Native Widgets Extra Javascript

In Sitefinity 3.7, we had full control over what the native Sitefinity controls spit out. If we wanted to remove the extra javascript that was spit out by the control, we simply added a control template and removed the reference to the javascript file in that.

Unfortunately, none of these javascript files are referenced in the widget templates at all in Sitefinity 4. When the control is rendered on the page, there is so much extra junk that is added to the page. Not only is this horrible for SEO - but it is simply doesn't follow web standards. The events list spits out the title and date. There is absolutely no reason for Javascript! It's a link and text. Sitefinity is a CMS for Websites. Website code is visible to everyone (including search engines) and therefore needs to be clean. No unnecessary code should be added to the page by controls.

I even tried removing all of the code from the widget template. It still adds all of the nasty Javascript to the page. With no content!

If we are going to continue using Sitefinity 4 for our clients, then we need to be reassured that Sitefinity 4 is going to be built with clean code and SEO in mind. We don't have the time or budget to build entirely new "Clean" controls for every native Sitefinity widget just to get around this...

Please advise

5 Minutes of searching and I can tell I'm not the only one:
www.sitefinity.com/.../extra-code-thrown-on-pages.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../news---no-way-to-remove-quot-go-comment-quot-from-list-view.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../remove-skins-and-styles-from-front-end.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../disable-embedded-resources-from-telerik-controls.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../how-to-disable-the-unneccessary-insertions-to-the-markup.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../cleaning-up-the-list-widget-template.aspx
www.sitefinity.com/.../shrinking-the-markup-possible.aspx

I'd like to get a poll of people interested in this:

Because this doesn't seem like something Sitefinity can fix with ease, we are considering building a Clean Control suite. This would include generic content (no more divs wrapping around content blocks), events, blogs, lists, news, and image galleries. By "Clean" - I mean no CSS/JS.

You get pure/clean html to use however you like. How many other developers would be interested in a suite like this? They would have all of the same filtering/selection functionality as the native controls do.

We're trying to rebuild controls that output more standard html as well. (for easier designer themeing) So far it is slow going.

Hello,

Thank you for expressing your concerns about those widgets. I want to let you know that we are already working on the problem and have identified how we can minimize the scripts loaded. We will have a solution for this, sometime after 4.2 SP1 is released.


Kind regards,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

I am in need of immediate assistance with this.

I can't use any JavaScript libraries (like ColorBox) because of all of the extra scripts that the blog module adds. If I remove the blog control, ColorBox works fine. With it added, I get a "Object has no method 'colorbox'".

I need a solution for removing these scripts - no matter how difficult. With the hassle that developing for Sitefinity 4 has become, I would prefer to sell Sitefinity 3 to my clients at the same cost.

Hi Conrad Ehinger,

At the moment we do not have a method to overcome this easily. Can you please show us how are you referring the ColorBox script?

All the best,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

I am getting this same issue with the News Module. I have an image in the header of my page that is to launch a colorbox window.  It works on all pages except pages that have a News Module.  I am running Sitefinity 4.4 please let me know if this is fixed or how to overcome this.