Allowing developers to specify the location of key paths
Hello,
I recently started looking at Umbraco for a number of projects my company is working on. So far I've been more than impressed - although there was a bit of a learning curve, this CMS seems to please me alot more than others I have tried.
One issue I have is that there are the write permissions needed on a number of folders (css, xslt, media, ...). While I understand the need for this vis-a-vis the administration backend, I was wondering if it would be possible to let developers specify the location of these folders in the same way as they can already do for the /data directory.
It would be alot easier to convince some of our clients to put write permissions on one folder (e.g. /content) and put all the necessary folders below that one (/content/media, /content/css, ...).
I'm currently browsing the Umbraco source code and it seems this should be doable, but I was wondering if anyone else had already gone through the effort and/or if this would be a feature that could be integrated in a next version of Umbraco (since I don't feel like monkey-patching the code every time I upgrade Umbraco).
I wouldn't advice changing too much of the specified paths.. I'm sure it can be done, but you'll be patching the core more than once, which is not desirable in upgrade scenarios. Never ever did I have a client complaining about this, so unless you're client explicitely insists on changing those folders, I'd go with the standard installation and not change anything.
I don't think much effort will be put in making those paths configurable, especially when vNext is lurking around the corner, which will break with the existing v4+ versions and is based on mvc architecture.
I definitely wouldn't be considering this if I didn't have good reasons to do so. I completely agree with you that monkey-patching the core everytime will be a very unpleasant thing to do - I'm looking into alternative solutions while investigating this path.
Off-topic, is there a document or page that talks about the next version of Umbraco, specifically an ETA and the expected breaking changes? We're about to start a *big* project based on Umbraco and it sounds like something I should be aware of.
v5 won't be for this year, so not an option, but will be breaking with the existing v4+ versions due to its complete different architecture. v4+ will still be supported tho.
Thanks for that explanation. I'm currently working on a smaller project for which I'll stay on 4.0.3, and I'll start looking at 4.1 for the bigger project since I'm not expecting alot to happen there before mid-March anyways.
I'm still considering monkey-patching the code though, the 'one writable directory' rule is pretty important for our internal deployment procedures (so the other option is changing those, but guess how happy they'll be to do that ;-)).
As I have come to understand things, v5 will be a MVC version of v4.1, so apart from that pattern difference, the core will probably be shared, making the transition from 4.1 to 5 rather small, if you design your 4.1 project with that in mind.
There will be no backwards compatibility between 4.1 and 5, although they will share similar architecture concepts expect the API's to be different. Code written for 4.1 will not be expected to work in 5. We will aim to have some guides on "moving to 5", but research tells us that websites very rarely upgrade between major versions of a CMS without a considerable project behind them.
Also, you only need to have the /data and /media folders writable on a live environment. The folders /masterpage, /css, /script, /python, /usercontrols and /xslt only need to be writable if you intend to modify these files on live. On top of that 4.1 will have better support for moving the /data folder (I strongly recommend /App_Data, as you don't need to permission that since it's a special ASP.NET folder).
Allowing developers to specify the location of key paths
Hello,
I recently started looking at Umbraco for a number of projects my company is working on. So far I've been more than impressed - although there was a bit of a learning curve, this CMS seems to please me alot more than others I have tried.
One issue I have is that there are the write permissions needed on a number of folders (css, xslt, media, ...). While I understand the need for this vis-a-vis the administration backend, I was wondering if it would be possible to let developers specify the location of these folders in the same way as they can already do for the /data directory.
It would be alot easier to convince some of our clients to put write permissions on one folder (e.g. /content) and put all the necessary folders below that one (/content/media, /content/css, ...).
I'm currently browsing the Umbraco source code and it seems this should be doable, but I was wondering if anyone else had already gone through the effort and/or if this would be a feature that could be integrated in a next version of Umbraco (since I don't feel like monkey-patching the code every time I upgrade Umbraco).
Kind regards,
Filip.
Hi Filip,
Sounds like a good idea to me.
If you would like it to make it to the core, please report this as new feature-request on Codeplex:
http://umbraco.codeplex.com/WorkItem/List.aspx
HTH,
Peter
Filip,
I wouldn't advice changing too much of the specified paths.. I'm sure it can be done, but you'll be patching the core more than once, which is not desirable in upgrade scenarios. Never ever did I have a client complaining about this, so unless you're client explicitely insists on changing those folders, I'd go with the standard installation and not change anything.
I don't think much effort will be put in making those paths configurable, especially when vNext is lurking around the corner, which will break with the existing v4+ versions and is based on mvc architecture.
Cheers,
/Dirk
Dirk,
I definitely wouldn't be considering this if I didn't have good reasons to do so. I completely agree with you that monkey-patching the core everytime will be a very unpleasant thing to do - I'm looking into alternative solutions while investigating this path.
Off-topic, is there a document or page that talks about the next version of Umbraco, specifically an ETA and the expected breaking changes? We're about to start a *big* project based on Umbraco and it sounds like something I should be aware of.
Thanks,
Filip.
Filip,
If you're about to start that big project, I'd consider following options:
- use v4.0.3: latest stable production release (I've used it already on a couple of sites, no real big issues whatsoever)
- use v4.1: currently in beta 2 status, should be final within next couple of weeks.
Roadmap for v4.1 and v5
v5 won't be for this year, so not an option, but will be breaking with the existing v4+ versions due to its complete different architecture. v4+ will still be supported tho.
Cheers,
/Dirk
Dirk,
Thanks for that explanation. I'm currently working on a smaller project for which I'll stay on 4.0.3, and I'll start looking at 4.1 for the bigger project since I'm not expecting alot to happen there before mid-March anyways.
I'm still considering monkey-patching the code though, the 'one writable directory' rule is pretty important for our internal deployment procedures (so the other option is changing those, but guess how happy they'll be to do that ;-)).
Kind regards,
Filip.
Keep us posted on your progress, love to get some feedback on that!
/Dirk
As I have come to understand things, v5 will be a MVC version of v4.1, so apart from that pattern difference, the core will probably be shared, making the transition from 4.1 to 5 rather small, if you design your 4.1 project with that in mind.
There will be no backwards compatibility between 4.1 and 5, although they will share similar architecture concepts expect the API's to be different. Code written for 4.1 will not be expected to work in 5. We will aim to have some guides on "moving to 5", but research tells us that websites very rarely upgrade between major versions of a CMS without a considerable project behind them.
Also, you only need to have the /data and /media folders writable on a live environment. The folders /masterpage, /css, /script, /python, /usercontrols and /xslt only need to be writable if you intend to modify these files on live.
On top of that 4.1 will have better support for moving the /data folder (I strongly recommend /App_Data, as you don't need to permission that since it's a special ASP.NET folder).
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