I am happy to announce, after a dozen attempts, I have managed to upgrade Goondocks.com to Sitefinity 3.2. My advice to anyone attempting to upgrade from 3.1 is to go through this entire process on your local machine before you even attempt to do this in a live setting.  You will discover many controls have changed.  You will also discover the "ControlTemplate" changes you made for 3.1 may no longer be compatible with the updated 3.2 controls. Here are the steps involved in the Goondocks.com upgrade:  Backup ...

I began using PHP in 1998 and used it heavily until 2004 when I discovered ASP.NET (C#). I still maintain a few PHP-based web sites, but I will admit the bulk of my recent web development has been with ASP.NET (C#). If you do the math I have been a PHP programmer longer than I've been an ASP.NET programmer. What the hell is a "NAMESPACE"? Coming from the PHP-world, ASP.NET was a challenge. ASP.NET is comprised of strongly-typed variables, true OOP, namespaces, event-driven execution, web controls, compilation, etc. I ...

Consider the following scenario: I use my Content Management System (CMS) to create a "Marketing" page. I then use the CMS to create an "Advertising Opportunities" page. I now want my "Marketing" page to link to my "Advertising Opportunities" page. This is really basic stuff, right?  Just alter the page, create a link in RadEditor, and type the URL.  Big freaking whoop! It is a big freaking whoop.  It's a big freaking whoop because this procedure doesn't scale.  As your web site becomes bigger & more complex the likelyhood that ...

Long-time readers of this blog might recall that I have been fairly vocal in my belief that Sitefinity should have a better solution for document & file management.  Long-time readers of this blog might also note that they do not, in fact, exist and swiftly disappear in a poof of self-unrealization. (Yes, a similar line exists in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  It was funny then and it's funny now!  Leave me alone.) For everyone else, you can read my insightful diatribes on this subject: Here, Here, and Here...

Slavo, over at the Sitefinity forums, made the mistake of asking me to express my opinion about the features I would like to see included in Sitefinity. This article includes my "Top 5 Most Wanted Sitefinity Features". First though, I have to admit that these items are subjective. Web sites are like snowflakes; each one is unique and you should always avoid the yellow ones. I fully acknowledge that what might be important to me & my projects, might not be true for everyone. Feel free to express you own ...

While working through my Sitefinity web site it became obvious that I wanted every page to start with "breadcrumbs", followed by the page's title. The "breadcrumbs" are easily accomplished by dragging Sitefinity's "Breadcrumb" Navigation control onto my templates.  By applying the "breadcrumb" control to my templates, rather than individual pages, it ensures that the control gets applied to ALL pages.  For page title, however, I was finding that I needed to use a "Generic Content" control on each individual page.  This was also forcing me to manually type the page's title (something ...

Let's talk about community for a moment. I recently got a mention over at the official Sitefinity blogs page.  I appreciated this not merely because I'm an ego maniac, but also because it shows Telerik stands ready to foster & support the budding Sitefinity community. When evaluating Sitefinity early on, there were five things that were largely responsible for getting me on-board: There was an online demo. There was a downloadable trial. There was a free "Community" version of their product. I didn't have to talk to anyone in ...

Posting code samples on web pages sucks.  Much of the nice formatting that makes code readable gets completely lost when you toss it into HTML.  What you end up with looks like modem line noise. To combat this, I wanted to create a Sitefinity control that would easily allow me to post nicely formatted code samples to my web pages.  This ended up becoming a fairly complex project.  To see full information & download details about this control, click here. Sorry I have to direct you to a new page.  ...

Telerik recently released Service Pack 1 for Sitefinity 3.1.  With it they beefed up their CmsManager.GetPages() method.  You can now return a set number of pages, as well as sort the pages by a given property. This allowed me to create a "What's New" control.  This control simply returns links to the last X number of pages that were updated.  (You can set the number of links that get returned.) I have made this control available within the GoonDocks Sitefinity Controls. It is free for anyone to ...

For this web site I'm running Sitefinity on a shared hosting platform; specifically I'm using DiscountASP.Net to host my web site. Each time you access Sitefinity for the first time it has to start-up.  As near as I can tell this involves sending a signal to a gerbil named Fred.  Fred is kept in a small cage at Telerik and when you access a Sitefinity web site it rings a small bell in his cage.  When Fred hears the bell he is supposed to press a big green button in his ...

I have now spent one month “developing with” and “living with” Sitefinity 3.1. Let me summarize Sitefinity: Sitefinity is a Ferrari without the radio, windshield wipers, antennae, windows, paint, and seat cushions. You get the impression that you’re sitting inside something great, but damn it’s uncomfortable. When Sitefinity works, it’s a marvel to behold! I love being able to drag & drop complex controls onto my pages and use friendly control designers to customize them. All of this is built upon an incredible CMS! Once everything is in place Sitefinity empowers anyone ...

UPDATE: I renamed this control to GoonDocks "Links" Control and have included it in the GoonDocks Sitefinity Controls.  Go there and download it.  This control will change your life. I created a simple Sitefinity control that allows you to select a page in your site map and the control will return links to the selected page's children pages. Sitefinity comes with several top-level navigation controls.  All of these controls start at the root of the web site and offer tabs, trees, or menus to drill-down from there. This "Child Links" ...

I have been playing around with a Content-Management-System (CMS) called Sitefinity by Telerik for the last few weeks. I have known about Telerik for many years. They create a suite of ASP.NET controls (RadControls) which I have used in several of my projects. My impression of their company and their products has always been extremely positive. Their software & service has always seemed inspired to me. My past relationship with CMS products has not been positive. I have evaluated dozens of them in the past. My impression of almost everything ...