As a front end guy, the fact that Umbraco is very much a developer based tool makes it difficult for to fully embrace it still. I had the same issues but with zero knowledge of how to work with IIS and MsSQL coming from a freelance background that involved working in an Apache environment with WordPress where local setup was a simple as installing XAMPP and of course the easy WordPress installer (at which point to be fair, the Umbraco web installer interface is nice and easy too). 

I appreciate that to get the most out of Umbraco it does necessitate being a bit developer focused but I do still shudder a bit at the apparent complexity involved in setting up a new IIS environment. Maybe I just need some better guidelines/tutorials. 

J.

Hi Pete

I agree.  It just comes down to a lot more communication when installing I think.

It is much better now than it used to be with the installation process, the starter kits and skins, but there is still an element of knowledge needed but agreed that it still needs a lot of work from a usability perspective.

Let me know if you'd like to collaborate on this as I am (being not over technical) probably a good test case.

I think one of the issues is the different paths you can install through and the points in the installation process you actually start.  I haven't tested all of them but I think if you go via Webmatrix it starts later on because the MS side of things installs the DB etc before you get to Umbraco itself.

I'll give it a go and see what happens.  

We can then maybe get some ideas and a report together, and even if it is just a few text tweaks here and there on the screens and some pop-overs with some better instructions it would be good to upgrade the install if necessary

Cheers

I think you are right on the multiple routes to install issue. Its plain confusing. Would be nice to have one doc which explains how to do it (which could differ for different platforms) and be kept up to date. Probably a job in itself.

I'm going to make some more notes on some of the pain I'm having while installing and see what I can come up with. If others can throw some ideas/issues into the ring too that would be great.

After that we'd best come up with a solution to some of them :)

How about an installation guide (like Matt's excellent editor's guide)? A nicely written, clear installation guide would certainly help those who aren't as technical I think.

+1 on the installation guide.

However a well-written installation guide covering different environments should not stand-alone I think. I think that the installation UI could be more communicative as Peter is suggesting in his initial post. I feel that such a guide should support the communication of the installation UI itself since it really should not be neccesary to read a lot of documentation before installing - it should be a pretty straight forward experience - but the guide could go into more detail about the different things that need to be in place in order to get Umbraco running on your machine.

Currently I find that the most easy way to install Umbraco is by using WebMatrix, which makes it easy to get hold of the prerequisites and the Umbraco application itself. Untill now I have just used the CE SQL database, which I usually migrate to MSSQL later on, once my foundation is in place.

I must say that I have not tried installing Umbraco on MSSQL using WebMatrix so I don't know if this is straight forward or not. (And I'm probably blind when it comes to the initital experience of installing Umbraco since I know most of the pitfalls by now).

/Jan

This topic seems to have died or maybe just gone to sleep. We (my company) come from a long (and sometimes painful, I admit) period of DotNetNuke development and I see similarities and differences. The similarities are the most worrying. Umbraco is quite technically complex and there is a perceived culture of smoke and mirrors if not a bit of the emperor's clothes. This is probably not deliberate and as I said, it is a perception, or at least my perception.

What seems to be lacking is some connection with those NOT in the know and a certain embarrassment by those Umbraco virgins to admin to NOT knowing. It is counter-productive. Like others on these forums, we have some level of experience in the various technologies and all we really require is some clarity. I agree that documentation is not the end of it but it would at least be a bloody good start.

So:

1) Why do so many uThings not work? I have tried several starter kits and most fall over at some point. Hints and tips posted on the forum are often just simply wrong, do not work and waste time.

2) Why is documentation so sparse? Again look through the projects and see how many have any documentation at all, and if any, do they say anything more than "install this and enjoy. Gosh I am clever"

3) Why make things (that do work) more complex than they are? Installing via the Web installer is a good example

4) Why is "progress" more important than consolidation? Umbraco 5? What about getting Umbarco 4 a bit more stable, resiliant, informative and reliable?

Several people have asked the meaning of the word Umbraco. I really do wonder about the Umbra bit. A dictionary definition states: "The fully shaded inner region of a shadow cast by an opaque object". Sounds about right.

I comes down to some oversight somewhere and by that I mean some "body" being responsible for some guidelines (rules if you wish) and improving the user experience would be the first place I would probably start. Some form of validation is required for "projects". It seems perfectly possible for someone to post some completely nonsense code up on the Project page, call it something beguiling and nobody objects. It even earns the "developer" Karma I think because of the number of saps downloading the non-working code. That cannot be right.

I blame the parents I'm afraid.

Hey William,

Thanks for warming this one back up, I had almost forgotten about it. One of those things you remember the next time you have to do a fresh install ;)

You raise some more general points about Umbraco as a whole here not just in the install process. The short answer to just about all of them is that all the code is written "by developers who are short of time and who would rather be developing than communicating (ie writing documentation)", most developers I know suffer from this one.

1) Your right a lot of packages get produced and uploaded with little testing and in some case littel come back for bug fixes etc. Simple answer is to avoid them if you don't like them, check the forum for each package and the Karma score and use that as a guide in judging which ones to use. A lot of the packages are open source too so if you really need that functionality maybe you can patch it and offer it back up. A lot of people don't like hearing that one as it is the usual open source cop out for dodgy code but at the end of the day it is true, no one is being paid to write these packages, if you choose to use them to earn yourself money at some point you need to give a little back or roll your own.

2) Again, developers like developing not documenting. The Umbraco core team was 100% developers who all liked doing all nighters under the glow of Visual Studio drinking caffine. Documentation got left by the way side and is something that needs work, but where to start? Currently everything is sort of on hold waiting for V5 to be released (which it now has) and become stable and well used. Now the code base is pretty solid its probably time that the docs will start appearing (indeed there are already lots of blog posts about v5 cropping up).

3) Web installer has dramatically increased the number of installations for Umbraco and increased its visibility in the CMS world so it was a good move. I agree though that one clear install path would be better. Again V5 should fix a lot of these issues.

4) V4 is very solid on the whole, we've build a lot of sites on top of it and are continuing to do so. With any code base though there are dark corners of code, V4 had more than its fair share and was becoming more of a pain to maintain and expand than it should have been. V5 is a bold step, one I admit I had my doubts about at first but after talking with several of the core team and seeing the demos/conference talks I'm happy that it will be a great bit of kit and was the right choice to make for the future of the platform. In the meantime though V4 is suffering a little from being in "limbo" a little while all eyes are on V5.

As for the meaning of the name, I've no idea. I don't know what most car names mean either. Does it matter? There is no offical way to pronouce it either which I quite like :)

You can blame the parents if you like, but they where young and free spirits when all this started, they are a little older and wiser now. Luckily for us though they are still as free spirited which means the Umbraco eco system is a fun and encouraging place to be with a lot of promise and potential. More and more people are becoming involved in it and I hope that together we can all add a little bit back to it to make it even better.

Cheers

Pete

Firstly, in case anyone thinks otherwise, I really like Umbraco, I think the "parents" did an outstanding job and (if I can get over these initial hurdles) we won't be going back to DotNetNuke any time soon and believe me I know the "no documentation" problem, we are guilty there too. Also if I was an Umbraco developer, I'm sure I'd be feeling a little narked. My beef is not with them but more with the headlong race forward trumping any pause for reflection and consolidation. I've seen it with DotNetNuke and the mere whiff of "progress" over excellence gives me the chills.

But, you knew that was coming, and maybe because I really want to get over these initial hurdles, I think these points are important and as soon as I get to grips with Umbraco. I know I'll be like a lot of others who "just know". I won't feel arsed to spend any time making it simple because I now know how to do it. I have a standard install which I modify each time and that will serve my purpose.

However the problem is not with the original conceivers or the many caffeine fuelled hours spent by undoubtedly brilliant developers; it is with what is sometimes known as the Goldilocks syndrome", the unglamorous work that NEEDS to be done to make a good product superlative.

I say I blame the parents because whilst I love the spirit of the Umbraco community, I do see a need for some sort of governance. Maybe projects could be voted on, and if not up to scratch removed or at least flagged. It's a community and it needs to pull together; there are a lot of children without guidance who are losing their shoes just trying to keep up, if you'll excuse the rather fanciful analogy. There is nothing more frustrating than finding what you think is the answer to a problem when the answer turns out to be a "fail".

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling a bit bruised with my encounters with Umbraco, I just wish it wasn't so and refuse to accept that it cannot be improved.

BTW Whilst I am still on the nursery slopes I am building a how to install Umbraco doc (it will probably be a web-page(s) eventually), so if anyone wants to help, let me know.

@William: You're a brave man to be so direct - thank you for having the guts!

Great that you'll build a "how to install Umbraco doc". It's the spirit that sync with your "refuse to accept that it cannot be improved". Contributing with what you'd like to see would be an awesome way to inspire others. It does take more resources to act than to point fingers, but the latter will get you to status quo at best.

In regards to projects we do moderate them in the sense that only projects with 15 votes or more surface to the package repository (the package browser/installer inside the Umbraco back office). We also introduced package compatibility voting in December last year to improve install experience. Personally I'd rather see some great projects being released with minimal documentation than never being released at all. After all most of the projects are free and often side-projects of Umbraco implementations which means that if extra hours was required, they could be kept internally. That would be a shame. 

I'd love to know what basic documentation that's missing. We have a getting started guide, an editors manual, 100+ tutorial videos and a book on Wrox. I believe there's more documentation than people know and we're working on an updated area on Our to make it bubble to the surface. I'm not claiming it's perfect. I'd just love to know more specificly what's missing.

Cheers,
Niels... 

@William

I would love to contribute to an installation guide - would be nice to have some sort of "ultimate guide" to refer to that covers the different options and what to be aware of and why and what impact it has. Must admit that I've done many installations and know my way but I'm not always sure why I need to do the different steps. I just know how to make it work, which is not satisfying.

Please drop me an e-mail at jaskov at gmail dot com about the project :)

/Jan

I've had best luck with manual install.  I use MySql instead of SQL.

Here are some things I've found:

• Use Firefox for the wizard, IE does not show everything.  This was the source of a LOT of frustration.
• Create an empty database and make absolutely certain that you can connect to it with your connection string.  If this doesn't work, your install is going to be very frustrating.
• Seemingly even though you need to add the key="umbracoDbDSN" value to web.config, you still need to choose "advanced user" and paste the conn. string in.
• I'm pretty sure that you need to give both ASPNET and NETWORK SERVICE accounts full rights to the Umbraco install folder, at least for IIS 6.  Someone can correct me on this.
• For the main install, I've had good luck just drag-copying the files in from the Umbraco .zip file.
• You should give the website its own Application Pool.
• Although tempting, and it may seem to work at first, you cannot home an Umbraco installation in an IIS virtual directory.
• I avoided all the starter kits.  I can't say if they're helpful or not, but I really wanted to learn Umbraco "from the ground up".  They may in fact be very useful.  But I may never know :^)
• You should know how to copy an entire Umbraco site - this is actually very simple.
• You should know how to recover from lost admin password.
• You should always use the latest stable release.

Paul - nice post mate.

I do recall the pain I felt when I first started using Umbraco, however now on my laptop at home or at my place of work (client PC with separate webserver) I can get a site up and running in 5 minutes.

Basically I follow Paul Kaplan's information:

1. Create a blank database

2. Create a new website within IIS. I do create a new Application Pool identity for each site. Also I now look to run a batch file (http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/set-umbraco-folder-permissions-from-command-line) on the site for folder permissions.

3. Copy the Umbraco files from the zip file to the site directory on the server / laptop.

4. Open a browser, enter the URL and follow the install steps. I never look to install packages as part of the installation process.

Maybe I am over simplfiying things, but for me the install experience is straight foreward, consistent and fast.

Nigel

@Niels,

Thank you for your compliment, it isn't bravery, it's frustration. It's like having a Lamborghini in the drive but no key and just clues as to where the key is.

Documentation: Videos are great but there is no way to cut-and-paste from a video. With something as complex as Umbraco, full documentation could be massive and the only way I can see this getting done is as a community effort. But (I'm good at those) I think it needs some oversight. Wikis are great but the structure needs to be planned we don't have the time to wait for evolution, it's a slow process. What you have now is good but it skims over detail.

To take a very simple example: for someone who daily sets up a site in IIS and thinks nothing of it, the instruction "Set up a new website in IIS" seems sufficient. But what about the small details like the version of .Net? It's these little things that whilst they may seem trivial can be heatbreakingly frustrating. Take the Lamborghini. I now have the key and have started the engine, now what? It is not safe to assume that I know how to engage the correct gear and also know that I have to take the hand brake off.

I can hear people now saying well if he doesn't know how to drive a car he shouldn't be getting in the Lambo in the first place! That is not the point; the point is that even the most experienced driver makes fundamental mistakes. The hospitals and graveyards are full of them.

So, what I propose is:

1) Establish the scope of the project. What will be included. Do we actually need to include details of how to set up IIS for example. I think so. Should we aim for it to be multilingual? I think so.

2) How will it be handled, here or on a separate site?

3) How should the oversight and organisation of the contributors be structured?

Not necessarily in that order.

@ Niels,

Tak for din kompliment, er det ikke tapperhed, det er frustration. Det er som at have en Lamborghini i drevet, men ingen vigtige og lige spor med hensyn til hvor nøglen er.

Dokumentation: Videoer er stor, men der er ingen måde at skære-og indsætte fra en video. Med noget så komplekst som Umbraco, kan fuld dokumentation være massiv, og den eneste måde jeg kan se det blive gjort, er som et samfund indsats. Men (jeg er god til dem) Jeg synes, det har brug for lidt tilsyn. Wikis er stor, men den struktur skal planlægges vi ikke har tid til at vente på evolution, er det en langsommelig proces. Hvad du har nu, er godt, men det stryger i detaljer.

For at tage et meget simpelt eksempel: for en person, der dagligt sætter sig et sted i IIS og tænker noget af det, instruktionen "Opret en ny hjemmeside i IIS" synes at være tilstrækkelig. Men hvad med de små detaljer som den version af. Net? Det er disse små ting, mens de kan synes banalt kan være heatbreakingly frustrerende. Tag Lamborghini. Jeg har nu nøglen og har startet motoren, hvad nu? Det er ikke sikkert at antage, at jeg ved, hvordan man kan engagere den rigtige gear og også vide, at jeg er nødt til at tage håndbremsen trukket ud.

Jeg kan høre folk nu siger godt, hvis han ikke ved, hvordan man køre en bil, han ikke bør komme i Lambo i første omgang! Det er ikke pointen, pointen er, at selv den mest erfarne føreren får grundlæggende fejl. De hospitaler og kirkegårde er fulde af dem.

Så, hvad jeg foreslår, er:

1) Etablering af omfanget af projektet. Hvad vil indgå. Skal vi virkelig nødt til at indeholde oplysninger om, hvordan du opsætter IIS f.eks. Jeg tror det. Skal vi stræbe efter at være flersproget? Jeg tror det.

2) Hvordan vil det blive behandlet, her eller på et separat websted?

3) Hvordan skal tilsynet og tilrettelæggelsen af de bidragydere struktureres?

Ikke nødvendigvis i den rækkefølge.

@Paul, @Nigel,

We do something very similar. I have however modified the batch file, @Nigel mentioned, a bit but it's another small element that could do with a bit of discussion as it has implications. You really need another to switch some permissions off once you deploy. We also for good or bad use the structure outlined in http://cultiv.nl/blog/2010/12/19/tip-of-the-week-the-ultimate-site-structure-setup/ and this does need a bit more explanation, criticism etc..

I just realised that I seem to have inadvertently quoted @Nigel. No offence intended, it wasn't deliberate, c.f. "Set up a new website in IIS" . I blame my subconscious :P

You are and aren't simplifying things, and if you don't mind me using this as an example. What you say makes PERFECT sense to me and many others. But say I hit a snag; and there are a few gotchas in those simple steps. The only recourse I have is to crawl over the forums. Once I find the answer, I will move on and never make whatever the mistake was again. Lucky me. Some other sap will sure as eggs are æg hit the same snag. I think these "baby steps", as someone earlier called them, could do with being in one place, checked, criticised, amended, polished, expanded etc...

@Nigel, You've just hit on my main point. You work and home PC's are now setup for running Umbraco so you've already worked through most of the pain which we forget exists when trying it on a fresh install. I have this problem when we have to try to install a new site on one of my work mates machines (especially when its a new machine). All those "oh yeah you need to tick this/install this/change that" memories come back eventually but I'd love it if we wrote down the issues and what we did to fix them, ideally so we don't have to do them again and also so we can ensure we are only doing what is needed to be done and cutting out some of the "lets try that" stabs in the dark. Once your machine has what it needs and the right settings then I agree getting a new site up and running is quite easy, it just getting over that first hurdle that is the pain for new adopters which I'd like to help mop up :)

@Peter

I couldn't have put it better myself. That is exactly my point. We are all busy earning a living and documentation as always is a real pain and inevitably gets left to last. The reason this is such a big gripe for me is that we are transitioning from a CMS that whilst determined to move away from, we know well and to be honest if a client asked for a new website tomorrow I would use without any problems. Because I have been through this pain barrier already.

This is however exactly what I don't want to but am forced to do. So I am determined to crack this egg and it makes sense to help others too.

Our issue is like you on your work mate's PC except that I (when I get time) have another shot at setting up a site with Umbraco on the same PC and I have to admit, get to points where I just think now what DO I do next? Well what I do do is spend another couple of hours watching Umbraco.tv, not the quickest solution. I am now though writing it down.

Do you want to contribute your "pearls"?

@Nigel,

Indeed it does seem pretty straightforward, but I had to "rehearse" it a few times.  My goal as a developer is to make things very reliable and repeatable for our Ops team, who will wind up doing the installs.  If it's not, they'll track me down and kill me :^)  I'm working on a document for them, which belongs to the company so I can't release it, but the basic outline is the same as the steps I listed in my previous post.

@William,

Details of how to set up an IIS website?  Not so sure.  It doesn't make sense to replicate documentation which can be found elsewhere, ad infinitum.  Although specific requirements of an IIS website, and IIS itself, should be specified.

Multiligual?  Yes, if someone can put in the effort.

Whether it should be handled here or on a separate site?  Probably best here, shouldn't Umbraco be the central repository?  Not sure how receptive the Umbraco folks are, maybe they'd dedicate a portion of this site to that.  If not, an "expat" Umbraco site?  I'm still learning my way around.  Thus far, I'm getting the impression that the actual Umbraco people are pretty sparing with their participation on the forum.  I bet they spend most of their time with Premium customers at €3K per year.  Unfortunately my company will not shell out that kind of money so I'm the Umbraco support.

Oversight and organization?  Pick just one person to do it. It's not a huge project. Everyone else contributes.

@All,

It is quite possible to write a script to create an IIS website with all the appropriate properties.  I suppose one could have another script to create the folder, set the permissions, etc.  Yet another script to create the empty database.  Then an uber-script to drive them all, in order. Or perhaps a .NET winforms app with text boxes for all the names, etc.?  But hey, then we've written an Umbraco installer!!  Dunno, maybe that'd be a good thing?

-- Paul

Not completely related, but perhaps it's also good to mention IIS Express. With that it's even possible to run Umbraco from a USB drive. Nice for demoing and also shows how easy it can be.

Jeroen

I'd steer clear of multiligual, its hard enough keeping one set of docs up to date rather than multiple versions in different languages that others can't compare/check with. One set of docs in the "language of the internet" (ie English) should do. To be fair there are a lot of docs out there, I just don't think they are structured to well and are a bit scattered. Its a wiki though so anyone can add to it but few do. Maybe it one of those situations where you have to make it messier before you can get it tidy :)

Anyway, this is way, way, way off topic! 

@Paul

Setting up an IIS site description isn't too onerous although if some decent links can be found, then sure, we can include the links for those who don't know their way round IIS. However there are a few niceties that are more relevant to Umbraco than a general "How to set up a web site in IIS" type guide might include. e.g. .Net version and app pools (which can be pretty disastrous if you do something simple like change the .net version if I remember correctly) so some guidance wouldn't be too bad.

Re: Multilingual I hear what @Peter says and I wonder what the non-native-English speakers say? I'm open to suggestions here. It seems Umbraco is ready to go multilingual with translator userTypes and all. Also if needed a lot can be done with Google translate (if required) and no @Peter it is not off topic at all.

I know there are lots of docs out there of varying quality and sometimes a bit buried, so given that, I am in favour of curating a Wiki, at least until the structure and ground rules are established.

@Jeroen I agree there will definitely need to be forks in the set-up description with common points and divergences. These need to be set out in the scope of the project (v5 is off limits)

@Paul I tend to agree and have nominated myself (for now).

I will be setting up an Umbraco site running on our servers and if Umbraco HQ @Niels? want to take it over that's fine (I think). The plan is to start with describing how to set up a vanilla install with no starter kit, Win XP deploy to Win 2003, sql 2005, css reset, grid 960 and css multilevel dropdown menu. Then move on to the essentials such as 404 handling, sitemaps and contact form and maybe a carousel and/or lightbox. Then introduce forks i.e Run from a USB, win 2008, sql 2008, IIS 7 etc...

The guidelines should include naming conventions, structural conventions etc.. all of which can be broken of course.

Reason? In my experience the best way to really learn something is to teach others about it.

I am still going through the basic install, so that I can get screenshots etc for a guide. I have hit another snag.

I want to be able to insert Images from the image picker in the Tiny MCE. I have (using FTP) created a directory under /Media called Images but I cannot see this directory in the image picker. I have also uploaded a batch of images for use (if I can get to them).

I have set the permissions using the batch script with the line "icacls media /grant "NETWORK SERVICE":(OI)(CI)M" This should give the correct permisions to the Media directory and its children. I have checked on the server and the security settings look correct. What is going on and how do I get to see my media child directories?

I really don't want to use the Media uploader as it is not neccesary here. Unless that is the only way to get the child directories to be visible?

You won't have a DB link to the image as far as I am aware if you just upload the images.  You will need to use the media uploader to do this so the ID's are picked up and Umbraco can handle them properly.

http://our.umbraco.org/projects/website-utilities/desktop-media-uploader would be best, which I think is already part of Umbraco??

Cheers

Thanks @Adam.

I thought that was probably what was going on. It's a shame that the media uploader is the only way to do this. Maybe 5 will have an integrated uploaded added to the picker? It would make sense, to me at least. I'm sure I'm not alone in not wanting yet another app installed on my PC. Yes, you are right it come with 4.7 which is the version I'm using.

If anyone knows any way round this I'd be interested to hear. Also if there is no other way of uploading then maybe this needs to be highlighted. Most Noobians will probably be comfortable using FTP as this is probably what they have been doing up till now.

Can anyone explain why the images need IDs? Is it because the links are loaded into the db for speed rather than the directories being read by the image picker?

Its just the way it works, each media item is added to a folder which has a unique ID generated when you upload it.  if you look in the media folder the media item is placed into a folder called this unique ID, this gets around the problem of having 2 files called the same name and being overwritten by mistake as they are actually 2 separate media items with unique ID's.

Further to my previous post. I came across this little gem when right-clicking in the Editing area in Tiny MCE and selecting Insert Image. Can anyone explain what it is and does?

Incidentally this forum has a dinky image uploader that works just fine. It is sort of how I would expect the insert image command to work inside Umbraco, with the addition of an image picker for thise images already uploaded ;)

Hey William,

All media items are content nodes in Umbraco which allows us to store additional information about a media item than just its filename. Using this method we can have a unique alt text attribute for instance which can be reused through out the site to keep things consistant. Hope that goes some way to explaining why an image has to a media item. Actually thats not true, it only has to be a media item if you want to select and use it in the back end as content.

That leads on nicely to the bit about FTP. The CMS is always trying to be a nice balance between end users and developers. Most end users don't want to use FTP, developers though are quite comfy with it. Regarding installing yet another bit of software, an FTP client is another bit of software :) The Media upload is a fantastic bit of kit and you can use it on multiple sites with ease. As well as uploading the images it also automagically creates media items for them in the folder you specify. If you've not tried it yet give it a whirl. Alternatively there is a nice little package called Zip Upload which allows you to upload a zip of images which will then create media items from them (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/zip-upload), give that a go if you prefer.

Usual cop out, Umbraco is not perfect and has some rough edges but it gives you soooo many goodies and well thought out features that its easy to over look the odd quirk. As you are moving from one CMS to another you should remember to learn "the way" that the new system does things rather than trying to force it to do things they way you are used to. Not always the case but sometimes you just have to do things differently (like when I switched from SVN to Mercurial...you can't get Mercurial to do things in an SVN way).

Hope that helps?

Pete

Pete, yes it does. I agree that Umbraco is packed full of goodies, I find several new ones every day and I am certainly not expecting it to have all the goodies.

The problem I have is that whoever (and I know it was more than one) packed the goodie bag hasn't had time yet to make a half comprehensive inventory. So I am going though with a pretty rough tooth comb finding what does what and why. Most of it makes sense once I get the answers. My aim is to help others who like me suffer from the lack of an osmosis gene. To do that I need to know first the what, then the why as well as the how.

I agree moving from any platform to an other is painful as one ditches old and trusted (but not necessary the best) paradigms.

It is, however, nearly always healthy, even if you end up going back to the old platform for whatever reason. A bit like going on holiday really, with any luck you can see the best and worst of both and realise that either way compromises are made for mostly good reason, but to fully understand the compromise you need to know the reason.

And yes the media uploader is impressive, I have installed it but there are comments I will make about it in the documentation which hopefully will help those coming behind me.

P.S. I was talking crap in the previous post, the image selector does have an image uploader (but not a folder creator). I'm still not sure about the image thingy tho'

I'm looking for the best way of implementing a 12 column 960 grid layout using child templates for the various grid options. I might be going about it the wrong way :s

What I thought I would do is create a Master template with a placeholder for the chosen grid layout (1x 12 column, 2 x 6 column, 3 x 4 column etc...).

Then create 3 child templates with content areas named so that I know what is what, (col1, col2 etc.. depending on what child template I choose)

My logic was then to create a page, chose the child template e.g. 66Cols and then enter content in the two prepared content areas.

When I open or create the Content/Pagename I cannot "see" the child content fields I have prepared. I have selected the child template but can't see the content fields.

The aim is to allow for an editor to choose the correct layout (child template) for the page (1, 2, 3 columns etc..) and then be able to enter text in one, to or however many columns there are, whilst keeping the master html, menu, grid container etc in one place.

Anyone?

Niels,

Can you contact me on william [dot] charlton at gmail.com? I have stumbled across something that makes Umbraco fall over which I would rather not post publicly.

I can explain more offline.

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