Step-by-step guide for dummies to integrate uBlogsy on existing Umbraco 4.7 with site design
Hi,
I am looking to integrate uBlogsy on my home page (where it currently says news) http://solarenergypartner.com/ with a link to my blog page, al using the template I have already integrated into Umbraco 4.7
I would like to know how do to this step-by-step please.
* First make a complete backup of your site! Ideally, if you can copy this to a dev/temporary environment, make your changes there first in case something goes wrong.
* You'll need to adjust the "structure" of whatever containing page you want the blog to live in. For example, edit your homepage's document type to allow the "uBlogsy - Landing" doctype so you can move it accordingly.
* In settings -> templates, We ended up moving the "uBlogsyBaseSite" template out of the provided "uBlogsyBase" master, and put it as a child under our own ContentMaster template. (Leave the "uBlogsyBase" template as its own master which should inherit from nothing.) We then tweaked this "uBlogsyBaseSite" template to get rid of the <head> and <body> tags, and instead moved things around into placeholders since we already were generating <head> and <body> tags in our own ContentMaster template.
I don't understand why this needs to be so complicated.
You have a site, with it's specific template and you then want to activate add-ons. Shouldn't the cms be able to add an add-on using the site structure and templates?
Can someone please help me here, I really need to get live.
Can you imagine how much easier and more productive would be if Umbraco distributed with actual solution/project files and not as published website. Perfect example is CMS called Ektron. Way more complicated then Umbraco, but sold to seriouse clients just because it is maintanability.
What I do not understand is position of Umbraco team. Are you really interested to increase area where your product distributed or not?
Right now I holding Umbraco back just because I do not want to put myself in position where client will ask me to do something and would have to say : give me some time because Umbraco is not in single project and I need time to figure out how to accomodate your request...
And this post is perfect example of this point.
If Umbraco would be open as a solution/project there will be no such problems, all could be resolved within less then 10 minute debugging of the project.
@Lloyd: I'm must admit that I have not really been playing around with uBlogsy but it seems to me that what you're trying to do is mix and match uBlogsy onto an already existing site, right? And for some reason no content is shown...I would like to know...
1: Do you get any output errors or don't you just see any content at all? 2: Could you post a screenshot of your setup in the content section and perhaps also you template structure from the settings section?
@allblonde: It's not really neccesary to do a custom build of the uBlogsy package in order to make it work with Umbraco. This is also the case with the other packages around. You'll only need the visual studio project if you need to fix a bug in the package. And that is only if the package actually contains .dll files, which many of the packages don't.
Please also keep in mind that the Umbraco HQ/Core team are working on the Umbraco core - they're not in any way responsible for most of the packages available (except for the bi-products they're selling like Contour, Concierge, Courier etc.) - Most of the packages are free and maintained by 3rd party. The downside to this is that if a package contains a bug in a certain use case it's hard to get fixed if the author has not open sourced it and for some reason is not longer active in the community.
Furthermore I'm positive that people would love to share the source code for their project if anyone asks them about it :)
Could you perhaps post a real screenshot on how things are structured in the content section in the umbraco backoffice? - The diagram stuff above confuses me a bit.
I would be happy to help you out further but that would require me to spent some time setting up a demo installation and figure out how uBlogsy works. Unfortunately I currently don't have the time to do that.
I hope someone else have tried doing what you're trying to acheive and that they will guide you through the process. I think it might just be some minor stuff that needs to be done but it's hard pinpointing you in the right direction when I have no clue how the package works at the moment.
I think the issue I am having is with the template setup for uBlogsy. Not sure what selections to make/change for each of there various uBlogsy templates...
I found uBlogsy to be intuitive and contains most of the features I would like in a blogging package.
I will try find time to create an article on my experiences and attempt to create a step by step guide over the coming weeks, then post back a link to this forum.
Using our automated provisioning software I create a clean Umbraco install then put in uBlogsy to create the uBlogsy Install Guide.
Would it be of any use to give you an admin login to this site for a week before I delete it (free to make any changes in the environment / use it as a sandpit)?
Again, further progress on the article, however, after reviewing your problems again, I believe you will gain most from the section I am going to move onto next (Refactoring existing and uBlogsy Templates).
I will endeavour to add to this section later this week, but am writing these articles in my evenings, so progress isn't what I had hoped.
Although I have not completed the article on the uBlogsy Templates, along the way I have created an article on Umbraco Templates in general.
This should be good reading in preparation for the main article and may be enough to help resolve your integration problems. If not, the main article will be available soon.
Finaly, the long awaited guide to integrating uBlogsy with your existing site is complete.
The previous link should get you to the main articles, however if you have been following the progress, the final piece of the jigsaw (and probably the most important article) can be found here. It covers making changes to your existing Templates and the uBlogsy templates.
It may have taken five times longer to write the articles than it did to integrate uBlogsy, however I hope you and others think it was worth it and find them useful.
The main isues where removing the <form> command from template uBlogsyBaseSite and under document types marking off the ublogsy notetypes under the Structure tab of the sites master document types.
In summary, I must say that this is a very supportive community and I feel now more confident that I can slowly learn and develop our Umbraco site over time.
Step-by-step guide for dummies to integrate uBlogsy on existing Umbraco 4.7 with site design
Hi,
I am looking to integrate uBlogsy on my home page (where it currently says news) http://solarenergypartner.com/ with a link to my blog page, al using the template I have already integrated into Umbraco 4.7
I would like to know how do to this step-by-step please.
Thanks,
Lloyd
1. create a new blogsy blog (install the package)
2. move it where you want it to be in the content section (this should make it show up in the navigation in case you want this)
3. finetune all the masterpages to show the html & css you want to use (optionally using inheritance - recommended)
Here are some other notes which may be helpful:
* First make a complete backup of your site! Ideally, if you can copy this to a dev/temporary environment, make your changes there first in case something goes wrong.
* You'll need to adjust the "structure" of whatever containing page you want the blog to live in. For example, edit your homepage's document type to allow the "uBlogsy - Landing" doctype so you can move it accordingly.
* In settings -> templates, We ended up moving the "uBlogsyBaseSite" template out of the provided "uBlogsyBase" master, and put it as a child under our own ContentMaster template. (Leave the "uBlogsyBase" template as its own master which should inherit from nothing.) We then tweaked this "uBlogsyBaseSite" template to get rid of the <head> and <body> tags, and instead moved things around into placeholders since we already were generating <head> and <body> tags in our own ContentMaster template.
Best of luck!
Basically what Rik and Funka said.
btw...I'll be doing a demo of how to do this at CG12.
Come along and heckle me!
ps. anyone want to blog about this?
Thanks for the replies.
Rick, I got this error message on your first step: "The current node is not allowed under the chosen node because of its type"
This is how my content navigation currently looks:
Many thanks!
Managed to move the content after allowing templates.
Now trying to set the inherit template, how do I do that?
Many thanks!
:)
How do I fix this mess please:
<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/masterpages/SEPMaster.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %>
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_head" runat="server">
</asp:content>
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="cp_content" runat="server">
<div id="content" class="textpage">
<div id="contentHeader">
<h2><umbraco:Item runat="server" field="pageName"/></h2>
</div>
<h4><umbraco:Item field="contentSummary" runat="server" /></h4>
<umbraco:Item runat="server" field="bodyText" />
</div>
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd xhtml 1.0 transitional//en" "http://www.w3.org/tr/xhtml1/dtd/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html lang="en-GB" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-GB" dir="ltr">
<%--get title for browser--%>
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro1" runat="server" Language="razor" Alias="uBlogsyBrowserTitle" />
<%--get meta title and description--%>
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro5" runat="server" Alias="uBlogsySeoMeta" />
<script src="/scripts/jquery-1.6.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js"></script>
<link type="text/css" rel="Stylesheet" media="screen" href="/css/uBlogsy.css" />
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="Head" runat="server" />
<form id="uBlogsy_main_form" runat="server">
<div id="uBlogsy">
<div id="uBlogsy_header_container">
<div id="uBlogsy_header_inner">
<h1>
<%--get site name--%>
<umbraco:Macro runat="server" Language="razor">@{ var landing = uBlogsy.BusinessLogic.DataService.Instance.GetLanding(Model.Id);
<a href="@landing.Url">@landing.uBlogsyContentTitle</a> } </umbraco:Macro>
</h1>
</div>
</div>
<%--top navigation--%>
<div id="uBlogsy_nav_container">
<umbraco:Macro runat="server" Alias="uBlogsyNavigation" />
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_main">
<div id="uBlogsy_left_col">
<asp:contentplaceholder id="LeftCol" runat="server" />
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_right_col">
<%--search--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsySearch" runat="server" />
<%--rss link--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyShowRSSLink" runat="server" />
<%--list of authors--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListAuthors" runat="server" />
<%--list of categories--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListCategories" runat="server" />
<%--the awesome tag cloud--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListTags" runat="server" ShowCount="0" />
<%--list of related posts--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListRelatedPosts" ItemCount="5" MatchCount="1"
RelatedAlias="" runat="server" />
<%--list of latest posts--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPosts" ItemCount="5" Small="1" runat="server" />
<%--list of latest comments--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListComments" ItemCount="5" Small="1" runat="server" />
<%--archive--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPostArchive" runat="server" />
<%--alternate archive layout --%>
<%-- <umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPostArchive" AltLayout="1" runat="server" />--%>
<%--list blog roll --%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListBlogRoll" runat="server" ItemCount="5" />
</div>
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_footer">
<div class="uBlogsy_footer_text">
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro13" runat="server" Language="razor">@{ var landing = uBlogsy.BusinessLogic.DataService.Instance.GetLanding(Model.Id);
@Html.Raw(landing.uBlogsyContentFooter) } </umbraco:Macro>
<div>
Powered by uBlogsy and Umbraco</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</html>
</asp:Content>
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_footer" runat="server>
</asp:content>
This is my regular text page code:
<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/masterpages/SEPMaster.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %>
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_head" runat="server">
</asp:content>
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="cp_content" runat="server">
<div id="content" class="textpage">
<div id="contentHeader">
<h2><umbraco:Item runat="server" field="pageName"/></h2>
</div>
<h4><umbraco:Item field="contentSummary" runat="server" /></h4>
<umbraco:Item runat="server" field="bodyText" />
</div>
</asp:Content>
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_footer" runat="server">
</asp:content>
How do I combine this with the code on"uBlogsyBaseSite" template ?
Thanks
I don't understand why this needs to be so complicated.
You have a site, with it's specific template and you then want to activate add-ons. Shouldn't the cms be able to add an add-on using the site structure and templates?
Can someone please help me here, I really need to get live.
Still doesn't work:
<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/masterpages/SEPMaster.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %>
<%--get title for browser--%>
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro1" runat="server" Language="razor" Alias="uBlogsyBrowserTitle" />
<%--get meta title and description--%>
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro5" runat="server" Alias="uBlogsySeoMeta" />
<script src="/scripts/jquery-1.6.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js"></script>
<link type="text/css" rel="Stylesheet" media="screen" href="/css/SEPStyle.css" />
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_head" runat="server">
</asp:content>
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="cp_content" runat="server">
<div id="content" class="textpage">
<div id="contentHeader">
<h2><umbraco:Item runat="server" field="pageName"/></h2>
</div>
<h4><umbraco:Item field="contentSummary" runat="server" /></h4>
<umbraco:Item runat="server" field="bodyText" />
<form id="uBlogsy_main_form" runat="server">
<div id="uBlogsy">
<div id="uBlogsy_header_container">
<div id="uBlogsy_header_inner">
<h1>
<%--get site name--%>
<umbraco:Macro runat="server" Language="razor">@{ var landing = uBlogsy.BusinessLogic.DataService.Instance.GetLanding(Model.Id);
<a href="@landing.Url">@landing.uBlogsyContentTitle</a> } </umbraco:Macro>
</h1>
</div>
</div>
<%--top navigation--%>
<div id="uBlogsy_nav_container">
<umbraco:Macro runat="server" Alias="uBlogsyNavigation" />
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_main">
<div id="uBlogsy_left_col">
<asp:contentplaceholder id="LeftCol" runat="server" />
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_right_col">
<%--search--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsySearch" runat="server" />
<%--rss link--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyShowRSSLink" runat="server" />
<%--list of authors--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListAuthors" runat="server" />
<%--list of categories--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListCategories" runat="server" />
<%--the awesome tag cloud--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListTags" runat="server" ShowCount="0" />
<%--list of related posts--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListRelatedPosts" ItemCount="5" MatchCount="1"
RelatedAlias="" runat="server" />
<%--list of latest posts--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPosts" ItemCount="5" Small="1" runat="server" />
<%--list of latest comments--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListComments" ItemCount="5" Small="1" runat="server" />
<%--archive--%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPostArchive" runat="server" />
<%--alternate archive layout --%>
<%-- <umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListPostArchive" AltLayout="1" runat="server" />--%>
<%--list blog roll --%>
<umbraco:Macro Alias="uBlogsyListBlogRoll" runat="server" ItemCount="5" />
</div>
</div>
<div id="uBlogsy_footer">
<div class="uBlogsy_footer_text">
<umbraco:Macro ID="Macro13" runat="server" Language="razor">@{ var landing = uBlogsy.BusinessLogic.DataService.Instance.GetLanding(Model.Id);
@Html.Raw(landing.uBlogsyContentFooter) } </umbraco:Macro>
<div>
Powered by uBlogsy and Umbraco</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</div>
</asp:Content>
<asp:content ContentPlaceHolderId="cp_footer" runat="server">
</asp:content>
Can you imagine how much easier and more productive would be if Umbraco distributed with actual solution/project files and not as published website. Perfect example is CMS called Ektron. Way more complicated then Umbraco, but sold to seriouse clients just because it is maintanability.
What I do not understand is position of Umbraco team. Are you really interested to increase area where your product distributed or not?
Right now I holding Umbraco back just because I do not want to put myself in position where client will ask me to do something and would have to say : give me some time because Umbraco is not in single project and I need time to figure out how to accomodate your request...
And this post is perfect example of this point.
If Umbraco would be open as a solution/project there will be no such problems, all could be resolved within less then 10 minute debugging of the project.
Exactly, now what do I do? I need to launch by Sunday...
Is it a money issue?
I want to use the soft to run my website, that's it.
How can I get help with this?
@Lloyd: I'm must admit that I have not really been playing around with uBlogsy but it seems to me that what you're trying to do is mix and match uBlogsy onto an already existing site, right? And for some reason no content is shown...I would like to know...
1: Do you get any output errors or don't you just see any content at all?
2: Could you post a screenshot of your setup in the content section and perhaps also you template structure from the settings section?
@allblonde: It's not really neccesary to do a custom build of the uBlogsy package in order to make it work with Umbraco. This is also the case with the other packages around. You'll only need the visual studio project if you need to fix a bug in the package. And that is only if the package actually contains .dll files, which many of the packages don't.
Please also keep in mind that the Umbraco HQ/Core team are working on the Umbraco core - they're not in any way responsible for most of the packages available (except for the bi-products they're selling like Contour, Concierge, Courier etc.) - Most of the packages are free and maintained by 3rd party. The downside to this is that if a package contains a bug in a certain use case it's hard to get fixed if the author has not open sourced it and for some reason is not longer active in the community.
Furthermore I'm positive that people would love to share the source code for their project if anyone asks them about it :)
Cheers,
Jan
Hi Jan,
thanks for the reply.
In answer to your questions:
1: Do you get any output errors or don't you just see any content at all?
I get both. On the main My Blog page I get the error page which I 1137.aspx below
http://www.solarenergypartner.com/1137.aspx
And on the Posts page for example I get a blank screen: http://www.solarenergypartner.com/1138.aspx
2: Could you post a screenshot of your setup in the content section and perhaps also you template structure from the settings section
Content
SolarEnergyPartner
>Solar Solutions
>About Us
>Energy Efficiency
>Free Consultation
>Videos
>My Blog
>>Posts
>>Pages
>>rss
>>Email Templates
Recycle Bin
Templates
SEPMaster
>SEP Homepage
>SEPTextPage
>uBlogsyBaseSite
>>uBlogsyLanding
>>uBlogsyPage
>>uBlogsyPost
Many thanks,
Lloyd
Hi Lloyd
Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious here but seems to me that the "My Blog" node for some reason has not been published?
Have you tried right clicking the "Content" node and select "Republish entire site", which refreshes the XML cache?
Alternatively you can try recycling the app pool to see if that makes any difference.
Hope this helps.
/Jan
Hi Jan,
Thanks, now I'm just seeing hte header without the summary and content:
http://www.solarenergypartner.com/1334.aspx
Many thanks,
Lloyd
Hi Loyd
Well at least we have a bit of progress :)
Could you perhaps post a real screenshot on how things are structured in the content section in the umbraco backoffice? - The diagram stuff above confuses me a bit.
Cheers,
Jan
Hi Jan,
Is this better - I have a windows 7 on Macbook and the screen shot short cut is alluding me, sorry, here is the content structure:
Content
>SolarEnergyPartner
>>Solar Solutions
>>About Us
>>Energy Efficiency
>>Free Consultation
>>Videos
>>My Blog
>Recycle Bin
The ">" show the level of the item.
Thanks,
Lloyd
Hi Jan,
BTW how do I switch the site to work right-toleft for Hebrew?
Thanks for all the help.
Lloyd
Hi Jan,
Here is a screen shot of the content section of my Umbraco:
http://www.energypartner.co.il/SiteImages/Capture.PNG
Many thanks,
Lloyd
Hi Jan,
I can't get the ublogsy template to show... any ideas what to do here please?
Thanks,
Lloyd
Can't someone just itemize the steps here?
1-2-3-4-5-6 etc
Hi Lloyd
I would be happy to help you out further but that would require me to spent some time setting up a demo installation and figure out how uBlogsy works. Unfortunately I currently don't have the time to do that.
I hope someone else have tried doing what you're trying to acheive and that they will guide you through the process. I think it might just be some minor stuff that needs to be done but it's hard pinpointing you in the right direction when I have no clue how the package works at the moment.
/Jan
Hi Jan,
I think the issue I am having is with the template setup for uBlogsy. Not sure what selections to make/change for each of there various uBlogsy templates...
Thanks,
Lloyd
Firstly I would like to say a BIG thank you to Anthony Dang for his contribution and a job well done.
I looked at this package for the first time yesterday and without looking at any documentation:
- Installed into test
- Investigated
- Configured
- Integrated into current site
- Made minor customisations
- Tested
- Released into our production environment www.carbonsoft.co.uk
I found uBlogsy to be intuitive and contains most of the features I would like in a blogging package.
I will try find time to create an article on my experiences and attempt to create a step by step guide over the coming weeks, then post back a link to this forum.
Kind regards,
Richard
Many thanks Andrew, many thanks Richard.
Looking forward.
Have a great day.
Cheers,
Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
I have now completed my first article on uBlogsy, however this setting the scene and targeted at green field installs.
I still intend to go further, and create a second article which goes into more details of integrating with existing sites.
In the mean time, I hope this offer assistance to some
Will post again once I get something together.
Regards,
Richard
Hi Lloyd,
Just had a thought.
Using our automated provisioning software I create a clean Umbraco install then put in uBlogsy to create the uBlogsy Install Guide.
Would it be of any use to give you an admin login to this site for a week before I delete it (free to make any changes in the environment / use it as a sandpit)?
Regards,
Richard
Hello Lloyd,
It would seem that writing about integrating uBlogsy into an existing site take considerably more time than actually performing the job itself :-)
I have started the previously mentioned article, unfortunately have yet to complete it.
Although partially finished, I have published what I have thus far, as it does contain the first draft (at the bottom of the article) of the steps you would need to take to integrate uBlogsy.
I will post back here again once I have filled in the details, which I assume will also prompt further steps as I re-visit the detail.
Hope the preview helps,
Richard
Hello Lloyd,
Again, further progress on the article, however, after reviewing your problems again, I believe you will gain most from the section I am going to move onto next (Refactoring existing and uBlogsy Templates).
I will endeavour to add to this section later this week, but am writing these articles in my evenings, so progress isn't what I had hoped.
Thanks for your patience,
Richard
Hi Richard,
The article is great, thank you.
And yes please, the login to see the correct structure will be extremely useful.
My email lloyd.apter (at) gmail com
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Although I have not completed the article on the uBlogsy Templates, along the way I have created an article on Umbraco Templates in general.
This should be good reading in preparation for the main article and may be enough to help resolve your integration problems. If not, the main article will be available soon.
Hope it helps,
Richard
Hello Lloyd,
Finaly, the long awaited guide to integrating uBlogsy with your existing site is complete.
The previous link should get you to the main articles, however if you have been following the progress, the final piece of the jigsaw (and probably the most important article) can be found here. It covers making changes to your existing Templates and the uBlogsy templates.
It may have taken five times longer to write the articles than it did to integrate uBlogsy, however I hope you and others think it was worth it and find them useful.
Let me know how you get on,
Richard
Hi Richard,
Many, many thanks for all yours and the other forum members help - http://www.solarenergypartner.com/blog.aspx
The main isues where removing the <form> command from template uBlogsyBaseSite and under document types marking off the ublogsy notetypes under the Structure tab of the sites master document types.
In summary, I must say that this is a very supportive community and I feel now more confident that I can slowly learn and develop our Umbraco site over time.
Thanks again,
Lloyd
Hello Lloyd,
Really glad you have got uBlogsy working and have a good experience working with Umbraco.
Please can you mark this thread resolved if you found the articles material to the resolution.
It is amazing how far the satisfaction of receiving a 'High five' keeps people going.
Happy coding and keep up the good work with sustainable development,
Richard
is working on a reply...