Under the hood Sitefinity has a very rich API that can be used to interact with CMS resources.  This webinar will demonstrate how to use this API to create, update and retrieve CMS resources.  In addition, we'll explore how to use this API to create advanced features and wield CMS resources in unexpected ways.

The original video can be watched on telerik.tv.

The notes for this webinar can be found here.

This webinar covers the following topics:

• Sitefinity Pages API Overview
• Fetch all pages
• Fetch some page
• Create a new page
• Find a page by name
• Deleting pages
• Create a page - set properties, set templates, set themes and add controls
• Modify a page – alter existing controls, add additional controls
• Rollback to a previous version of the page
• Generic Content API Overview
• Get Generic Content items
• Setting a new Generic Content Provider
• Getting news using the ContentManager
• Getting news ...

How do you side-step the Sitefinity web-based admin and perform CMS tasks programmatically?

Join us for a Webinar on Thursday, August 20th

Under the hood Sitefinity has a very rich API that can be used to interact with CMS resources.  This webinar will demonstrate how to use this API to create, update and retrieve CMS resources.  In addition, we'll explore how to use this API to create advanced features and wield CMS resources in unexpected ways.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/532751329

Here is a tentative outline for this webinar:

• Sitefinity API Overview
• Finding pages
• Creating, Deleting and Modifying pages
• Finding controls & content
• Adding tags & categories to content
• Suggestions?  Post them below.

Earlier this week Sitefinity 3.7 was released.  The primary focus of this release was the inclusion of the latest RadControls for AJAX.  However, hidden in this release were a few nice extras, including a brand new Wiki Module. 

The Wiki Module joins the ranks of other Sitefinity Modules (Blogs, Events, Polls, Forums, etc) and adds a wonderful new feature to Sitefinity.  This is a brand new module and we’re very interested in suggestions and feedback.  Future improvements are already being planned based on early community feedback we’ve received.  Please keep it coming!

Please watch the video below to get a quick look at how to use the new Wiki Module in your own web site.  [Watch the original video at telerik.tv]

Earlier this week Sitefinity 3.7 was released.  The primary focus of this release was the inclusion of the latest RadControls for AJAX.  However, hidden in this release were a few nice extras.  Among these extras were 2 new design template designs.  This brings the total number of Sitefinity templates to 8.

These new templates can be found in the Community or Standard exe version of Sitefinity 3.7.  [screenshots of the new templates]

Using the new Templates

When a new web site is created using the Sitefinity Project Manager, these new templates will be available in the templates list.  Select the desired template and click Create this Project.

Company-Inspiration Template

Community-Summer Template

Earlier today Georgi Chokov announced the release of Sitefinity 3.7 on the official Sitefinity blogs.  The primary focus of this release was the inclusion of the Q2 release of RadControls.  However, after reading the release notes, I was delighted to see how many items the team snuck into this minor release.  Download this release and check out the upgrade notes.

Here are the release notes:

Release Highlights

Wiki module
- Wiki Module for managing Wikis is now part of the Standard and Community versions. You can find its documentation in the User Manual.

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q2 2009 
- The latest RadControls are now shipped with Sitefinity

2 new site templates
- Community Summer and Company Inspiration

Group Operations
- Group Operations for Generic Content based modules (Move/Delete content items)

New Social Bookmark buttons
- Twitter is added to the social toolbar

Domain to ...

Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS can be extended using traditional ASP.NET Custom Controls.  These controls, once compiled, can be distributed and shared between Sitefinity web sites.

Support for templates can be added to Custom Controls by inheriting from the SimpleControl class.  These templates allow the control to be customized on a per web site basis by replacing the default template.

Replacing Control Templates

The original control relies on specific controls found in the template.  If a custom template is used and these controls are missing, the control will crash.  Consequently, it’s useful to have the original template to get information about the template requirements.

Unfortunately, this might be impossible.  The original template will be contained in a DLL file and the source-code unavailable.  Consequently, retrieving the original template becomes difficult.

As of this writing, the only way to retrieve the original template is to ask the programmer for it.  ...

Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS can be extended using traditional ASP.NET Custom Controls.  These controls, once compiled, can be distributed and shared between Sitefinity web sites.

However, when sharing controls between web sites, it often becomes necessary to customize the presentation per web site.  If the control supports templates, it’s possible to customize the control’s presentation template.

There are a variety of ways to to specify a custom template.  This blog post demonstrates how to wrap the original control in an ASP.NET User Control and specify an in-line template.  However, another strategy is to create a mapping between a control and a template.

Tip: For information about adding Template support to Custom Controls, refer to Using Templates with Custom Sitefinity Controls.

Create a Custom User Control to wrap the Original Control

In-line templates can be set using the <LayoutTemplate> section of the custom control.  In the example below, ...

Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS can be extended using traditional ASP.NET Custom Controls.  These controls, once compiled, can be distributed and shared between Sitefinity web sites.

However, when sharing controls between web sites, it often becomes necessary to customize the presentation per web site.  If the control supports templates, it’s possible to customize the control’s presentation template.

There are a variety of ways to to specify a custom template.  This blog post demonstrates how to map a control to a custom external template.  However, another strategy is to wrap the control in an ASP.NET User Control and provide an in-line template.

For information and a video describing how to create a Custom Control that supports Templates, refer to Using Templates with Custom Sitefinity Controls.

Create a Customized External Template

Before a control can be mapped to an external template the customized template must first be created.  In the ...

Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS can be easily extended using traditional ASP.NET Controls.  However, ASP.NET controls come in two flavors: User Controls & Custom Controls.  User Controls are easier to create, but Custom Controls are easier to distribute.

In the case of Custom Controls, the compiled control can be distributed to multiple Sitefinity projects via a single DLL file.  However, a problem arises when Sitefinity web sites need to share controls but also need to customize the control’s design on a per web site basis.  Because all code is embedded in a DLL file it's impossible to make these customizations.

The solution to this problem is templates.  Custom Controls can use embedded templates that can be overridden, if desired, to customize the presentation.  Templates make it possible for the presentation to be modified without needing to alter the core assembly.

This article (and video) examines how templates ...

This webinar examines user management and security in Sitefinity.

Out of the box, Sitefinity empowers you to easily manage CMS users and roles. However, there are alternatives to the default user management provided by Sitefinity. Sitefinity can also integrate with an organization’s Active Directory. In addition, an entirely custom membership provider can be created and applied to Sitefinity. In this webinar, we’ll explore various strategies for managing Sitefinity’s users and roles.

The notes page, referenced by this webinar, can be found here.

I truly appreciate everyone who attended this webinar live.  I apologize for my bad Internet connection that caused the audio and video problems.  The webinar posted above is re-recorded to eliminate some of the Internet problems I encountered on the live version.

This webinar covers the following topics:

• Overview ASP.NET Membership & Role Providers
• Overview of User Management in Sitefinity
• Adding custom fields to Sitefinity’s Membership Provider
• Overview ...