A bunch of questions
Hi all!
I'm studying Sitefinity CMS and I have a set of questions.
From www.sitefinity.com/.../site-structure-url-pointing.aspx :
"In the RC there is no UrlRewrite module. We are going to work on UrlRewrite module Q1/Q1 2011"
Is there way to change URL scheme for blogposts and newsletters in Sitefinity?
1) I'm creating new blogpost on "newsblog" blog and URL will be
example.com/.../blogpostname
But I want to add "archive" and ".aspx" to URL like that:
example.com/.../blogpostname.aspx
How I can do that?
2) I'm creating new post in newsletter and URL will be
example.com/.../newsname
But I want to use only month and year and remove anything after month like that:
example.com/.../
How I can do that?
3) Can I create newsletter based on predefined HTML template? This template could contain all images and layout specifics and I'd have to specify only some headings and text blocks.
4) I can insert Image Gallery control with lightboxes OR insert Image control - an image which will be opened in new page. Could I use Image control with lightbox? The target is a single image from gallery which will be opened in lightbox.
5) How to deal with Google Website Optimizer in Sitefinity CMS? To install a Google Experiment on content page I must do some actions including
- add javascript snippet right after opening <HEAD> tag
- add javascript snippet after all page source
How I can these two actions for single content page?
6) I have a set of special pages on old site which use XML source and couldn't be modified directly - only through editing XML (e.g. pricing table). It's possible to move all XML data to the database and write special admin page with interface to edit this data.
Does Sitefinity have any ready soultions for that cases (built-in interface for admins to access and edit structured information)? Or I need to duplicate old site solution under Sitefinity - in this case, how can I add my own special page to Sitefinity backend?
7) I've created and RSS feed for blog and published two blog posts in this blog. But RSS feed is empty. Why it can occured?
Thanks a lot for any assistance!
Hello Anatoliy Gerasin,
Thank you for your interest in Sitefinity 4.0
What you are looking for in questions 1 and 2 is not yet available in Sitefinity 4.0. The .aspx extension will be available once we have the UrlRewrite module for 4.0.
Can you please clarify what you mean in question 3. We do not yet have a Newsletter module. We do have a News module which lets you create news and publish them on your site. You can edit the template of how news items are displayed on your news pages. Is this what you are looking for?
4) You can insert an image gallery control to a page and then from its setting set the presentation mode to be images and light boxes. Then images displayed from the gallery will appear as thumbnails and when they are clicked a lightbox will open to display the full size image.
5) Sitefinity has a JavaScript Embed Control in the page toolbox section Scripts and Styles. You can use this control on a single page or a page template to embed your script. You then have the option to choose where to insert the script - in page header, where the control is dropped or before the closing body tag.
6) You have to create a custom module which will manage your data. Then you can move your data to the database and create user interface to manage the data. You can take a look at this tutorial on how to create a custom module.
7) When you create a blog a RSS feed is automatically generated for your blog. Then when you publish blog posts in the blog they automatically populate the RSS feed. Can you please let us know the steps you took to create the feed and set it up, so that we can try to reproduce this behavior on our side?
Regards,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team
1) 2) Got it, will be waiting.
3)
>> Can you please clarify what you mean in question 3. We do not yet have a
Newsletter module. We do have a News module which lets you create news
and publish them on your site. You can edit the template of how news
items are displayed on your news pages. Is this what you are looking
for?
Oh yes, I mean just News module.
I want to have ability to create News from predefined templates (as content pages). I want to have to specify only some significant parts. For example, look at
wildapricot.com/.../
and
wildapricot.com/.../
There are two our current newsposts. They are differs only in content, not in images, styles and common text parts (which I want to take out to the template).
4)
Image gallery control allows me to specify all images, whole album or upload new images. But what if I want to specify only single existing image?
There is album with several images for one content page and I want to insert single images (with lightbox functionality) in different places in this page.
Should I create different albums for each image to use "gallery" contained one picture?
Or it will be better to fall back to jQuery plugins, for example?
5) 6) Thanks a lot, I've got that.
7) Ok, I've tried to create new blog and posts on it - and seems that all works. Probably it wasn't enough some option/checkbox in first blog.
Hello Anatoliy Gerasin,
3) This is the same in Sitefinity. We have one structure for news which you have to fill in when creating news items - Content, Authror, Description, etc. Then on the public part all news items look the same, but their content is different.
4) You can use the Image control of Sitefinity. This control lets you to select a single image to be included on the page. Then you can use a jQuery library that provides lightbox functionality to add a click handler to the img element with class sfimageWrp and open a the full size image in light box. You can use the Script widget from Scripts and Styles to add the javascript to the page.
Kind regards,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team
Radoslav,
Can I get my head round this. I want to have a template to use when creating news articles. You have the current template which asks for title, content, additional info (author, source, etc), etc. Can I change this template so that when my users come to create a new article, they see only the fields that I specify (add new fields that I want).
Many thanks,
Andrei
Hi Andrei,
The view is generated from the NewsDefinitions that initialize the properties for all ContentView control views. Inside the definition there are definition config elements like ContentViewSectionElement. Removing existing fields is equivalent to replacing the definition. You can easily add new custom fields to the existing fields from the UI.
Best wishes,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team
Ivan,
Thanks for getting back to me.
So, I went to the Settings area and drilled down to News -> Controls -> NewsBackend -> Views -> NewsBackendEdit -> Sections -> MetaFieldsSection -> Fields ... and see that I can mess around and change the template that the user will see when creating a news article. I would like to do that but Is that advisable?
I am thinking to copy most of the properties from the other meta fields just so that they look the same.
Also, would the newly created fields appear in the Template Editing Mode?
Many thanks,
Andrei
Hello Andrei,
Yes you can do this. You can also do this from going to Content -> News and go to Custom fields for news. Please backup all of your configurations in ~/App_Data/Sitefinity/Configurations/ as well as your database before you embark on editing fields.
All the best,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team
Radoslav,
Thank you very much, I see what you mean. Is there a way to hide the "More Options" panel? I have hidden all the fields on that panel and do not want it empty on the screen.
Also, is there a way to rename the 'News' module to lets say 'Notices'?
Otherwise it looks like I might be able to customize it the way I want.
Many thanks,
Andrei
Now I faced a "templated" controls and need help.
Here is what I mean.
I've created a ?ontrol with some functionality. It must work as a wrapper: have a place which can be captured with some HTML or another control.
I've added an attachment: it's a prototype of this control. Scenario: add this control to page, add some layout in the middle of this control, add some "inner" into this layout. As a result we have one control inside other control.
I was tried to use ASP:PlaceHolder tag, ASP:ContentPlaceHolder tag, my own custom layout control based on LayoutControl class - nothing helps.
Hi Anatoliy Gerasin,
Unfortunately this will not work.
Content place holders are defined with layouts. What you can do is to have custom layouts which will hold controls. But you cannot have a custom control which can hold a layout which in turn holds another control. Custom styles can be applied to your custom layout to control its appearance but that's as far as it goes.
Greetings,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team
Thanks for answer!
So... I've found a solution with custom layouts. All "wrapper" HTML is stored in custom layout (in special ascx file as described on www.sitefinity.com/.../pages-layouts-creating-layout-controls.html ).
So, my work is under way :)
And I have a new question...
When I make custom widget (ascx control) I want other people (content editors) use it. But they will see a big list of settings, although I want to give an opportunity to see only "Visiblee" setting and all public properties which I bring in this control. Is it possible?
See attachment to clarify: for custom widget in Edit window I would leave only "Visible" property and public properties "IsClickable" and "ShowText"...
Or even only public properties. "Visible" is not so required...
Hello Anatoliy,
There is attribute "Browsable" that you can set to false for all properties that you do not want to see in the control designer.
Regards,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team
Thank you very much for assistance :)
I make own Lightbox control. It includes an image with some attributes, a hyperlink and something else. There are two public properties: Src (will define "src" of image from one of albums) and Tooltip (will define "alt" ofr image and "title" of hyperlink).
Content manager will have to specify image src manually (as URL). But I want to give a possibility to select an image with easy-to-use interface (something like "Image" widget in default Sitefinity toolbox).
Now: upload image to album, copy it's URL, go to editing Lightbox and paste URL in "Src" textbox.
Want to: upload image to album, go to editing Lightbox and select image from album to use in Lightbox.
Can I do it?
Hello Anatoliy Gerasin,
This can happen in two ways:
1) First way would be to create a custom tool for the RadEditor. Please check the RadEditor documentation for this;
2) The second way would require you to change the Lightbox implementation a bit, so that it shows only images with certain style as lightbox images. This would mean that you can insert an image like you do it now, but then you can apply a style from the RadEditor style dropdown to this image.
Thank you! I'll look into RadEditor.
And now I have a question about backend toolboxes. How I can re-arrange widget sections?
There is my custom "WA ContentControls" section and I'd move it over the built-in "Content" section. I tried to fiddle with Toolboxes on the Settings page and edit "Toolboxes.config" manually. I don't know how to re-arrange sections but I could re-arrange tools in section (see screenshot "sections2.png").
However... it wasn't take any effect (look at the screenshot "sections.png").
And one else small question.
I upload an image and can find it by URL - for example, sf.wildapricot.com/.../nycupa.jpg. It contains album name ("examples") and image name ("nycupa.jpg"). But also it contains upload date (2011/03/22) and this confusing me. Can somebody call image if he knows only album name and image name? Or how can I programmatically calculate URL of image by its name and album name? I suppose that calculation result will be single-valued because there can be only one image with some name in some album (even if uploading dates are different)?
Hello Anatoliy,
You can change the image url from the provider settings
Administration >> Settings >> Advanced >> Libraries >> Providers where you can add a parameter
UrlName
which allows you to construct the item url
There is a toolbox config file under App_Data\Sitefinity\Configuration\toolboxesConfig.config. You can rearrange its elements which will reflect to the toolbox sections. Application restart is required after the changes.
Regards,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team
Thanks, Ivan!
There is only moment that parameter should be 'urlFormat" and have value "/[UrlName]"
All works after pool restart.
And toolboxes is now arranged exactly how I want to.
Then... next problem... :)
How can I set default property value equals current page name? For example, there is a page sf.wildapricot.com/testimonials-2008 . And there is a custom widget where I want to have public property with default value = "testimonials-2008". I can specify this value in constructor and when backend user will drag and drop this widget and click "Edit" - he'll discover "testimonials-2008" in property value.
But I cannot use any of HttpContext.Current.Request.Url properttes. Seems that Edit modal dialog is located in frame and has URL /Sitefinity/Dialog/PropertyEditor... and it doesn't know about "testimonials-2008".
Maybe there is a public property in any Sitefinity built-in dll's that equals current page URL?
Hello Anatoliy ,
To get the current project name use the code below
Config.Get<ProjectConfig>().ProjectName
So you need to inject the returned value in your logic.Sorry, not project name, I mean current page name or page URL (see attachment).
Page name or page URL - it doesn't care: I make page URLs equal page names.
Hello Anatoliy,
Please check this forum post
www.sitefinity.com/.../how-to-get-current-page-title.aspx
All the best,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team
