated aswell.

Regards

Dave

@Dave, I agree. Image and Page selectors are so common, you need them for so many different module scenarios, the fact that they're now so complicated means you can't have them. I'm what I'd call a Front End developer with medium level C# skills and database experience. With these skills I could get SF 3.x to do anything, even full ecommerce store, however in SF 4 I think I either need to go back to school or hire an full on developer (which of course isn't in budget). Really disappointed, after waiting over a year for SF4 it's been nothing but a let down at every turn.

Phill

Its too bad...Im just getting started at digging into a Custom Module...it took me far too long to just get a CustomDesignerTemplate working in SF4. I had Custom Modules down to 30 minutes in 3.7 to get a bare bone module up. Then I could whip together the administrative interface and tie it to a custom database in about 6 hours. Sounds like I have a long night ahead of me to just get a barebones module up and running.

Hi guys,

Try creating a slightly more complex module, e.g. Parent with child items.

Regards,
Jean Erasmus

Looking at the SF3 videos and Developer manual, it really does seem a lot easier.
Im not sure why everything seems to have got so complicated.

I don't think its a question of making things easy, I do like a challenge, but I have to balance cost and time of development. The project I want to use Sitefinity on needs around 10 custom modules I would think.

I just cant understand why for most cases you would even have to create a module as a complete new project. Surely it would of been easier to define the DAL in the SF back-end through a UI within SF.
Almost like creating a template, but you would create a custom "DATA" template, and then refer to it via the fluent api etc, I understand you can add custom fields but alas that is not always enough.

I admit I am not fully up-to speed on all that is SF, but the way I see it...

UI in back-end -> Define a Custom data template (Such As Products)
Define a UI template that allows you to use the Data Template for content creation (i guess it could be auto generated via the Custom Data Template)
Define a UI Display Template / lists whatever
and this generates either a custom ascx - ready to use in Visual Studio (Dreaming here perhaps) or something close to the above.

Ok im rambling on  a bit now.. Just hope this gets sorted out. Telerik from my experience rarely if ever drop the ball, but I feel from my limited experience on this, that its not upto the usual Developer friendly standard I have come to expect from Telerik

Hello,

It will get sorted out. 

With the Q2, we will focus on the extensibility side of the story a lot. I'll send this feedback and concerns that you have to the team responsible for it. 

Seems to be the standard answer from sitefinity these days. My view is that this product is very much still incomplete, and will only be ready by end of this year in a workable form.

I agree Jean. What I read in Georgi's response is that the process is so complicated that even Telerik can't figure it out and deliver samples in a timely fashion. If I had to bet I'd also say that Q2 is more than optimistic and we won't likely see improvements until Q4. Not trying to be an a** here, just realistic based history of working with SF 3 and SF 4 beta/rc.

Hello Phill Hodgkinson,

I agree Jean. What I read in Georgi's response is that the process is so complicated that even Telerik can't figure it out and deliver samples in a timely fashion.

georgi, instead of giving us a :) why not give us this sample code if it does exist. many many people would love to know how to attach an image and page selector to the products custom module.

regards,
phill

Phil, I can't agree more. Georgi, please share the samples. Let the poor people that have to sit infront of customers explaining why things are taking so long help you refine and improve the usability.

Does anyone have a basic old school method Module (ie using manually created database columns and tables) already created I'd rather work from that than start from scratch.
I've never really been able to re-use or extend the Sitefinity Modules.
I used to do this for 3.7 Sitefinity and never had a problem

or alternatively the Sitefinity connection string isn't in the web.config and is now in the App_Data folder anyone know what namespace I use to get it?

Hi Luke,

With regard to connection string, take a look at this post.

Best regards,
Anton.

I think what everyone really wants is a very basic Custom Module..A starting point...the ones in the Starter Kits are just overkill in my opinion...Give me a hello world type of module that is easy to walk through just so we can understand the basic structure of a module. 

The modules that i have created in the past use LINQ to SQL to communicate with custom db tables that I've created...something very basic like that is what is needed. I feel if it wouldn't take me 8-whatever hours to get a module up I would be more inclined to create my basic module type and share the source to the community. 

In my opinion, custom modules is THE REASON why I insist the majority of my clients use Sitefinity over the competition because the ease to customize the CMS to the customers needs separates this CMS from the others. I don't want to have to wait 3 months, 6 months or whatever just to get a basic module up...my clients are wanting systems built now...

I have no doubt I could spend a weekend hammering through one of these modules to get one up and running but I really don't want to do that.

Hello Jean,

There is one basic module - Jobs, which shows how to create backend pages and add a widget. This is the basic variant of a custom module and I do not see a way that we can make it simpler.

All the best,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Awesome can we have a link I've tried searching and was unable to find that module? I have downloaded all the starter kits and can't seem to find it in there either...im probably overlooking it but it would be great to be able to download that sample here.

Thanks

Hi Jean,

It is included in the SDK. When you install Sitefinity and run the SDK project you should see a link to the module. The default path of the SDK Jobs installation is C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Sitefinity SDK 4.0\Samples\CS\Jobs

Best wishes,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Ivan, thanks for pointing me to the Jobs Module Basic example. Once I upgraded to the SP1 and followed this example I was able to get it up and running in about 3 hours.

anyone got the old school method example i can follow on? i'm new with sitefinity and i learn straight to this new version and yeah it's complicated just to create simple module but with intermediate style. if there's any way i can speed up the learning curve i'll be happy to follow it.

thank you.

Hello Jean,

Here is a link to our developer network where you will find all available resources.

Kind regards,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team