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For a website we are currently working on, we needed a Forum.  The new Forum4Umbraco is still in early development so we turned to Yet Another Forum.  This post describes how to integrate YAF into Umbraco 4 as a User Control.

This means you can create a template in Umbraco, and then insert the following line(s) of code to get an instant forum:

<form runat="server">
    <yaf:Forum runat="server" ID="forum" />
</form>

This was also possible because we do not need to share Membership information between Umbraco and YAF.  It may well be possible to share membership, and it’s something I’d like to look into if I ever get the time!

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This is a post in response to the ongoing discussion about DocType Inheritance in Umbraco.

I am working on a large site with a lot of different doc types. They do all share some common properties - Breadcrumb name, and menu name for example. I also need to add Metadata fields to each of these document types at some point.

Niels is probably correct - “inheritance” would save me half an hour here, half an hour there. But I do still think it would make my life easier and take some of the tedium out of website development!

I have been giving this some thought over the last few days and wondered if some of my thoughts would be of use to anybody.
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I am currently working on a website which has a media gallery in it (functionally similar to JD Smooth Gallery but written in YUI)

Basically I have a gallery of images and some meta data (descriptions, titles) etc defined in the Umbraco Media section.

Document Type

In my Document Type I have a Media Picker which allows you to select the Media. The alias for my field is ‘gallery’.

I have modified XSLTSearch so that it can be configured to treat certain fields as Media and will search the Media section.

XSLTsearch Macro

You will need to add a new field to the XSLTSearch Macro with an alias of “mediaFields” in which a comma separated list of fields containing media can be placed.

Here is a sample macro statement from Umbraco v4:

You will also need to replace the XSLTsearch macro with the one I have modified (based on the latest v2.7 of the macro).  Download the modified XSLTsearch here.

Umbraco GetMedia Bug

Incidentally there appears to be a possible bug/feature in Umbraco if you want to be able to select a Media Folder in the Media Picker.  The Umbraco function “umbraco.library:GetMedia” will not work unless you add an Upload field to the Media “Folder” data type, with an alias of “umbracoFile”.

Having only used Umbraco for a couple of weeks, it was great to have the opportunity to attend the Codegarden event.  This was an opportunity to meet other developers and to learn about Umbraco.

It was also an opportunity to pick up some helpful hints and tips, which I’ve documented in this post.

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http://www.neehouse.com/umbraco_cms/resources/xslt_library_functions.aspx

http://umbraco.org/blog/

http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/2/dec-2-resources-and-where-to-find-help
http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/3/dec-3-umbraco-basics-document-types
http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/6/dec-6-document-types-part-ii
http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/7/dec-7-templates-part-i—the-introduction
http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/12/dec-8-adding-page-information-to-templates
http://umbraco.org/blog/2007/12/13/dec-9-using-master-templates

This post explains a technique for building websites using Struts and Tiles templates, in such a way that AJAX can be integrated into the application. When the user does not support AJAX or JavaScript, the website will still function because it will fall back on the standard HTTP protocols and the standard Struts framework.

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I really really don’t “get” umbraco yet; it just seems so incredibly difficult to use compared to the other CMS’s (Joomla!) I’ve used.

Right now all I want to do is render a Blog Description in a “Home Page” template but I cannot figure out how to do it.  Umbraco uses a lot of XSLT which I am not too hot with - something else I need to address.

The initial learning curve for developing in Umbraco seems to be much steeper than Joomla!

Well, following some of the tutorials on the Umbraco website seems to have helped: the information is there if you need it!

Well I’ve decided to leave Ford to join Connect-Digital, a new media agency.  I already know most of the team as I have worked with them in the past.  I think this is gonna be a lot of fun, but a lot of hard work!

The CMS of choice is Umbraco - a .NET based open source system.  As I am a J2EE developer, I’m going to need to cross-train toot suite!

Well my first solo CMS site has now gone live.  Indego Consulting is based on the Joomla! Content Management System.  Joomla! is a PHP based open source CMS and it is an amazing tool, so easy to learn and use but with a great deal of scope for customisation.

The Indego site has some custom modules written to display RSS feeds from external websites and to highlight latest news information.

Why not check it out?

Well, the Jaguar configurator finally went live - a couple of days ahead of schedule!  Written on a Websphere platform, it uses Struts and lots of css/javascript/ajax effects while trying hard to remain accessible.

It’s based on the same platform as the Ford Configurator, and the soon to be released Land Rover Configurator.  I think the Land Rover site is definitely the best looking…