You can either import the site into Umbraco, since Umbraco v4 supports Master Pages as the template format this can be easy. But depending on how the .NET functionality is done it may make it quite hard if they are not in the form of UserControls (which you can turn into Umbraco Macros).
Your other option is to use the Umbraco API (the classes in the nodeFactory namespace) to load up a particular node in the Umbraco content tree and pull in the data directly. This could be a little problematic as it would be hard to relate the Umbraco node to the page you want to put the content on.
That is NOT possible. This is a db-drive ASP.NET application. Think of it as though it were an ASP.NET shopping cart or something. It cannot be imported into anything.... It just "is" ...
>> Your other option is to use the Umbraco API
We _thought_ that was the answer. But it appears that we need to install umbraco _inside_ our existing app?
We were hoping to leave umbraco outside our app, and to just iframe in (or somesuch) the content from umbraco.
Connect with me via a Twitter DM (see my profile here on our.umbraco.org) and I may be able to get you up to speed quickly - then we can post the summary back here.
You could use Umbraco for purely content management only, so without use of any the front-end presentation mechanisms that Umbraco provides. In that case, you would create an extra instance in IIS to put Umbraco in and then have the content exported to your ASP.NET application. In this way you can keep both systems seperated.
I would not recommend this though. You miss all the advantages of the Umbraco CMS, and you would have to create a custom 'export mechanim' that allows you to display the content in your ASP.NET application.
Easy if you know how to make your control request an xml feed or whatever you prefer. I assume that you want to have some sort of control of the content.
1. Define some doctypes in Umbraco that allowes your tech to write help text in a suitable structure. The doctype for help articles could contain bodytext and some other fields.
2. Let Tech create all the help pages he want in Umbraco.
3. Not to get stuff out - just create a new template (call it rssexport), create an xslt macro that renders your content. If you want to render it as xml then a very easy shortcut is to use
<xsl:copy-of select=""/>
oh and remember to change the output type to xml/text with
Update: We would love to use umbraco, but we aren't.
Here is the story:
Yes, we could use an RSS approach, or API approach. But that is kludgy (and then our web server is making a call out to a web server to fetch content, and ...). And then it introduces yet-another-server to our environment.
What we really dreamed of is a drop in control that IS umbraco, that we drop into our ASP.NET app like any other control. Then we would (magically, somewhere) have a full umbraco management console, and umbraco content "built in" to our app.
And .... we can do this! Yes, we see it.
But it means we have to install the full umbraco on all our app servers (we have a several of them, and they come and go a lot). This becomes a deployment nightmare for us.
Adding umbraco to our deployment is too tall an order for us. So we spent a day and built a super-simple, rather brain-dead CMS inside our app.
I miss umbraco already (I want a REAL CMS!), but we are up, running, and our deployment stays simple....
How to access Umbraco content from existing .NET application?
Greetings all!
I am new to umbraco, and may not be phrasing my question well. Please help me get started with umbraco (which looks smoking hot).
I have an existing, large, ASP.NET app. It has nothing to do with umbraco.
I need to allow my tech writer to create help file content, which will be available on various pages in the ASP.NET app.
How can I point a control at a given page in umbraco, and frame the umbraco content?
Any help to get started... very appreciated!
Thank you!
You can either import the site into Umbraco, since Umbraco v4 supports Master Pages as the template format this can be easy. But depending on how the .NET functionality is done it may make it quite hard if they are not in the form of UserControls (which you can turn into Umbraco Macros).
Your other option is to use the Umbraco API (the classes in the nodeFactory namespace) to load up a particular node in the Umbraco content tree and pull in the data directly. This could be a little problematic as it would be hard to relate the Umbraco node to the page you want to put the content on.
Thank you for the reply.
Allow me to clarify what I am talking about:
>> You can either import the site into Umbraco,
That is NOT possible. This is a db-drive ASP.NET application. Think of it as though it were an ASP.NET shopping cart or something. It cannot be imported into anything.... It just "is" ...
>> Your other option is to use the Umbraco API
We _thought_ that was the answer. But it appears that we need to install umbraco _inside_ our existing app?
We were hoping to leave umbraco outside our app, and to just iframe in (or somesuch) the content from umbraco.
Thoughts?
Thank you!
Sam -
Connect with me via a Twitter DM (see my profile here on our.umbraco.org) and I may be able to get you up to speed quickly - then we can post the summary back here.
-Paul
You could use Umbraco for purely content management only, so without use of any the front-end presentation mechanisms that Umbraco provides. In that case, you would create an extra instance in IIS to put Umbraco in and then have the content exported to your ASP.NET application. In this way you can keep both systems seperated.
I would not recommend this though. You miss all the advantages of the Umbraco CMS, and you would have to create a custom 'export mechanim' that allows you to display the content in your ASP.NET application.
Hi Sam,
Easy if you know how to make your control request an xml feed or whatever you prefer. I assume that you want to have some sort of control of the content.
1. Define some doctypes in Umbraco that allowes your tech to write help text in a suitable structure. The doctype for help articles could contain bodytext and some other fields.
2. Let Tech create all the help pages he want in Umbraco.
3. Not to get stuff out - just create a new template (call it rssexport), create an xslt macro that renders your content. If you want to render it as xml then a very easy shortcut is to use
oh and remember to change the output type to xml/text with
<xsl:value-of select="umbraco.library:ChangeContentType('text/xml')"/>
4. Add the template to a node (or use it as an ?alttemplate=).
Now - all you need to do is request the url from your control.
/Jesper
>> Paul Sterling
Jesper,
Thank you!
So Umbraco can do the below? (This is how our lead .NET dev phrased the question)
>>>>
In our research so far, it is not clear to us WHERE to install umbraco. (We have two web servers in our app). Does it need to be on the same server?
How do we sync content between our staging environment and the production servers?
Thanks!!!
Update: We would love to use umbraco, but we aren't.
Here is the story:
Yes, we could use an RSS approach, or API approach. But that is kludgy (and then our web server is making a call out to a web server to fetch content, and ...). And then it introduces yet-another-server to our environment.
What we really dreamed of is a drop in control that IS umbraco, that we drop into our ASP.NET app like any other control. Then we would (magically, somewhere) have a full umbraco management console, and umbraco content "built in" to our app.
And .... we can do this! Yes, we see it.
But it means we have to install the full umbraco on all our app servers (we have a several of them, and they come and go a lot). This becomes a deployment nightmare for us.
Adding umbraco to our deployment is too tall an order for us. So we spent a day and built a super-simple, rather brain-dead CMS inside our app.
I miss umbraco already (I want a REAL CMS!), but we are up, running, and our deployment stays simple....
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