We are currently investigating Umbraco as a replacement to our existing CMS. The current CMS has a document repository which runs independently (but still integrated) and stores thousands of documents, there are several GBs of documents.
These documents are general, such as word/pdf/excel documents.
Should these be stored in Umbraco or is this something that isn't in scope for this CMS?
It all depends on how you intend to administer and/or integrate those media items. If you don't need a GUI to be able to administer them and you don't need tight integration between your content editing tools and these items, then there's nothing to stop you just uploading your folder of documents into the root website (making sure to add the folder to the 'umbracoReservedPaths' entry in web.config so there are no conflicts with Umbraco). They can be referenced in there as absolute or relative links by their file paths. However, if you want users to be able to administer the documents through the Umbraco interface then you're best to upload them into Umbraco as media items. So long as your timeout and maximum file-size settings are set appropriately (there are lots of threads about that here on the forum) then you should be able to upload all of your documents using the Desktop Media Uploader, which is a tool launched from the main media section dashboard inside Umbraco; it preseves folder structures and handles all kinds of files.
The import process would add the necessary database entries to Umbraco and create a tree structure in the media section of Umbraco which matches the folder structure in which the items were uploaded. I would say make sure that your documents are pretty well structured as (a) Umbraco doesn't handle thousands of nodes at the same level very well (i.e. it can be slow) and (b) the Umbraco user interface isn't great for managing lots of items (you can only administer single folders or items rather than being able to shift-select, for example).
If you needed to import your general website content whilst maintaining links to media items automatically, I'd check out CMSImport which has the ability to import content and media items and maintain links between the two.
Thanks very much for that, we will need to administer the documents so it looks like storing them in a sensible structure in Umbraco will be a good call.
Storing general documents in Umbraco
We are currently investigating Umbraco as a replacement to our existing CMS. The current CMS has a document repository which runs independently (but still integrated) and stores thousands of documents, there are several GBs of documents.
These documents are general, such as word/pdf/excel documents.
Should these be stored in Umbraco or is this something that isn't in scope for this CMS?
Thanks
Kev
Hi Kevin,
It all depends on how you intend to administer and/or integrate those media items. If you don't need a GUI to be able to administer them and you don't need tight integration between your content editing tools and these items, then there's nothing to stop you just uploading your folder of documents into the root website (making sure to add the folder to the 'umbracoReservedPaths' entry in web.config so there are no conflicts with Umbraco). They can be referenced in there as absolute or relative links by their file paths. However, if you want users to be able to administer the documents through the Umbraco interface then you're best to upload them into Umbraco as media items. So long as your timeout and maximum file-size settings are set appropriately (there are lots of threads about that here on the forum) then you should be able to upload all of your documents using the Desktop Media Uploader, which is a tool launched from the main media section dashboard inside Umbraco; it preseves folder structures and handles all kinds of files.
The import process would add the necessary database entries to Umbraco and create a tree structure in the media section of Umbraco which matches the folder structure in which the items were uploaded. I would say make sure that your documents are pretty well structured as (a) Umbraco doesn't handle thousands of nodes at the same level very well (i.e. it can be slow) and (b) the Umbraco user interface isn't great for managing lots of items (you can only administer single folders or items rather than being able to shift-select, for example).
If you needed to import your general website content whilst maintaining links to media items automatically, I'd check out CMSImport which has the ability to import content and media items and maintain links between the two.
Hope this helps...
Hi Dan
Thanks very much for that, we will need to administer the documents so it looks like storing them in a sensible structure in Umbraco will be a good call.
Kev
Hey Kev,
One quick question, is your experience is in the .net stack and that's why you're considering Umbraco?
j
Hi Jay
We are a .Net house yes, not only that but our existing CMS is a .Net one too, so porting over will be easy.
Kev
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