Our organization is going to replace the installer technology from WISE to WIX.
I am able to create the WIX Source files using the decompiler(dark.exe).Able to make the installer working by doing a lot of trial and error.But still there are a lot of custom actions in Wise that should be considered while moving to WIX. Is there any easy way to find out the equalent WIX custom actions.
Related
I am trying to complete Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment automation for a web application project. I have been helped by a series of SO posts link1, link2, link3 and things are now running, except the upload to the hosting server is longer than it needs to be; I currently upload all files instead of just the ones that changed.
When creating the TFS2017 Build (or Release) there are many Task options, including some from the marketplace. I'm referring to, in this case, the dialogue for a Build as shown below:
I'm currently using a PowerShell script which seems a little archaic and inefficient as noted above. Do any of the tasks available to us mimic the Visual Studio 2017 Web Deploy Publish Method which runs quite nicely and quickly? If not, what can I use for an 'intelligent' upload process that checks whether or not a file must be uploaded?
Unfortunately, there is no this kind of build task could mimic the Visual Studio 2017 Web Deploy Publish Method for now.
The method trough VS IDE will dynamically check if some files need to be uploaded or not.
However through TFS build task or powershell script will not do this, just simply copy all files you assigned. Afraid there is no workaround for an 'intelligent' upload process that checks whether or not a file must be uploaded. Since we don't how VS IDE did this.
The general guidance appears to be to install Sitecore into one folder, e.g. D:\Websites\MyWebSite and then create your Visual Studio project in a separate folder, e.g. C:\Projects\MyWebProject. You would then publish your custom code into the Sitecore folder from Visual Studio (This video explains what I’m describing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Mwcphtz4w around 13 mins in).
I have the following questions:-
Do people only store their Visual Studio project in source countrol and not the Sitecore code?
The publish option from VS into the Sitecore folder only has options for adding files or deleting anything not in the VS project. How would files removed from the VS project ever get deleted without doing it manually?
We use web-deploy to publish sites to staging and live environments. In this scenario would you publish from your VS project or would you set up a way to publish the Sitecore folder (if so how)?
Is this actually a good set up to have or do you do something different?
I did a lot of research on this when we started Sitecore development a couple of years ago. I remember reading a post from Sean Kearney that made a lot of sense to me: http://seankearney.com/post/Visual-Studio-Projects-and-Sitecore
We ended up using this approach for both large and small scale projects and it has been great. You will also want to look at a couple of other tools:
Team Development for Sitecore (TDS) from Hedgehog Development (http://www.hhogdev.com/products/team-development-for-sitecore/overview.aspx)
CopySauce from Igloo (http://www.igloo.com.au/blog/copysauce-igloos-sitecore-development-utility/)
SitecoreRocks for Visual Studio
So to answer your questions:
All of your code and some of the Sitecore items are stored in source control. The approach you want to take is to only store new Sitecore items (layouts, sublayouts, templates, etc) that you create along with any items you may need to customize. You do not need to store all of the sitecore source, content or modules...just what you would need to reapply to get a fresh environment up-to-date. You can manage this manually but a tool like TDS makes this MUCH easier.
We use TDS to manage the publish/deploy to each of our environments. TDS has configurable settings for handling items that have been deleted, including the ability to move it to the Sitecore recycle bin or simply remove it. You have to be careful with this but it does work.
We use a separate build environment to assemble and run deployments using TDS and Jenkins. Basically, all of the code is retrieved from the source control system to the Sitecore server and built using MSBuild and TDS. In most cases we use a webdeploy directly to the Sitecore webroot, but for production we build TDS packages and then run them on each Content Delivery Server
We have used this setup for 7 sitecore projects so far and I am very happy with how it has worked out. We have questioned whether TDS is worth the license fee but the answer always comes back as a yes. The alternative is not very appealing for our development staff and time savings far out-weigh the costs.
Everything is stored in Source Control!... just not always in the same area as they reside on the web server. Storing the Sitecore folder in source control is a good idea as there are changes that you will have as you install modules, but you do NOT add the Sitecore folder as part of your solution/project and should really be there to pull from if need be and not something that is even tracked/monitored.
Once Sitecore is installed, create a new project that resides in the website folder and only add things like the properties folder, layouts, xml and other folders that you want. I don't even include the app_config in my project. Oh and to be clear, it's probably best to just keep the Sitecore folder as a sort of reference folder in your source control but not as part of your website trunk. We have it on the ignore list for website folder in source control. However, that being said, keep in mind that you will NEED to have it in your website folder.
Technically speaking, the recommended approach is to install Sitecore on to the server itself as a stand alone empty instance.. like using the installer with the client mode (not full) so that you get the framework for an empty site in place. Then you can create the deployment package/packages/whatever and it will all be your own code. You should really never have to mess with changing/removing the base Sitecore file system manually.
See above. Generally speaking, unless you have a reason to do so: install Sitecore as an empty instance... then manage your code/files via deployment and just leave the Sitecore folder files alone. You will have very little reason to ever touch them or the Sitecore folder itself outside of an upgrade.
Adding Sitecore itself to source control should be avoided, since you won't be deploying Sitecore as part of your implementation. For modifications to Sitecore itself, you would need a way of handling those inside your implementation, but the config patch system and other mechanisms provide the means for this.
Redundant files in the web site folder will only be a real problem in your development environment. When publishing to a demo environment or to a live environment, you will only publish the material that you actually want. And the deployment-based setup opens up the possibility of always starting from a clean Sitecore installation - as long as you include your Sitecore modifications as part of your implementation (which is not covered in the video). So there is little risk of this being a problem in real life, and the development method in the video makes eliminating this risk entirely possible.
The Sitecore installation should be handled outside of the deployment of your implementation.
It's a good setup, because the method in the video is the method Sitecore recommends for development, and it is also the method Sitecore teaches to developers in development courses. The most obvious advantages of this method are
Clean separation between your web site implementation and the Sitecore installation. There is no risk of accidentally mangling the Sitecore installation, and there is no risk of forgetting unmanaged manual modifications to Sitecore that are needed to run your site. This separation is hard to accomplish if you're not using the method in the video.
By using publishing to deploy your implementation, you know that your implementation is deployable on top of a clean Sitecore installation - and works. This means when deploying to a production or demo server in the future, things will work the same and there will be no surprises. This is very hard to be confident about if you're not using the method in the video.
To test your implementation on a different version of Sitecore, you can just deploy to a clean installation of a different version. This is very hard to test if you're not using the method in the video.
There is sample source code for the video on GitHub, along with instructions on how to set up the development environment, including the publishing parts. This sample source directly and indirectly answers some of your questions.
I am trying to backup a whole Sitecore website.
I know that the package designer can do part of the job, but not entirely.
Having a backup is always a good way when the site is broken accidently.
Is there a way or a tool to backup the whole Sitecore website?
I am new to the Sitecore, so any advise is welcome.
Thank you!
We've got a SQL job running to back-up the databases nightly.
Apart from that, when I deploy code and it's a small bit I usually end up backing up only the parts I'm going to replace. If it's a big code deploy I just back up the whole website (code-wise anyway) before deploying the code package.
Apart from that we also run scheduled backups of the code (although I don't know the intervals), and of course we've got source control if everything else fails.
If you've got an automated deployment tool you could also automate the above of course.
Before a major deploy of content or code, I typically backup the master database and zip everything in the website directory minus the App_Data and temp directories. That way if the deploy goes wrong, I can restore the code and database fairly quickly and be back to the previous state.
I have no knowledge of a tool that can do this for you, but there are a few ways you can handle this in an easy way:
1) you can create a database backup of the master database, but this only contains content and no files like media files that are saved on disk or your complete and build solution. It is always a good idea to schedule your database backup every night and save the backups for at least a week or more.
2) When you use the package designer, you can create dynamic pacakges that can contain all your content, media files and solution files on disk. This is an easy way to deploy the site onto a new Sitecore installation all at once, but it requires a manual backup every time.
3) Another way you can use is to serialize your entire content-tree to an xml-format on disk from the Developer tab. Once serialized, you can revert them back into the content tree.
I'd suggest thinking of this in two parts, the first part is backing up the application which is a simple as making sure your application is in some SCM system.
For that you can use Team Development for Sitecore. One of it's features allows you to connect a Visual Studio project to your Sitecore instance.
You can select Sitecore items that you want to be stored in your solution and it will serialize them and place them into your solution.
You can then check them into your SCM system and sleep easier.
The thing to note is deciding which item to place in source control, generally you can think of Sitecore items has developer owned and Content Editor owned. The items you will place in your solution are the items that are developer owned; templates, sublayouts, layouts, and content items that you need for the site to function are good examples.
This way if something goes bad a base restoration is quick and easy.
The second part is the backup of the content in Sitecore that has been added since your deployment. For that like Trayek said above use a SQL job to do the back-ups at whatever interval your are comfortable with.
If you're bored I have a post on using TDS (Team Development for Sitecore) you can check out at Working with Sitecore, Part Nine: TDS
Expanding bit more on what Trayek said, my suggestion would be to have a Continuous Integration (CI) and have automated deploy using Team City.
A good answer is also given here on Stack Overflow.
Basically in your case Teamcity would automatically
1. take back up of the current website (i.e. code) and deploy the new code on top of it.
2. Scripts can also be written to take a differential backup of the SQL databases, if need be.
Hope this helps.
Take a look at Sitecore Instance Manager module. Works really well for packaging entire Sitecore instance.
I am working on a copy of a SharePoint 2007 site for a client.
I would like to be able to automate as much of the update process as I can with minimal disruption to the client's system when the updates are ready for production.
To that effect, I was wondering if anyone knows how to automate creating a SharePoint workflow (created using SPD 2007) in another SharePoint server/site.
Perhaps I haven't searched enough yet, but I have not discovered if there is a way to do this with web services, which I believe would be my preference.
I do not believe I have the ability to use STSadm on this, as the hosting for the SharePoint site is separate.
I think I can export the workflows in a personal web package and I'll admit, I haven't experimented with this yet on workflows, but my current experience with other exports, such as lists, is that guids seem to get messed up between sites. Even if this is not an issue, I'm not sure if there is a way of automating the import process (without STSadm).
I'm hoping not to have to work through a long list of manual procedures (that could accidentally get missed) when implementing these changes on the target production site.
My preference is to be able to create some sort of update batch or application that will make the changes quickly and that I can test before implementing on the production system.
This entails quite a few things, but for now, I'd like to focus on getting workflows into the target system.
Any suggestions on where to get started would be welcome.
SharePoint Designer workflows are not portable between sites. (Reference) 1
For your situation, I would recommend taking the Visual Studio workflow route. Take a look at this tutorial: How to Create Custom SharePoint Workflows in Visual Studio 2008. The key for you is how you will associate it to lists.
The other option is to create a custom Workflow Activity (2007 has less options that 2010). You will still have to create the workflow using SharePoint Designer and add your custom activity to it in each site.
1. Yes, there is the "hack way" of trying to do it by copying the XML and changing the GUIDs... but it is error prone and difficult.
SharePoint 2010 gives more flexibility for workflows and thus the first #Kit Menke statement isn't true for readers using SP2010 (i see that this is tagged as sharepoint2007, but i'm making it clear for readers using SP2010)
However, if you publish a workflow template to a SharePoint site
collection, you can download that template as a WSP file and then
deploy it to other site collections.
Read more about Workflow deployment process (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
I have created a windows service which checks for the status of the printer.
The user can download this service from a website. I need to query for the status of printers used by this user. So when the user clicks on the download button I want to store the user information in a file which my service can use. The service will use this information to fetch the printers from the database. I want to include this file in my installer. So I have to create the installer at runtime(i.e. when the user click the download button on my website).
How can I create the installer for the win service dynamically using C#?
NOTE: my win service is written in C++. I know about WIX.
quite a few years ago, when I did some work with InstallShield, it was possible to specify in the installer project which file(s) you don't want to be compressed and packed into the .cab files (or whatever they are called nowadays) when generating the installation package. Such a file would be left as-is and separate in the package, and you could later replace it with another file with the same name (I think I actually did something of the sort). So you can have a dummy file when building the install package, and then replace it on the fly with the right one.
I am not familiar with modern tools, but am quite sure this functionality is preserved as it is quite useful.
In WiX you can create custom actions which are arbitrary code you write (You provide the .dll which can be built using C++). In the custom action you can generate your user/location customization file.