I have a large custom ecommerce engine that is currently using a SQL Server database (stored procedures handling most data tasks), a WCF middle-tier (handling business logic), and an MVC front-end site (that has no knowledge of any database). Our need for a content management system is increasing rapidly and I'm trying to figure out the best way to implement one, considering our very taxed development resources.
My first thought it to simply have two websites, an Orchard CMS site and our e-commerce site. I could setup some type of request routing that would send URLs for catalog browsing and cart functions to the ecommerce site, while other URLs get handled by the Orchard site. I would have to have a couple of modules (or widgets) built within the Orchard site that would display things like the cart summary that appears in the heading of each page. This seems like the easiest method of handling this, even if it is short-term.
My other thought is to have the site completely built using Orchard. This would require porting our ecommerce logic into modules. This seems like it would be one hell of a task. All of our work is done via web services, so if a user goes to a specific category URL, the site would call a web service and pass some variables (customer ID, category, etc). The web service would return the categories, products and prices for that customer - which would then be displayed on the screen.
Lastly, an even more complex version of the last option would be to actually store the products in Orchard, so that editable fields (description, meta tags, etc) would be managed through the Orchard CMS. This would require major changes to (or absorption of) our WCF middle-tier. This seems like it would be almost impossible, but may allow better handling of more media down the road (photos, videos, MSDS sheets, product literature, etc).
What are your thoughts so far, between these three models.
You can create a simple Orchard module that is a lot like an area in an MVC project. It uses controllers and views and is easy to do if you're familiar with MVC. You don't need to integrate it very heavily with Orchard if you don't want too. Your module's content would be in a folder and Orchard would manage the rest of the site's content.
To make the pages in your module use the orchard theme from the site you just need to add the [Themed] filter to your controller.
The hello world example in the Orchard Documentation shows you how to do this.
This would be the easiest option, but there would be benefits if you decided to store the products as Orchard content items. It would be more difficult to get there, but you'd be able to take advantage of other Orchard modules and add content parts like tags, comments and reviews to your products.
Related
Suppose I have MVC application with some static and dynamic web pages. How to add search feature for such site?
I dont want to create simple page searching for the data contained in database, I want to be able to index whole pages as they are displayed to customer.
Any solution for ASP.NET MVC4/5?
Shell I use existing solution (which?) or create my own one ?
Disclaimer: it's the product of the company I work for.
You can use SearchUnit for indexing/searching MVC web sites. There's a free Community version, and a more powerful paid version.
I don't know the specifics of what you need, but it's easier to use and more rounded (eg. includes spell checking, many document format parsers) than other options such as Lucene (IMHO, let me know if you disagree).
MVC specifics are here.
I am looking for an advice. I have an ASP website, where pages are generated from database. I have URL, title, content, metatags and other page specific fields in DB tables.
I would like to reuse this databse in Umbraco and be able to generate dynamic pages from these data. I will want to use Razor in views. My dynamic pages will need to be integrated with CMS sitemap.
I will also need a backend to manage these data (added in Umbraco backend if possible).
Is that possible? What would be the high level steps?
Thanks!
UPDATE:
The data have multiple relationships and business logic needs to be applied before presenting them to the users. What I am looking for is a CMS that will allow me to define routes and inject search, index and detail partials (use global layout, set page title and metatags). It can be a more or less hacky solution as long as CMS updates don't break it.
Is Umbraco flexible enough to do such thing?
Many people who look at Umbraco for the first time try to work out how they can fit an existing project into umbraco and reuse code / databases.
The truth is that using Umbraco involves a shift in how you think about data. Essentially, in most cases, Umbraco is your database. Especially if all your database is doing is providing the data that you describe ie the contents of the standard pages of your website.
Your approach should be to rebuild the data structure of your site using Umbraco document types. Umbraco document types provide the data to your page templates (MVC Views).
You should really download Umbraco and take out a subscription to Umbraco TV to shortcut a rather steep, but very worthwhile learning curve.
Wing
I'm working on application with some sort of CMS features. I need some pages to be editable. For instance:
you can edit a text block right in your browser
you can add and remove different modules to your page
For instance, if I have a main page I may want to edit welcome text.
If I have a sidebar I may want to add/remove new modules to the sidebar such as:
email subscription module
social network (facebook, twitter, etc) links block
text block
My application may have several pages, not only one.
I want to keep it simple and I'm looking for the right approach/examples/existing tools.
What's the best pattern / third-party solution for ASP .NET in order to implement this and keep it simple?
If you want to use ASP.NET MVC I think the best solution is to look into Orchard. It's really easy to get up and running, has a rich set of existing modules and building a module from scratch is really easy. This was actually started by a couple of Microsoft guys and then spun out into it's own open source project. http://www.orchardproject.net/
i have to create a new asp.net mvc page that integrates content provided by a cms on the server side static. my mvc page provides a masterpage with the navigation and certain links should point to pages of the cms (which is installed on the same server). it should be something like a "server side iframe".
my idea is to create a controller which loads the page of the cms using a webrequest, extracts the body part of the page and passes the extracted data to the view. the view simply outputs the passed html. i also plan to add some logic to pass post requests to the cms (for news letter subscriptions, contact forms, ...)
now my question is: is it possible to implement this solution? or is there a better way to do this on the server side?
Could you use Application Request Routing to just hand off requests to your CMS, or do you need to include the externally provided content within an existing masterpage?
If you need to use the masterpage I would stick to the solution you suggest, although I might investigate the most robust and efficient option for querying the content from the CMS and perhaps if caching would be a good option.
It is undoubtedly possible, but keeping track of users, authentication, cookies etc. seems like a really tedious job. Also, embedding css classes, hard-coded styling etc. from the CMS in your MVC site could give you a severe headache.
If the CMS isn't home-brewed it probably has an API. In that case I would much prefer to use the API to get at the data I needed and then render that data using pure MVC. This will give you a much cleaner and more stable integration with the CMS.
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.