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  • Tom Bates 3 posts 23 karma points
    Jan 12, 2011 @ 18:59
    Tom Bates
    0

    New User: Umbraco dev and functionality questions

    Hi,

    I'm researching CMS platforms, and have a few questions regarding Umbraco. Having watched a few of the videos, my colleagues' main objection is having to use the Umbraco web UI to create 'document types' - we are used to writing these out quickly in code with our proprietary CMS platform.

    So, my first question is:

    • Do you have to use the web UI to create document types / page types? During development of large / more complex websites / web applications, have you ever considered this a disadvantage? I suppose my question is, does is hamper development speed.
    My second question requires an example:
    Say I write a 'Dogs' web application. I want an easy way to add and manage new dogs in the application for my client, and I want the ability to iterate through them and use them throughout the website in different areas. Dogs are:
    • Dog Name
    • Height
    • Colour
    • Tail Size
    • Number of Spots
    Would I create a 'document type' for this? As the dog objects would never be pages themselves; rather I would use them within different templates (An 'All Dogs' page for instance). So, they are more of a custom data type.
    How would you implement this in Umbraco?
    I'm trying to get a handle on development speed and flexibility.
    Many thanks for your time,
    Tom

  • Jan Skovgaard 11280 posts 23678 karma points MVP 11x admin c-trib
    Jan 12, 2011 @ 19:36
    Jan Skovgaard
    0

    Hi Tom

    1) I'm no .NET wizard so I'm not sure wether or not you can actually create the using the API only. But I can't see why it should not be possible.

    However I don't think that it's a problem to create and structure the document types using the back office. If you're using the same structure and document types accross many sites it's a matter of either make a package to recreate them on another Umbraco instance or simply export and import them. Of course if you have a document type with many properties that needs to be set it can be a cumbersome task. But with the inheritance possibilities I don't think that this is a big issue at all.

    I think this issue is about preference and how you see the development cycle of a website.

    2) If you have the data to be used in the custom datatype in a database outside of Umbraco it's definately an option to create a custom datatype to achieve this task. You could also create the structure in the content tree in a tree that should not be displayed as pages and then use a multiple picker data type to fetch the required "dog document type" you need.

    Umbraco is a very flexible system and you can use it almost any way you desire. In your case you should maybe just consider Umbraco as foundation/framework, which provides you with a lot of flexibility to achieve your goal in a way that makes sense to you rather than a limited CMS. Because it's really not limited :-)

    I hope the above is of use to you.

    /Jan

  • Tom Bates 3 posts 23 karma points
    Jan 13, 2011 @ 15:16
    Tom Bates
    0

    Jan,

    Thanks for your response, informative. I suppose the next step is to dive in and actually try it!

    Tom

  • Tom Bates 3 posts 23 karma points
    Jan 18, 2011 @ 16:12
    Tom Bates
    0

    I've pass this information on, and have a slightly expanded question from a colleague, again relevant to the Web UI for content types:

    --------------------------

    I've noticed that in Umbraco the "Content Items" are created through the admin UI.

    I've used system like this before and the issue I ran into was the fact that there was no concrete c# classes for the objects. Instead the syntax was more like

    myShapelessObject = GetObject["ObjectName"]; and 
    myBool = Convert.ToBoolean(myShapelessObject.GetAttribute["boolName"]);

    Rather than
    myCSharpDefinedObject = GetObject("Name");
    myBool = myCSharpDefinedObject.boolName;

    The concrete classes in c# then allow a much more sophisticated form of coding to be used.

    Does Umbraco allow custom c# objects without having to write code modules and then import them into the project as add-on / extensions? And if so are the admin UI create/edit screen automatically generated from the "shape" of the object?

    --------------------------

    Thanks again for your time,

    Tom

  • Michael Latouche 504 posts 819 karma points MVP 4x c-trib
    Jan 18, 2011 @ 16:23
    Michael Latouche
    0

    Hello Tom,

    There is a package "Linq2Umbraco" which I think provides what you need: classes mapping to your umbraco objects. I actually think this comes default in from version 4.5.2.

    There is a wiki page available at http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/linq-to-umbraco

    Cheers,

    Michael.

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