I am an ASP.NET developer and I am currently looking for a CMS to develop a pretty simple website for my theater association :-). I turned to Umbraco because it seemed pretty promising and I found the installation of the product very simple and straightforward (installed manually first and locally). I then went to the documentation website (https://our.umbraco.org/documentation/) and read a lot of it. I also followed the tutorial that teaches how to create a simple website. I must say that it is pretty amazing indeed. However, for my website, I need the following features:
- Manage users who can access specific parts of the backoffice only;
- Possibility to create articles (blog-like) and join files (PDF or others) => I guess it can be done with custom editors for instance;
- A private zone for members only.
I know these things can be done with Umbraco however the documentation is pretty "thin" (nothing on authentication or using member data in templates with Razor syntax, almost nothing on media management, etc.).
I understood that I could get a subscription to access more documentation (umbraco.tv) but is it really the only way ?
Basically my question is: can we only get the full product documentation through this subscription ?
There is no documentation to "unlock" with a subscription (other than the Umbraco TV videos). By the way, I'd recommend the videos... super useful (at least a few years ago when I was learning).
For any questions you can't get answered via documentation, Umbraco TV, or Googling, the forum is a great place to get specific questions answered.
First of all, WOW, a big thanks for all these links. Some of them look very promising :-).
Nevertheless, the official documentation is clearly missing a lot of content (media, users, members). As an example, the link you gave me to the official documentation regarding the management of members (https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Getting-Started/Data/Members/) is not really helpful. It give details about basic mechanisms of members management. However it gives none about the actual use from the front website. That's what I'm pinpointing here.
Anyway, IMHO you shouldn't have to google for the documentation of a whole feature of a product. That's all I'm saying. Then again, there is absolutely nothing in the official documentation regarding the management of media (or I might have missed something). As you say, the videos must be very useful but you can only view them now as a subscribed paying member (and it's probably part of the "business plan").
So far it really has been a hassle just to find the proper documentation to perform simple tasks with the product.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your time and all these valuable resources. I'm gonna read these and figure out whether I want to pursue with Umbraco.
the official documentation is clearly missing a lot of content
you shouldn't have to google for the documentation of a whole feature of a product
Totally agree. Awesomely, the Umbraco documentation is open source, and it has an issue tracker. That means that you can submit an issue to request that some documentation be added (I realize that won't help you in the immediate sense, but it could help somebody in the future): https://github.com/umbraco/UmbracoDocs/issues
I too find it silly that basic things are missing. I suppose it's a work in progress, however.
Especially the part about understanding the difference between: Content, Data and User generated content. Think about what you want to store in Umbraco, and what should be stored outside. Letting users into your backoffice to create blog posts, might not be the best solution. (In the future you might want to change CMS, and keeping user generated content outside Umbraco would probably ease that migration)
Information about Umbraco documentation
Hi everyone,
I am an ASP.NET developer and I am currently looking for a CMS to develop a pretty simple website for my theater association :-). I turned to Umbraco because it seemed pretty promising and I found the installation of the product very simple and straightforward (installed manually first and locally). I then went to the documentation website (https://our.umbraco.org/documentation/) and read a lot of it. I also followed the tutorial that teaches how to create a simple website. I must say that it is pretty amazing indeed. However, for my website, I need the following features: - Manage users who can access specific parts of the backoffice only; - Possibility to create articles (blog-like) and join files (PDF or others) => I guess it can be done with custom editors for instance; - A private zone for members only.
I know these things can be done with Umbraco however the documentation is pretty "thin" (nothing on authentication or using member data in templates with Razor syntax, almost nothing on media management, etc.).
I understood that I could get a subscription to access more documentation (umbraco.tv) but is it really the only way ?
Basically my question is: can we only get the full product documentation through this subscription ?
Thanks ahead for your answers.
Regards,
Chris.
There is no documentation to "unlock" with a subscription (other than the Umbraco TV videos). By the way, I'd recommend the videos... super useful (at least a few years ago when I was learning).
For any questions you can't get answered via documentation, Umbraco TV, or Googling, the forum is a great place to get specific questions answered.
I have also been sending this unofficial project to my coworkers (basically, a mini-book on Umbraco): https://github.com/kgiszewski/LearnUmbraco7
This site has a bunch of useful articles (disclaimer: I wrote one): http://24days.in/umbraco/about/
Some more useful articles: http://skrift.io/
And some more: http://uditty.com/
This has some minimal info on back office users, though it's pretty sparse: https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Reference/Security/
This has some info on members: https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Getting-Started/Data/Members/
This page has info about "public access" (the way you password protect pages): https://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/umbraco-client/context-menus/public-access/
Here is some info on restricting back office users to particular parts of the content: https://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/umbraco-client/context-menus/permissions/
You also have some more options when you view a user in the back office.
Lastly, and this is a shameless plug, but here is an article I wrote that describes some of the do's and don'ts of Umbraco development: http://24days.in/umbraco/2015/umbraco-zeitgeist/
Hi Nicholas,
First of all, WOW, a big thanks for all these links. Some of them look very promising :-).
Nevertheless, the official documentation is clearly missing a lot of content (media, users, members). As an example, the link you gave me to the official documentation regarding the management of members (https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Getting-Started/Data/Members/) is not really helpful. It give details about basic mechanisms of members management. However it gives none about the actual use from the front website. That's what I'm pinpointing here.
Anyway, IMHO you shouldn't have to google for the documentation of a whole feature of a product. That's all I'm saying. Then again, there is absolutely nothing in the official documentation regarding the management of media (or I might have missed something). As you say, the videos must be very useful but you can only view them now as a subscribed paying member (and it's probably part of the "business plan").
So far it really has been a hassle just to find the proper documentation to perform simple tasks with the product.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your time and all these valuable resources. I'm gonna read these and figure out whether I want to pursue with Umbraco.
Regards,
Chris.
Totally agree. Awesomely, the Umbraco documentation is open source, and it has an issue tracker. That means that you can submit an issue to request that some documentation be added (I realize that won't help you in the immediate sense, but it could help somebody in the future): https://github.com/umbraco/UmbracoDocs/issues
I too find it silly that basic things are missing. I suppose it's a work in progress, however.
You might find some useful information here:
http://24days.in/umbraco/2015/membership-apis-investigation/
http://24days.in/umbraco/2015/extending-membership/
But first, I would recommend that you read: http://24days.in/umbraco/2015/integrating-an-application-into-umbraco-(using-ninject)/
Especially the part about understanding the difference between: Content, Data and User generated content. Think about what you want to store in Umbraco, and what should be stored outside. Letting users into your backoffice to create blog posts, might not be the best solution. (In the future you might want to change CMS, and keeping user generated content outside Umbraco would probably ease that migration)
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