I am a little confused here. I would like to develop a project for umbraco. Something that i can include in any template with a tag. BUT, i have not been able to find anything in the wiki on how to do this. Do i need to use some of the API's, or should i just load the umbraco project into visual studio, and add onto that somehow (I haven't looked at the project yet)?
Like if i wanted to develop a forum. I have just included YAF in my umbraco, and after all the "hacks", i included it in a new template with a <yaf> tag.
Now, i would like to make my own "application" (in ASP.NET) that i can include in the same way, in my existing templates.
The Yaf project is a completely separte project. that can run in asp.net custom controls. It uses the a membership provider, so does Umbraco so that's the only connection between Umbraco and Yaf. When you build custom controls you can use your own custom tags that you configure in your web.config or page/control header. For more info on this please check MSDN.
Now the reason that you don't find any wiki on this is because it's a very bad integration. It's doable because Umbraco is very flexible. When you design for Umbraco it's better to use macro's. You are way more flexible in your layout, functionality and flexibility using several macro's instead of one control that does it all and even worse has the design embedded in the control. I would suggest that you check out several projects such as Uforum, commerce4Umbraco and CWS, see how they solved these issues and how easy it is (when you are a little familiar with Umbraco) to extend the existing functionality/modify layout just by editing xslt templates.
I will take a look at the projects, but i'm stil a little confused. What if i wanted to code my own forum for umbraco? How would i go about doing this, ignoring details like membership providers etc? Should i make this as a custom control?
I am already convinced when it comes to ease of modifying my existing stuff. I have installed CWS (though i haven't looked at the codes behind it, other then from within the umbraco client), and some other projects. I have had absolutely no problems getting it to work, or even modifying them. Even integrating YAF was suprisingly straight forward (once you knew what to do, ofcourse). Umbraco, so far, seems really powerful, which is also why i would like to figure these things out.
A whole forum would probably be a "bunch" of usercontrols + some macros. Maybe even an application with it's own tree.
I think there is already a package called forum4Umbraco maybee you can get the sourcecode for that to get you started if you can't use it as is.
If you don't mind spending the 19€ i can highly recomend watching the Umbraco TV video tutorials. These videos was what got me started developing usercontrols, and seeing things in the right perspective.
If you want to develop a forum the Umbraco way. You probably would build a Library that can contains all the forum functionality (no user interface code). Then you provide a basic implementation using usercontrols and XSLT files that you (andf if you create a package of your work others )can for a forum implementation on your website.
The big difference between this approach and the custom control approuch (which is a perfect fit for a modular CMS like Dotnetnuke) is that you provide a basic implementation that you easily can modify for your customers need.
For example If you have build your forum with normal validators and the customer demands that you use JQuery validators instead you have to completely rebuild your control when you've used a custom control and for the approach use you just replace the validators in the usercontrols which is far more easy to do.
Develop for umbraco
Hi,
I am a little confused here. I would like to develop a project for umbraco. Something that i can include in any template with a tag. BUT, i have not been able to find anything in the wiki on how to do this. Do i need to use some of the API's, or should i just load the umbraco project into visual studio, and add onto that somehow (I haven't looked at the project yet)?
Are there any how-to's that cover this?
Hmm Nicolai,
Can you be a bit more specific on 'Something that i can include in any template with a tag'? Let us know and we'll get you started!
Cheers,
/Dirk
Hi Nicolai
If its special functionality that you are after you should look into Macros. http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/templates/umbracomacro-element which allow you to wire in either an XSLT file or your own .net functionality.
Without more information its pretty hard to be more specific.
Peter
Like if i wanted to develop a forum. I have just included YAF in my umbraco, and after all the "hacks", i included it in a new template with a <yaf> tag.
Now, i would like to make my own "application" (in ASP.NET) that i can include in the same way, in my existing templates.
Hi Nicolai,
The Yaf project is a completely separte project. that can run in asp.net custom controls. It uses the a membership provider, so does Umbraco so that's the only connection between Umbraco and Yaf. When you build custom controls you can use your own custom tags that you configure in your web.config or page/control header. For more info on this please check MSDN.
Now the reason that you don't find any wiki on this is because it's a very bad integration. It's doable because Umbraco is very flexible. When you design for Umbraco it's better to use macro's. You are way more flexible in your layout, functionality and flexibility using several macro's instead of one control that does it all and even worse has the design embedded in the control. I would suggest that you check out several projects such as Uforum, commerce4Umbraco and CWS, see how they solved these issues and how easy it is (when you are a little familiar with Umbraco) to extend the existing functionality/modify layout just by editing xslt templates.
Hope this helps you a bit,
Richard
I will take a look at the projects, but i'm stil a little confused. What if i wanted to code my own forum for umbraco? How would i go about doing this, ignoring details like membership providers etc? Should i make this as a custom control?
I am already convinced when it comes to ease of modifying my existing stuff. I have installed CWS (though i haven't looked at the codes behind it, other then from within the umbraco client), and some other projects. I have had absolutely no problems getting it to work, or even modifying them. Even integrating YAF was suprisingly straight forward (once you knew what to do, ofcourse). Umbraco, so far, seems really powerful, which is also why i would like to figure these things out.
A whole forum would probably be a "bunch" of usercontrols + some macros. Maybe even an application with it's own tree.
I think there is already a package called forum4Umbraco maybee you can get the sourcecode for that to get you started if you can't use it as is.
If you don't mind spending the 19€ i can highly recomend watching the Umbraco TV video tutorials. These videos was what got me started developing usercontrols, and seeing things in the right perspective.
Hi Nicolai,
If you want to develop a forum the Umbraco way. You probably would build a Library that can contains all the forum functionality (no user interface code). Then you provide a basic implementation using usercontrols and XSLT files that you (andf if you create a package of your work others )can for a forum implementation on your website.
The big difference between this approach and the custom control approuch (which is a perfect fit for a modular CMS like Dotnetnuke) is that you provide a basic implementation that you easily can modify for your customers need.
For example If you have build your forum with normal validators and the customer demands that you use JQuery validators instead you have to completely rebuild your control when you've used a custom control and for the approach use you just replace the validators in the usercontrols which is far more easy to do.
Cheers,
Richard
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