John West Blogs about Sitecore

Sitecore published the Cache Configuration Reference:

“This document describes caching features of the Sitecore Web Content Management System (CMS). Developers and administrators should read this document to optimize caching, which can improve solution performance, reduce server load, and increase system capacity.”

I updated my post that links to the best Sitecore documentation to include a link to this new resource.

Like any Web Content Management System (WCM or CMS), the best way for a developer to evaluate Sitecore is to build a prototype using the product. The best way to learn Sitecore is to attend at least the Sitecore .NET Developer or Sitecore HTML Developer training (the latter focuses on XSL). If you choose HTML training, then you should know HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. If you choose .NET training, then you should also know XML, ASP.NET, C#, and Visual Studio. And it never hurts to know a little about Microsoft SQL Server. But first, schedule a live Web demo of the product with Sitecore.

Do some research before attending training, working with the technology, or involving any information and system architects, users, business analysts, or other parties in the prototyping process. Spend as much time as you can afford reading about Sitecore. Check out the Sitecore Web site and the Sitecore Developer Network (SDN), especially the SDN forums. Manage your profile and sign up for newsletters on the Sitecore Portal. If you are a Sitecore partner, check out the Sitecore Partner Network (SPN).

Before architecting a solution, I think that developers should read through at least these in approximately the following order:

• The Content Reference manual.
• The Data Definition Reference manual.
• The Presentation Component Reference manual.

Further reading before installing Sitecore:

• I wrote another post about installing a local instance of SQL Server, which is the most convenient option.
• The Sitecore Installation guide, including system requirements. I would read a little about the .zip installation to learn more about the system components, which include a file system, an IIS ASP.NET Web site, and supporting relational databases.
• The Release Notes, which address known issues.
• Sitecore requires specific Internet Explorer Configuration.
• If you use Windows XP and have already configured an IIS Web site, then see this page on SDN.

For some reason, organizations often want to start by configuring the production servers. I would first focus on the development environments, then test environments, then production content management, and finally production content delivery.

You can get the latest Sitecore setup executable from this page on the Sitecore Developer Network, and you can get the Starter Kit there as well. If you are a Sitecore partner, you can download the Nicam demo site from the Sitecore Partner Network. Customers can contact Sitecore for access to Nicam. The Starter Kit and Nicam are useful for demonstrations and (to some extent) education, but neither follows best practices, and neither should form any basis for production solutions. If you run into any trouble installing Sitecore, see the Installation Troubleshooting guide, or contact your regional Sitecore office.

Use the cookbooks to implement what you’ve read:

• The Content Author's Cookbook.
• The Data Definition Cookbook.
• The Presentation Component Cookbook (especially the section, “How to Create a Visual Studio Web Application Project”).

If you want to use XSL, see the Presentation Component XSL Reference.

For information about Sitecore Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs), see:

• The Content API Cookbook.
• The Data Definition API Cookbook.
• The Presentation Component API Cookbook.
• The Sitecore 6 API documentation.,

Most Sitecore developers really appreciate NET Reflector from RedGate.

If the above topics don’t cover what you need, check additional resources listed in this post that contains links to the best documentation, common forum topics, and other resources. These should be particularly helpful:

• The Client Configuration Cookbook.
• The guide to Reusing and Sharing Data.
• The Rules Engine Cookbook.

You might want to review various blogs about Sitecore. Lars Fløe Nielsen maintains this list of current blogs relevant to Sitecore.

Partners and customers can access the Sitecore Support Portal at http://support.sitecore.net.

Sitecore recently published a guide to Reusing and Sharing Data.

“Sitecore developers should read this document to determine a strategy for reusing data on multiple pages of a Web site or sharing data to multiple managed Web sites and external applications.”

I updated my post that links to the best Sitecore documentation.

With the release of CMS 6.2 (the release notes describe new features), Sitecore published the WebDAV Configuration Guide.

“This document provides a technical overview and configuration details for the Sitecore Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) implementation.  CMS administrators, architects, and developers should read this document before implementing WebDAV featutres in a Sitecore solution.”

I updated my post that links to the best Sitecore documentation.

Sitecore recently published the Online Marketing Suite Cookbook. I updated my post that links to the best Sitecore documentation.

“The Online Marketing Suite Cookbook contains instructions for marketers and content authors working with Sitecore Analytics. This guide contains step by step instructions on the key tasks involved in setting up and configuring the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite on your Web site. The topics covered include creating profiles, goals, and campaigns, as well as content profiling, multivariate tests, and using the Sitecore reports to analyze your analytics data.”

Update: Shared source project created: http://trac.sitecore.net/ItemNamingRules.

With Sitecore CMS 6.1, you can use the rules engine to control item names. For example, you may want to enforce character limits in the names of items that correspond to URLs. For more information about the rules engine, see the the Rules Engine Cookbook on the Sitecore Developer Network. You may also want to read my previous post about the rules engine and conditional rendering.

Sitecore supports at least five techniques to control item names:

1. You can use use the InvalidItemNameChars, ItemNameValidation, and MaxItemNameLength settings in web.config to control all item names. See the comment above each setting in web.config for further details. The disadvantage of these settings in this context is that they apply to all items, when you might want rules only for the names of certain items. For example, you might want to allow spaces and other special characters in any item that doesn’t correspond to a URL, or have special naming rules for media.
2. You can use events to intercept actions that name items. One advantage of events is that you can trap all types of user actions and API events that rename items with a single handler. One disadvantage of events in this context is that you specify handlers and parameters in web.config rather than through a user interface. Another disadvantage of events in this context is that it can become cumbersome to configure different rules for different branches of items in the content tree.
3. You can use pipelines to intercept user actions that name items. One advantage of pipelines is that you can interact with the user. Some disadvantages of pipelines in this context are that multiple pipelines can rename and item, but only user actions invoke certain pipelines, and you often have to . Some API calls that name items do not invoke any pipeline.
4. You can use validation, and provide different validation actions for each of the types of rules a name could violate (too long, invalid characters, etc.). The problem with validation in this context is that the user has to navigate to the item and take some actions; it might be nice to fully automate the solution.
5. You can use the rules engine to control item names as described in this post. One advantage of the rules engine is a convenient user interface to define parameters, such as the items to which the naming logic applies.

You can continue to use settings, events, pipelines, and validation to control item names. But with 6.1, you can use the rules engine as well.

A rule consists of one or more conditions and one or more actions. When Sitecore evaluates a rule, if the conditions specified in that rule evaluate to true, then Sitecore invokes the actions specified in that rule.

For the condition part of this rule, users might want to apply the rule to one or more specific items, to all items based on a data template, to an item and its descendants, to the descendants of an item, to items matching a query, or to some other collection of items. I assume that the default conditions that ship with the product meet the most common requirements. Two conditions that might be helpful when determining whether or not to rename an item: whether the item has layout details for the default device, and whether the item has layout details for any device:

[See http://trac.sitecore.net/ItemNamingRules for code.]

For instructions to insert the condition definition items under the /Sitecore/System/Settings/Rules/Common/Conditions item using the System/Rules/Condition data template, or for instructions to use either of these conditions in a rule, see the Rules Engine Cookbook. Some strings for cutting and pasting:

Name: When the item has layout details for the default device” using the System/Rules/Condition data template

Text: when the item has layout details for any device

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Conditions.HasLayoutDetailsForDefaultDevice, Assembly

Name: When the item has layout details for any device

Text: when the item has layout details for any device

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Conditions.HasLayoutDetailsForAnyDevice,assembly

Regarding the action part of the rule, there would be numerous parameters to specify for a single action. The solution should not force the user to specify parameters they don’t use. But because actions are not aware of each other, the user might have to specify the same parameters to multiple actions. More importantly, the user has to understand the impact of ordering actions. For example, it doesn’t make sense to ensure a minimum name length before removing invalid characters.

I thought about merging certain actions and hard-coding certain parameters, but I generally like a flexible approach. Then I started prototyping, and realized that the flexible approach was more work for both me and any user. So I merged some of the actions (the strong words indicate parameters):

• Replace characters that do not match the regular expression MatchPattern with ReplaceWith, replace sequences of ReplaceWith with a single instance of ReplaceWith, and remove leading and trailing instances of ReplaceWith.
• Ensure a minimum name length by appending characters from DefaultName.
• Ensure that the name is unique and does not exceed MaxLength characters.
• Lowercase.

It’s honestly a coincidence that this simplification eliminates all of the duplicate parameters that I would otherwise have to pass to additional actions. I also sorted the actions so that the user interface displays them in the order in which the user should add them to the rule.

I started out with a base class for actions that rename items:

[See http://trac.sitecore.net/ItemNamingRules for code.]

Then I created classes for each action:

[See http://trac.sitecore.net/ItemNamingRules for code.]

For instructions to insert the action definition items under the /Sitecore/System/Settings/Rules/Common/actions item using the System/Rules/Action data template, or for instructions to use any of these actions in a rule, see the Rules Engine Cookbook. Some strings for cutting and pasting:

Name: Replace Invalid Characters in Item Name

Text: replace characters in the item name that do not match the regular expression [MatchPattern,Text,,pattern] with [ReplaceWith,Text,,this character sequence]

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Actions.Naming.ReplaceInvalidCharacters, Assembly

Name: Ensure Minimum Length of Item Name

Text: ensure a minimum name length by appending characters from [DefaultName,Text,,index]

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Actions.Naming.EnsureMinimumLength, Assembly

Name: Ensure Item Name is Unique

Text: ensure item name is unique and does not exceed [MaxLength,int,,maximum length] characters

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Actions.Naming.EnsureUnique, Assembly

Name: Lowercase Item Name

Text: lowercase letters

Type: Sitecore.Sharedsource.Rules.Actions.Naming.Lowercase, Assembly

Finally, insert the the rule definition item under the /Sitecore/System/Settings/Rules/Item Saved/Rules item using the System/Rules/Rule data template. For instructions to insert a rule, see the Rules Engine Cookbook.

Before entering any parameters, my rule looks like this:

And after entering parameters:

Now, when I save any item that has layout details for any device, whether I save that item through the UI or through an API call, Sitecore replaces invalid characters with underscores, merges sequences of underscores into a single underscore, trims underscores from the beginning and the end of the item name, appends to the item name to ensure at least seven characters, appends a timestamp to the item name if required to make it unique among its siblings, and ensures that the item name does not exceed 35 characters.

Warning: Like almost any customization, this could have dangerous repercussions, especially if configured incorrectly (for example, by renaming any item in the wrong branch, or in the Core database). Additionally, I didn’t significantly test this before posting, and there are definitely still some issues to think about. For example, you probably don’t want to rename the home item, you don’t want these rules to apply to the __Standard values of data templates (even though they may contain layout details), etc. But enough people ask about this topic that I thought it was time to describe this approach. After some refinement, I will try to make this a shared source project.

With some customization, Sitecore CMS users can embed renderings in the content of Rich Text Editor (RTE) fields. For example, a user editing an RTE field can insert a snippet that represents a video rendering, and use the properties of that rendering to select a video and enter any other parameters much like they could do in the Developer Center. The customization uses ASP.NET APIs to process renderings in RTE fields while rendering pages.

Instead of using this approach, if acceptable to the users, I would add a field to the data template to allow the user to select one or more videos, and configure renderings to always embedding any selected videos in the same places on the page. I realize that this alternative solution does not account for all cases. But the RTE approach never seemed like a good idea to me for at least two reasons:

• While some degree of WYSIWYG editing is critical to any CMS, any such editor violates a core CMS principles by mixing content with presentation. WYSIWYG editors can reduce consistency, which reduces usability, affecting user satisfaction with the site and ultimately return traffic. A WYSIWYG that allows users to insert renderings into WYSIWYG content seems to further violate this principle.
• I know that this is not an issue for simple renderings, I would assume that because the CMS must parse these controls late in the page lifecycle, renderings used in this way would not follow the standard ASP.NET page lifecycle.

In Sitecore 6, the Design Pane of the Page Editor gives non-technical users point-and-click control of where renderings appear on the page. In 6.1, conditional rendering and parameters templates could further reduce the need for the RTE customization in some solutions.

To get an idea of if, how, and why people use this feature, or what alternatives they use to avoid it, I created a poll on the Sitecore Developer Network:

http://sdn.sitecore.net/SDN5/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=20973

Please take the time to make a selection. Your feedback on this issue is important to me.

Thanks & regards,

   -John

After about a week of light use, I find myself relatively happy with Windows 7. Some of the changes are helpful, others have little impact, while few make me less productive. Not much of a post at the moment, but it's only been a week, and I've probably already forgotten the initial annoyances. I will try to update this page to help other developers make the switch.

When installing, I intended to update my post about configuring a Sitecore developer workstation. But the installation was so much like Windows Vista or 2008 that this didn't seem to be necessary.

Probably the most important thing that I noticed is that by default, IIS application pools don't run as NETWORK SERVICE. It appears that Windows creates a transitory user named after the application pool. But these users don't appear in the list of users, apparently making it impossible to apply NTFS permissions for these accounts. I am sure there is a way to set permissions, but I couldn't find it. My workaround is to change the owner of the application pool to NETWORK SERVICE, though I assume this defeats some kind of stability, reliability, or security advantage to the transitory users.

Update: One of my Most Valuable Colleagues did some research on this subject, primarily starting from http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/624/application-pool-identities/. Apparently Windows 2008 Service Pack 2 introduced the “Application Pool Identities” security feature, which uses the “Virtual Accounts” feature to allow you to configure unique application pool owners without actually managing any accounts. These users don’t appear in the UI, so if you want to set permissions for the user, you have to type something like "IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool" into the security dialog, where what appears as the machine/domain doesn’t mean much to me, and what appears as the username is actually the name of the application pool. Update again: one potential advantage of application pool identities: it should be easier to determine the correct w3wp.exe process to attach in the Visual Studio debugger.

I use the QuickLaunch toolbar extensively. This toolbar doesn't appear in Windows 7, so you have to create it yourself. No big deal there, but this toolbar had the handy "Show the Desktop" icon, which minimizes all windows so that you can see the icons on the desktop. It took me a while to find the equivalent feature in Windows 7, but it's really easy - just click the rectangle at the far-right corner of the task bar (or press Windows-D).

Update: It is really surprising how slow and unreliable the “Show Desktop” feature has become in Windows 7. For me, as long as the hard disk is thrashing due to application activity, nothing minimizes. It makes me very nervous when my operating cannot reliably perform such a simple operation. Update again: The Show Desktop feature in Windows 7 is absolutely terrible. You click it, it ignores you, you ALT-TAB to an application, you start typing, and THEN it minimizes that application. And this is not even when the disk is thrashing or the icon is the spinning wheel. I have no explanation, but I really want one from Microsoft.

Update: I just rebooted, and my “QuickLaunch” toolbar disappeared. I was able to get it back somehow, but it had lost my preferences. I am starting to seriously question whether Windows 7 is any more stable than early betas of Vista, or if it’s just a new UI for the broken bits. I click on things and they just don’t respond. I often have to do the same thing several times to actually get that thing done. It’s like the UI is not aware of the mouse clicking as long as the disk is thrashing (this is a brand-new, well-equipped machine). And the cursor is not even the spinning wheel when this occurs. Maybe this is another new security feature – if you can’t use the computer, you can’t compromise its security?

Update: I couldn’t get Microsoft File Transfer manager working on Windows 7. There is probably some browser security setting that would allow it, but no information from Microsoft. Yes, I did try the MSI, and no, it didn’t help. So I’m back in Windows 2008 to download from MSDN. Sigh…

Update: My Windows 7 x64 C:\Windows folder is already over 16GB. That seems ridiculous for a consumer operating system. The same directory on my Vista partition is about 12GB, Windows 2008 is about the same as Windows 7. XP is under 7GB.

Other than the language bar issues described below (which I believe descend from XP), for me, the most annoying thing so far is the changes to VPN. It's as if the entire "Manage Network Connections" area of the Network control panel is simply gone, replaced with a dumbed-down interface that might make some sense to end-users, but provides little value for me. I cannot find a way to add an icon to connect to a VPN to my “QuickLaunch” toolbar (or the Startup folder, as some people do to connect to the VPN automatically when they log in). Instead of clicking twice as I had in the past (the VPN icon on the QuickLaunch toolbar, and then the Connect button), I have to click three times - first the network icon in the notification area, then the VPN entry to show the Connect button, and finally the Connect button. Not a big deal, but I don't understand the reason for this change.

Update: I installed all updates available through Windows Update, and Windows did not prompt me to reboot. But the Shut Down button on the Start menu indicates that I must reboot to install additional updates. This seems like a bug. Update again: I used that button to reboot and there was no indication that Windows actually installed any updates. The button is back to normal now.

I really don't understand the default taskbar. I use a large monitor and I have good eyesight, I use the same applications every day, and I don't have hundreds of icons to differentiate, despite the fact that most softwares try to add useless icons everywhere they can (Adobe Reader? Give me a break, who opens that using an icon? And why does it need a startup program? For their terrible reader malware, Adobe doesn’t get a link from my blog, even though I have to use it because other PDF readers can’t open some files). So I don't need huge icons. Here's my taskbar configuration:

This isn't specific to Windows 7, but Windows 7 maintains many of the annoyances that Microsoft introduced with Windows Vista, such as User Account Control (UAC). For example, I frequently right-click on a file and open it with an application such as Notepad++, only to find that even though I am an administrator who has used Windows since 1995, Microsoft still doesn't trust me not to fat-finger everything all the time. So I can’t save changes to the file (typically hosts), or extract the archive where I want to, etc. So I have to copy whatever's in Notepad++ to the Windows clipboard, close the application, find the icon for that application (on my "QuickLaunch" toolbar), run it as administrator, and paste in the text. I configure certain icons in the QuickLaunch toolbar (Visual Studio, Notepad++, DOS prompt, 7-Zip, etc.) to run as administrator so I don't have to remember to right-click them and run them as administrator. And I have to open Windows explorer and find the hosts file to drag into Notepad++ because for some reason the directory doesn’t appear in the Open File dialog. Maybe I could type in the path, but this is another puzzler that just leaves me scratching my head. In the words of (horeslips)  Nancy Kerrigan, “Why? Why?”

I also disable UAC to the extent possible so I don’t have to tell Microsoft “Yes, I really did press that button” all the time. I have been sure the last several thousand times that I clicked that icon. Maybe this is dangerous, but I've been using computers for a very long time and have never experienced any malware. UAC couldn't prevent social engineering tactics anyway, and I think we can all agree that those are the primary attack vectors.

Some other annoyances seem to go further back. For example, Windows 7 sometimes adds “ – Shortcut” to the name of shortcuts. How does this help anyone, and why isn’t the icon overlay enough? It just looks dirty.

Update: I am in Denmark this week, using a Danish keyboard. Microsoft still hasn’t fixed any of the issues with the language bar. It’s as if they expect that there are two keyboards connected to the machine, and it keeps switching randomly between their layouts. It is incredibly frustrating to not be able to type on a computer without several mouse clicks to reset the keyboard layout. Microsoft, you need to accommodate the fact that I use different keyboards at *different* times, but I only use *one keyboard at a time*, regardless of the number of open applications. I would assume that is the most common use case. So when I get to the office I have to log in (not sure which keyboard layout to use when entering special characters in my password), reset the default keyboard, log out, and log back in. And do the same when I go home at night, to use the laptop keyboard. And the same the next morning…

Update: I think we may need two versions of Windows, one for people who know how to use computers, and one for people that are learning how to use computers. Microsoft seems to be targeting the learners with Windows 7, where most of their customers are in the other group. I think this is the wrong direction, and I am concerned that the next server version of Windows will have to follow Windows 7.

Well, feel free to comment about where I'm wrong, post suggestions to address my annoyances, or add your own suggestions for Sitecore developers transitioning to Windows 7.

Sitecore today published the Security Hardening Cookbook for the Sitecore Web Content Management System. I updated my post that links to the best Sitecore documentation.

With Sitecore CMS, you’ve always been able to pass a data source item and any number of additional parameters to control how each sublayout and rendering functions. Prior to version 6.1, you could enter parameters in the control properties dialog as key=value pairs. Sitecore parses XSL code and uses reflection to determine the parameters available for XSL and .NET presentation components. For example, if you add the IncludeDetails parameter to the default sample XSL rendering:

<xsl:param name="IncludeDetails" />

Then you will see this parameter in the control properties dialog, along with the default parameters:

Sitecore 6.1 introduces parameters templates to let you define specific user interfaces to enter parameters for each rendering and sublayout. The Presentation Components Reference manual describes parameter templates in detail, but here’s my quick summary of how to implement a parameters template:

• Create a parameters template data template that inherits from the System/Layout/Rendering Parameters/Standard Rendering Parameters data template.
• Add fields to the parameters template data template (for this example, a checkbox field named IncludeDetails).
• In the rendering or sublayout definition item, in the Editor Options section, in the Parameters Template field, select the parameters template created previously.

The fields you defined in the parameters template now appear in the new control properties dialog: