How to install Template Importer into an existing project?

Posted by Community Admin on 04-Aug-2018 23:17

How to install Template Importer into an existing project?

All Replies

Posted by Community Admin on 04-Oct-2011 00:00

What's the correct way to install Template Importer into an existing project? Are there step by step instructions somewhere?

I'm using 4.3 SP1 SDK. Build 4.2.1733.0

Here are the steps I'm following:

1. Create a new project in Project Manager and browse to it, clicking thru initial set up. Verify that front and back end both work.
2. Open the project in step 1 from Project Manager in Visual Studio 2010.
3. Add existing TemplateImporter.csproj project to solution from folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Sitefinity 4.2\SDK\Content\Common\SharedProjects\TemplateImporter
4. Add reference in new project from step 1 to TemplateImporter project
5. Build
6. "View in Browser" from VS

I end up with the error in the attached screenshot. I've gone through the steps above twice.

Please help. Thanks.

Posted by Community Admin on 07-Oct-2011 00:00

Hello Keith,

Thank you for contacting Telerik Support.

What you did so far is correct, but there are a few additional steps you need to perform in order to make the Template importer work in your project. I'll try to cover them in details.

First of all you need to replace the assemblies of your project, since they might be causing the issue. You can find the correct assemblies in _EmptyProject\bin. Then you need to replace all Telerik assemblies of the Template importer with the ones from the bin folder of your project, so that they correspond to the version of Sitefinity, you're using right now. The last thing you need to do is to add reference from your project to the TemplateImporter project again and build the solution. This should fix the problem.

After you're done with the things I listed above, you have to register the Template importer in Sitefinity. Navigate to Administration -> Settings -> Advanced -> System ->ApplicationModules and Create new one. Fill the form that opens as shown in the screenshot I'm sending.

Let me know whether the proposed solution helps.

Kind regards,
Zheyna Peleva
the Telerik team

Do you want to have your say in the Sitefinity development roadmap? Do you want to know when a feature you requested is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items

Posted by Community Admin on 07-Oct-2011 00:00

Thanks for the reply, Zheyna. 

I've actually done what you suggested. Figured it out on my own. I've also downloaded the latest SDK that was released yesterday 10/6.

I can get the site to load with the module registered. The only remaining step I can't figure out is how to get the "Template Importer" menu item to appear in the Design menu. Could you point me in the right direction?

I've explored the back end pages in the sample, but can't figure out how to manually create a page that contains the TemplateImporterServerControl. 

Thanks for your help.

Posted by Community Admin on 11-Oct-2011 00:00

Hi Keith,

You are welcome. Like I said in my previous post, you need to register  the Template importer in Sitefinity in order for it to appear in Design menu. You don't have to create a page for this purpose. Make sure you registered the Template importer correctly as shown in the screenshot from my last post.

Kind Regards,
Zheyna Peleva
the Telerik team

Do you want to have your say in the Sitefinity development roadmap? Do you want to know when a feature you requested is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items

Posted by Community Admin on 17-Oct-2011 00:00

Zheyna,

I've done exactly what you suggested. I've even tried it twice, starting with a blank project. No luck.

Please see my attached screen shots.

How do I get the template importer to show up in the Design menu? I'm trying to set this up for a less technically skilled coworker to use.

Thanks again.
-Keith

Posted by Community Admin on 18-Oct-2011 00:00

I debugged the TemplateImporter sample code to figure out a solution. The key was to leave off the version info when registering the module or else the InstallPages method does not get called in the ContentModuleBase class. Don't ask me why, but it worked.

These are the steps I used, in case anyone else wants to install from a blank or existing project.

  1. Compiled TemplateImporter sample from SDK
  2. Created empty database
  3. Created new project using project manager
  4. Opened csproj file and changed all <HintPath> from "bin\" to "..\..\_EmptyProject\bin\" added HintPath elements for Telerik.Sitefinity.dll and Telerik.Sitefinity.Model.dll references. (Fix to stop VS from clearing out the bin directory on Rebuild.)
  5. Opened project in VS 2010
  6. Added reference to TemplateImporter.dll to project
  7. Built project
  8. Opened site in browser from VS
  9. Clicked through Project Startup wizard
  10. Went to Advanced Settings  in Administration menu
  11. Added Module settings at System > ApplicationModules (see attached screenshot) DON'T ENTER VERSION.
  12. Saved changes
  13. Stopped casini web server
  14. Opened site again in browser from VS
  15. Template Importer should now appear on the Design menu

Posted by Community Admin on 20-Oct-2011 00:00

Hello Keith,

Please excuse me for misleading you. I somehow sent you a screenshot of the already configured template importer, where the version information has been already filled-in automatically by Sitefinity. It shouldn't be entered by the user, as you have properly pointed out.

Kind regards,
Jen Peleva
the Telerik team

Do you want to have your say in the Sitefinity development roadmap? Do you want to know when a feature you requested is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items

Posted by Community Admin on 11-Nov-2011 00:00

This problem still exists in Telerik 4.3 release and hasn't been fixed yet.  I would like to summarize the steps to fix this problem along with some improvements in the process.  Ideally, you should try to fix this problem before creating a new project or migrating an existing one.  These instructions assume your using Windows x64, please make appropriate path changes to "Program Files" if you're using Windows x86.

1. Download and install the Sitefinity SDK version 4.3
2. Running as administrator using VS Studio open "C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Sitefinity 4.3\_EmptyProject\SitefinityWebApp.csproj"
3. Add a reference to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Sitefinity 4.3\SDK\Content\Common\SharedProjects\TemplateImporter\bin\Debug\TemplateImporter.dll" to the project.
4. Build the project, it may ask you to save the solution file, save it somewhere outside the project, like the desktop.  You can discard the solution file when you're done.  Don't save it in the same folder or the project manager might import it into your new projects.
5. Create a new site using the Sitefinity project manager.
6. Log in as administrator and follow the instructions for adding the TemplateImporter module following Keith's instructions.  Ensure you don't add a version number.  I suggest copy and pasting the text parameters to avoid typos that can lead to a non-functioning module.
7. Logout and restart the cassini web server.  You can do this by right clicking on the project in the project manager and click on Show Cassini info.  Click on the restart button.
8. Go back to the project manager and log in as administrator.   The menu option should now appear.

COMMENTARY
----------------------
This feature should be integrated into the latest release of Sitefinity 4.3 without having to download the SDK and  making these obscure changes. This is supposed to be commercial software, not do it yourself open source, free software.  The end-user shouldn't have to go through these steps.  Why doesn't the software discover these modules without having to configure them manually.  This can be done easily with MEF and some simple meta-data supplied as attributes.  If load time is important, it should perform the discover actions once during start up.

Posted by Community Admin on 15-Nov-2011 00:00

Hello Bob Howard,

Thank you for summarizing the steps to installing the Template importer. Currently the Template importer is a separate module, available through the SDK, but because of its wide use we're planning to implement it to Sitefinity soon.


Best wishes,
Jen Peleva
the Telerik team

Do you want to have your say in the Sitefinity development roadmap? Do you want to know when a feature you requested is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items

Posted by Community Admin on 17-Nov-2011 00:00

I hired one of your vendors Pavliks to assist me however they had not used the product and couldn't help much. Is anyone out that that can assist in installing this? I just want to build a website with some flexibilty and Sitefinity is horrible thus far. Thousands in license fees and I have only one project completed using Sitefinity. At the same time I've probably released 5 other websites for clients that are all alive and well NOT using Sitefinity.

I'm continually told it me but when I'm willing to pay a 3rd party to get this so it's functional and flexible and they have the same comments clearly I'm not alone. Hopefully, you (Telerik) will as a company listen to us and make this usable without someone having to spend hours and hours of frustration. Three different attempts to install the SDK before it finally finished only to learn that I'm not going to see the importer in my Sitefinity management interface.

Disappointing to say the very least!

Posted by Community Admin on 18-Nov-2011 00:00

Hello all,

After going over the thread, and helping a client setup their template builder, this process is not very intuitive yet and I'm eager to have it refined.

But it was a great exercise for a great tool and I made a high level steps that can be used with the steps above. Just the steps above are all in pieces etc.

Steps with ‘Empty project updated’

 

1)     Create new project in Sitefinity 4.3 project manager

2)     Go to ‘administration’

3)     Click ‘settings’

4)     Click ‘advanced’

5)     Scroll down to ‘system’ and open that branch

6)     Scroll to ‘applicationModules’

7)     Create a new & enter the screen shot settings WITHOUT VERSION NUMBER

8)     Log off

9)     Completely restart the Sitefinity Project Manager and log in.

10)  You should see the template builder in the drop down.

 

Steps when you need to update the ‘Empty project’

 

1)     Backup the empty project

2)     Open empty project csproj

3)     Click solution, and add existing project

  1. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Sitefinity 4.3\SDK\Content\Common\SharedProjects\TemplateImporter and add the csproj

4)     Click the empty project and ‘add reference’

  1. You should see the template builder as a project to add

5)     Build the solution

 

Your empty project now has the template builder incorporated. Just follow the first set of steps with Empty project updated.

Charles Rezsonya

pavliks.com

Posted by Community Admin on 28-Oct-2012 00:00

has the template importer module been nuilt into sitefinity yet?i am developing the website directly through sitefinity backend, and im not using local computer.

Posted by Community Admin on 30-Oct-2012 00:00

Hello,

The Template Importer is not a built-in part of Sitefinity. It is a separate module, which can be included to your project. For this purpose, however, you will need to add reference to it in Visual Studio. 

All the best,
Jen Peleva
the Telerik team
Do you want to have your say in the Sitefinity development roadmap? Do you want to know when a feature you requested is added or when a bug fixed? Explore the Telerik Public Issue Tracking system and vote to affect the priority of the items

Posted by Community Admin on 09-Aug-2013 00:00

I am having the same issue Keith was having. I have followed all the steps mentioned and the template importer menu item does not appear in the design dropdown. (see Module Screenshot)

I did notice that the template importer is in the "modules" section of the admin area, but it says that it is not installed. When I choose install from the menu next to the module it does refresh the page but the module still says it is not installed.  (see Install Module)

I am running Sitefinity 5.4 so I don't have the "version" line, but an "error" line.
I am trying to install the module into an existing project.

Can anyone give me any insight on what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks

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