Blog posts by Manoj Kumar

Similarity between EPiServer CMS and WSS - II

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:36:44 GMT

I am starting from where I left in my previous blog (http://world.episerver.com/Blogs/Manoj-Kumar/Dates/2012/4/Similarity-between-EPiServer-CMS-and-WSS/).

I have created application in WSS like Training Management(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649870.aspx). The question was, Can I create an application like that in EPi Server CMS? Well at first look it is no. WSS is made to support many types of content where as EPi Server cms is made for supporting only web content.

But before giving up I thought to give it a try. So to start on I took the basic component used by WSS to create these application and compare it with similar features present in EPi Server CMS.

Features used in wss are - Workflow, Web parts, List, Document library, Task list, Content type, users/roles and Event Receivers.

First WSS has its own workflow architecture so does EPi Server.

WSS has web parts EPi Server can implement web parts.

Content type and list are the core of wss applications. document library is a special kind of list that deals with documents. task list is also inherit features from normal list. So the main component are content type and list of WSS. In simplest form if we define the WSS list it is a mini table and in EPi Server the closest thing that we can use like that is a page tree. it’s very normal to use epi server pages as mini table in many EPi Server sites.

The equivalent of content type will be page types( or page type builder which bring features like strong property types, inheritance of page types etc..) that are used to build the above mentioned page trees.

Finally the event receivers the closest thing that I was able to find for event receivers is EPi Server workflow activates.

Next thing is the UI of WSS and how to make EPI server UI support list/document UI(edit form, view form etc.) This UI of wss act as a base of application like Training Management.

lets look at wss menu to view the different kind of list and document library. On click of these menu items the list and document library data is shown which you can view, add, edit and delete.

Figure 1

The only equivalent of above wss UI is the edit mode of EPi Server. Similar to the above menu(Figure 1) is the page tree structure of EPi Server. for add edit and delete operation we can use normal page property operations in edit mode. Now the view part has to be done especially in EPi server page made from scratch(Figure 2). We know that in WSS there are many views available beside the tabular view. For example the document library have an explorer view.

Figure 2

This gives me a framework that can act as base to create application like wss -Training Management.

Similarity between EPiServer CMS and WSS

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:57:34 GMT

Having worked on EPiServer CMS and WSS I tend to compare both the technology. Both the CMS are made on .net so it is natural that they share similar feature. One of them is a VPP.

.Net framework 2.0 introduced a class called Virtual Path provider.

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.hosting.virtualpathprovider(v=vs.80).aspx)

In EPiServer CMS it is used to hold the static files. The files are saved within the system folder and a virtual file system is created using VPP class. It acts as an interface between base file system and the CMS users.

In WSS VPP class is used for URL rewriting. WSS has its own version http application/http modules where it uses the VPP class.

Similarly there are many more features shared between EPi Server and WSS.

Inline or Code Behind - EPI Server Property

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:30:26 GMT

I have a requirement where a product price is selected based of discount flag setting done by web admin in edit mode. I have three property's “Normal Price”, “Promotional Price” and a flag “For sale”. if “for sale” is on then the promotional price should be shown other wise normal price should be shown. I found two ways to work on this issue inline or code behind.

Code Behind :-

For code behind I created a property and made a check in get assessor of the property -

 public int Price
        {
            get
            {
                PropertyData property = CurrentPage.Property["StockStatus"];

                if (property.ToString().ToLower() == "forsale")
                {
                    PropertyData property22 = CurrentPage.Property["PromotionalPrice"];
                    if (property22 != null && !property22.IsNull)
                    {
                        _price = Convert.ToInt32(property22.ToString());
                    }
                }
                else

                {
                    PropertyData property22 = CurrentPage.Property["ProductPrice"];
                    if (property22 != null && !property22.IsNull)
                    {
                        _price = Convert.ToInt32(property22.ToString());
                    }
                }

                return _price;
            }

        }

Only html at UI is-

<% = Price %>

Inline Code:-

Below is the straight forward inline code -

<% if (CurrentPage.Property["StockStatus"].ToString().ToLower() == "forsale")
   { %>
       <%=  CurrentPage.Property["PromotionalPrice"].ToString() %>
<% }
   else
   { %>
         <%= CurrentPage.Property["ProductPrice"].ToString() %>
<% } %>

EPIServer XForm Data Retrieving

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 07:06:37 GMT

XForms contains logic to store and present forms and data posted from forms. Together with the forms editor in EPiServer CMS 6 Edit mode, it enables editors to create and modify forms and to view form data. The XForms architecture enables customization, allowing developers to adapt the XForms functionality. You can get more info on the following link EPI Server Tech Note.

XForms uses the Dynamic data store to save the form data. Retrieving of data can be done using the XFormData class. Below setup() function is called on initialization of form.

Retrieving data -

private void SetupForm() 
{
FormControl.FormDefinition = Form;
FormControl.AfterSubmitPostedData += 
new SaveFormDataEventHandler(FormControl_AfterSubmitPostedData); 
List<string> lstxd = new List<string>(); 
foreach(XFormData xd in Form.GetPostedData()) 
{
lstxd.Add(xd.Data.InnerXml);
}
this.GridView1.DataSource = lstxd; 
this.GridView1.DataBind(); 
}

The highlighted code is added by me to retrieval the data in xml format.

Below is data grid showing the output of data entered in the form.

What happens when I edit the form in edit mode -

(I) Adding a new field and then retrieving the data-

Adding new field column and then inserting a record results in new empty field node added to xml for old data and new data node will contain the value.

(II) Removing the field and then retrieving the data -

Removing the field column from xForm and then retrieving the data results in removal of the field specific node from xml. But the data previously posted is still available in the store you can retrieve it. I retrieved it again adding the same field column in the form. You can also retrieve it programmatically using XFormData class.

like retrieving and inserting we can do the other CRUD operation using XFormData class.

Other feature -

personalization can be used with xForm:-

Integration of xForm with other EPI Server feature -

You can use xForm as dynamic content. Mixing XForm, Dynamic data content and visitor group features you can created powerful forms.

The other thing I wanted to do is integrate xForm and globalization feature. I wanted a regional page having xForm with field called “country” that has a default value like “UK” in case of “en-gb” page. Unfortunately I was not able to set the default values to text field in xForm in edit mode.