I'm developing a site in umbraco, and integrating uBlogsy (blog) in it.
But the problem is, uBlogsy offers its own look n feel. However i want to have my existing website design in Blogging part as well.
here is the link for the same :
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/starter-kits/ublogsy
I've done that manually. but its a time taking process.
Does any one knows, how can i do that? is there any automation available for the same?
Or if there exists any better blog than uBlogsy offering same feature and functionality?
Thanks in advance.
uBlogsy is the de-facto blog package for umbraco so i'd be surprised if you find anything better (the community is encouraged to build upon the best instead of spin up many sub-par competitors, but i digress).
I've done that manually. but its a time taking process.
^^This sounds like you have modified the cshtml markup and css from the package. This is indeed the way to go.
There isn't really any plug-in theming that i'm aware of and it sounds like this is what you're looking for, right?
I've used uBlogsy many times on past projects and usually don't keep anthonys files for template views but rather start with fresh markup to match my wire-comps. Since his files are included - they make a great example for how-to access the data.
Sorry it's probably not what you're looking to hear. But i think it ultimately gives greater control and better result to get hands-on.
Related
I have to create a eCommerce store in ASP.NET MVC having some custom features.
After through R&D I have sort listed three major eCommerce frameworks available-
nopcommerce
smartstoreNet ( SSNet)
MVC Music Store
Later after more R&D I have selected smartstoreNet as a base for further customization.
After R&D for weeks still I have many doubts & confusion about smartstoreNet (SSNet), would be more than happy if some one guide me in right direction.
Please take a look at my questionnaires:-
I did not found many review of SSNet on web & on Stack overflow, Please share your experience if you have work with the SSNet. How fast & flexible it is?
2.custom Theme creation or Updation document is not in detail, so how to integrate custom or designer's html/css in its theme
suppose I have added some custom functionality in the framework how it would be affected when I update the SSNet framework to newer versions, should I use custom plugins or keep track of my custom development & re -implement everything after version updation.
How efficient the system to handle medium load eCommerce shop having 500-1000 products, speed can't be compromised.
There is a ongoing legal battle between NopCommerce Vs SSNET, how it could affect SSNET users in future in case they lose the case.
I don't expect you to answer all questions :) still pointing me to right direction would be a great help.
I would also select an e-commerce framework/store that is based on the ASP.NET MVC framework.
I have worked through the MVC music store code a while back while learning ASP.NET MVC. I do not know where you stand with ASP.NET MVC but if you are looking to go e-commerce and looking to up your programming skills by using this framework then MVC music store might be a route for you to take. It will put you well on the path of learning this framework. It is really a basic e-commerce store.
If you already have some basic ASP.NET MVC knowledge and looking for something more advanced then I would look at nopCommerce. It is a well thought out e-commerce store and it can easily be customised and extended. You can create your own modules or have them developed for you. It is also easy to setup even if you don't have ASP.NET MVC knowledge - just follow the on screen instructions. It sounds easy right?
I don't have any experience regarding smartstoreNet. If I were to choose one out of the three that you have listed then it would be nopCommerce.
I wouldn't worry to much about any legal battles at the moment - don't let it affect your decision.
Don't know much about SSNet but here's my take on the other two (that i can remember on top of my head :)
nopcommerce - this is very easy to setup. it's extensible bec of support for adding pluggable components/features.
MVC music store - might be too basic for your needs.
Again these are just my thoughts as well based on what you describe for your requirements. Hope it helps. Good luck!
Use MVC, reasons are :
1- Easy to develop, optimize, maintain and make modifications.
2- its scalable and provide everything that a website needs. Dont just look at mvc music store, MVC is highly scalble
3- You can find support while developing mvc on many websites and stakeoverflow also.
Good luck :)
ASP.NET MVC based site is a good choice if you want to control the logic and behavior of the site at a low level. It will take a lot of time/skill/experience to do your own customizations though.
A couple of other out of the box solutions you may want to look at are Magento and Prestashop. These are fully functional ecommerce systems that you can extend with plugins, so quite different to the approach of coding the site yourself. But you may save a lot of time by going with an out of the box solution.
I'm not familiar with SmartStore.Net other than when previously researching this topic myself I was leaning more towards Magento and Prestashop since they had better ease of use.
At the moment I am building a big project using:
ASP.Net MVC 4
jQuery (With some extra libraries)
Castle ActiveRecord (based on NHibernate)
Implemented users and roles using .Net Membership Provider
I built almost all the website, but some very relevant parts are missing still and I noticed that this CMS supports
ASP.Net MVC and NHibernate, and have almost all the features that I need already implemented.
The features that I still need to implement are:
Internal Search Engine
Comments
Version of content
Chat betwwen users
Users Profiles Page (Something like a very basic social network)
Forum
SEO
I don't know if is harder to use the CMS or if is better to add the features one by one manually.
I am worried about the time I spend learning and adapting to Orchard is the same time I would spent adding this
features manually.
Basically, the question is:
Should I move my solution to Orchard CMS or add everything manually ?
You can't just move your solution to Orchard, you could but i won't recommend it. Orchard is still MVC 3 at the base and that way most should work if you just move your solution including the database etc. But if you ask me, spending time to add the features manually is the way u should go.
In the Orchard Galery you can find existing many modules
Internal Search Engine
Lucene (Fully functional - Writen by the Orchard Team)
Comments
Already exists in the Orchard Core Module
Version of content
Already exists in the Orchard Framework functionalty
Users Profiles Page
Profile (Fully functional? Or at least good enough as example)
SEO
Several modules
Only 2 features u will have to write yourself
Chat between users
I can't find any example code for this, but I know Piotr Szmyd has tested SignalR inside a Orchard Module which, I think, will be usefull for a Chat module. Demo is here.
Forum
Nicholas Mayne made a start of a forum module which can be used as example or starting point, maybe you can help him extent it? Currently it's sort of a pre-alpha version :(
+1 to rfcdejon's answer. I ported my current project to Orchard after at 50-60% complete. I wish I had done it sooner due to the learning curve and time to integrate all the stuff I had already written, but overall it was the right choice.
If you have significant data already set up you should account for the extra time it will take to port that into Orchard. But if you are making an app from scratch with very little existing data that would make the switch to Orchard easier. Orchard is a great choice for anyone looking for a .NET CMS that supports MVC.
Some things to keep in mind:
Features you've already built will have to be converted into Orchard content types/parts in order to take advantage of things that come out of the box with Orchard, like search, comments, versioning, etc.
Orchard has its own users/roles system, so you might have to do some work to find a module for what you're already using, or override Orchard's user/membership system yourself.
Your entire app will have to become an Orchard app, and your existing MVC stuff will have to convert into an Orchard module. Existing data access code will have to be wrapped inside a using (new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Suppress)) {...}
Forums project has started but isn't done, so you will either be banking that it will finish in time for you to use it, or that you will be able to help get it working.
I've just installed Orchard and created a sample site. I want to evaluate this CMS to see what it's capabilities are if I could choose it for my CMS of choice for ASP.NET MVC based sites. Has anyone used it to run a custom, highly modified website? Unfortunately no sample sites are provided at Orchard site to see it in action.
I know what my requirements will be and those are quite demanding. I have my own little CMS in ASP.NET MVC 2 which I tailor to my needs anytime I want but it lacks a lot of functionality that you get when you have a bigger team of developers at your disposal like the Orchard has.
The best way to reply to this question is if you can provide some insights into customization and if you can provide a link to a working site.
There are a couple sites out there.. Here are three I have worked on...
These two were for a University, they have a contact us page, Payment system, and also hooks in to multiple databases with a large set of business logic for students and payments. The Registration system also has an updated menu template to deal with drop downs.
http://housing.bathspa.ac.uk/ (v0.5)
http://registration.bathspa.ac.uk/ (v0.5)
My blog jsut has a modified theme which was enough to get me up an running.
http://www.themayneissue.com/ (v0.5)
There are a few open source modules I work on as well..
http://orchardopenauth.codeplex.com/
http://orchardblogml.codeplex.com/
These also allow for customization of the Orchard system
There are two community sites using Orchard, Orchard Gallery and NuGet gallery.
For now me with my team is being writing an appication for nearly two months using Orchard and the only thing I can say is that it is awesome!
Yes, Orchard is very simple for now, but it is so powerfull in the same time. I just love their dynamic shapes and content types. Use it and you'll love it!
And as a bonus:
Just get code from repo and look through it, it shines like a diamond (the only problem is lack of comments). I am sure every MVC developer will find a lot of stuff to learn from it.
There is another web site developed using orchard.
I'm in the process of planning out a site for a friend, they need to be able to modify site content, have a products section and shopping/ check-out area. All the products need to be able to be updatable too (descriptions, photos, cost - including delivery, etc).
As I'm a bit of an ASP.NET MVC fanboy currently, I was going to build a quick CMS in my spare time, however, a friend just pointed me at WebQuarters - an open source MVC based CMS.
So, my question is this - given the requirements, does it make more sense to build on top of WebQuarters or go my own route?
Additionally, does anyone have any experience of using WebQuarters...is it any good or should I steer clear?
Thanks,
Kieron
I've been looking at this as well and trying to see how suitable it will be for a similar project I will be starting soon. So far it looks good, but some of the admin parts when your editing your pages don't feel quite as solid (like editing the menu order).
I'm keeping an eye on it though, I think it will be a great library to add to your tool chest.
Introduction:
Now I know this question could be very broad and it would be too hard to answer without me asking something specific. So All I ask is just some direction, or a brief high level explanation of a design, or maybe there is already some framework out there that could help me get started...I'm not sure.. I have never designed a plugin architecture before, so maybe there is some resource/example you could point me to on the web that would help me learn so that I may come up with my own solution.
Details of my question:
My intention is I would like to create a plug-in architecture for a new pet-project that I am building in ASP.NET MVC.
I would like to design it so that it has some sort of plug-in ability for all, or at least most, of the application's components.
The reason I would like to do this, is so that I may be able to do deployments with nearly zero down time. The idea is that when I want to deploy the latest version I would drop in the new DLLs into a specific folder, and the application would load up the new plug ins and that is it.
For exapmle, lets say I add a new "contacts" feature to my web application where users can search, add and delete contacts. I would like to be able to deploy that by way of plugins.
Is something like this even possible for Web Applications? Or am I just dreaming?
It's definitely possible.
You will need to define a pretty comprehensive interface that represents everything your plugins will have to do. You should approach it by differentiating what is "core" to your application, and where the extensibility points are. For example, where will the plugins be accessed? Will they be tabs on a page, or links in a sidebar? What properties does each plugin need to have in order to fit into the plugin container?
Generally, plugins are enumerated via reflection by looking for assemblies that implement the plugin interface.
Just for encouragement, we've done this with an enterprise product that provides a generic framework for "management" interfaces for web sites. Developers just need to drop in a plugin dll that builds specific property pages, and they show up in the management interface menu, all the navigation is taken care of, and their dll's just have to worry about their own domain logic.
There is always the dll-way where you define some interfaces that plugins follow.
But for web application, especially ASP.NET MVC, you need a controller, views and so. Probably these can be included in a dll file using prepared controller factory to handle that, but it would be hard to develop these plugins.
Some inspiration for code (or db) embedded content: Haacked about that
ASP.NET MVC version 2 will support areas, where you can put some parts of the application into different folders within the app. This way you can just upload some files and the app will recognize these new files. Read more there Haacked blog
PS: I found another person here on S.O. asking the same question as me:
Plug-in architecture for ASP.NET MVC It might be useful for someone researching the same topic.