A lot of Sitefinity web sites (this web site included) are still running on Sitefinity 3.x.  When Sitefinity 4.0 was released, Telerik open-sourced a migration tool, but there were several use cases that weren’t 100% addressed by this tool.  Consequently, many of us have remained on the 3.x platform due to lack of time to address these remaining scenarios.

Earlier today, Georgi Chokov published a blog post informing the Sitefinity community that migration from Sitefinity 3 to Sitefinity 4 is about to get a refresh reboot:

We realize that a better solution is needed to migrate Sitefinity 3.x projects to 4.x and we feel the need to take a stronger position on this matter. Therefore we’ve assigned one internal team to enhancing the migration tool and this will be their main focus over the next weeks. We will deliver weekly iterations with the new enhancements so everything we do ...

Falafel Software recently released a comprehensive Sitefinity 4 book that covers the entire spectrum of Sitefinity project development.  This book provides step-by-step walkthrough’s, as well as detailed background information.

Here are the sections of the book:

1. Setting up Your Environment
2. Introduction to Sitefinity
3. Getting Started
4. Using Sitefinity
5. Designing and Administering Sitefinity
6. Developing for Sitefinity
7. Testing Sitefinity Sites Using Telerik Test Studio

This book can be purchased through Falafel’s web site.

Earlier today, Martin Kirov (Executive VP, Sitefinity/Telerik) posted a blog post to the Sitefinity Blogs.  In this post, Martin announced that licenses for early adopters of Sitefinity 4 would be extended:

We have extended the subscriptions of all new licenses and upgrades purchased between the Sitefinity Release Candidate (November 18) and the Sitefinity 4.1 release (April 19) to start from July 31, 2011.

Each Sitefinity purchase comes included with 1 year of upgrades.  After that year, a subscription must be maintained to get access to newer releases.  This offer means that Sitefinity 4 early adopters have complimentary access to upgrades until July 31, 2012.

Thank you for being an early adopter

In his post, Martin also expresses the original inspiration for Sitefinity 4:

This was not just the next version of Sitefinity which introduces some new things and improvements, this was the beginning of a completely different system ...

Included in the Sitefinity 4.1 SDK is a new Visual Studio template.  This template can be used to create a new Sitefinity 4.x Products module.  Modify this sample module to create other types of Sitefinity modules.

This post below describes how to get started with this Visual Studio template:

Creating a new module with the Sitefinity Module Template

1.  Open Visual Studio

2.  Open your Sitefinity Project

3.  Right-click the Solution and click Add –> Add New Project

4.  Search for Sitefinity, select the Sitefinity Module template

5.  Type the name & location for your new Sitefinity module and click the OK button

6.  Click the Finish button

What now?

Module creation is a challenging topic right now.  The Products Module, created by the template above, as been around for awhile.  It’s also present in the SDK sample projects:

A lot of documentation, pertaining to this module, can be found ...

Earlier today Telerik released the latest version of the Sitefinity SDK (Software Development Kit).  This tool is designed to help developers create extensions and customizations for Sitefinity.

This blog post contains a real-time record of my exploration of this tool.

Download – It’s big

The SDK has a lot packed into it and weighs in at a hefty 558 MB.

What’s in this thing?

While it’s downloading I quickly scanned Hristo’s blog post.  Here are the highlights from my extremely biased perspective:

• New Samples Browser
  • Lots of new samples
  • Easily reset sample code & database to its original state after I ruin it   ;)
  • Define my own database connection details for samples
• Visual Studio Wizard for creating new Sitefinity Modules

There is other stuff in the SDK (see Hristo’s post), but these are the items I’m primarily interested in.

Download finished – Time to Install

Installation wizard…...

Sitefinity makes it easy for anyone (not simply developers) to create web-based forms using simple drop & drop interfaces:

Watch the video to learn more.

However, Sitefinity does not currently (as of 4.1) notify administrators by email when a user completes the form.  This feature has been requested and is being planned for a future release. 

What Sitefinity Form notification solutions are available today?

Thankfully an industrious Sitefinity community member (George Saadeh) invented a solution and graciously donated it to the Sitefinity marketplace.

Busy web sites are constantly evolving & changing.  Sitefinity helps facilitate this change by providing an easy-to-use web-based interface for managing content.  However, there are many changes that are introduced that extend beyond content.  For example:

• Add new features or custom code
• Upgrading Sitefinity
• Changing the database
• Changes to the web server (IIS)

When these changes are introduced, many of us randomly click into a handful of web pages to ensure everything works.  However, it’s easy to overlook problems using this haphazard technique.  When this happens, we unintentionally introduce issues that create bad customer experiences.

Create automated tests without 1-line of code

I’ve sat through a fair among of unit testing lectures.  I recognize it’s something I should probably be doing…but I’ll probably continue to not do it.  For a product, like Sitefinity, unit testing is essential.  However, for my own web sites (and the handful of customer web sites ...

That’s not a headline I ever expected to write…

The Q1 2011 release all Telerik’s products (including Sitefinity) is rapidly approaching.   There are numerous new features and enhancements planned for all product lines.  To celebrate this major release, Telerik organized a game that enables you to earn discounts on Telerik products. 

The object of the game?  Channel the .NET ninja and hit falling Telerik dollars from the sky.

Click here to play!

The upcoming Sitefinity Q1 2011 Release

As shown on the roadmap, Sitefinity will now align with the wider Telerik release schedule (3 releases a year, Service Packs in between).  However, Sitefinity’s release will follow the other Telerik release by a few weeks.  ** Sitefinity releases are slightly delayed so the latest OpenAccess & RadControl releases can be included.

All Telerik products enjoy a high-level of synergy.  Furthermore, Sitefinity includes many other Telerik products (OpenAccess & RadControls).  All ...

Waiting for the Service Pack, is a time honored tradition in the Microsoft ecosystem.  New issues are always discovered with fresh releases and many customers choose to let the dust settle before getting involved.  If this describes your perspective on Sitefinity 4.0, then the wait is over! 

By contrast, if you’re one of the intrepid explorers who braved a freshly minted release, then you’re going to love this service pack.

Lots of fixes, lots of improvements and a few new features

In the weeks following the release of Sitefinity 4.0, Telerik delivered a steady stream of improvements.  However, many of the improvements were only visible in the weekly developer builds.  These weekly developer builds are available for download, but they aren’t officially supported or recommended.  Consequently, they aren’t useful for real-world project.

Thankfully, all of these improvements (and more!) are found in the Service Pack.  All ...

Sitefinity 4.0 includes a form builder that enables non-technical audiences to easily drag & drop elements to create web forms.  As of this writing, Sitefinity’s form builder primarily addresses basic form scenarios.  Other scenarios can be partially addressed through custom form widgets.

However, one common scenario is input validation:

Going beyond basic validation…

Out-of-the-box Sitefinity 4.0 can validate required fields and number ranges.  However, there are many validation scenarios that do not fit neatly into those 2 narrow cases.   Telerik is aware of these other use cases, but has not yet handled these through the UI.

Thankfully many of these use-cases have been addressed through the API.  Tapping into this backend capability was the subject of a blog post by Gary Campbell at Falafel.

Getting Started

For more information on using these additional form validation techniques, be sure to read Falafel’s blog post.  As Sitefinity evolves, ...