I'm trying to understand the best approach to create article items in my sitecore 7.2 project.
Basically I'm considering 2 options:
1 - Create an article as a page;
2 - Create an article as a Site Data Item.
1 - Create article pages under a given page (i.e. My Articles). This way each article would have a specific URL out of the box, easier to understand in Content Authors' point of view;
2 - Have a specific folder (i.e. Article Folder) under Site Data. This way we don't need to have a page for each article - I was thinking to have a single Article page that would render the article fields. However this would require more work in terms of URLs, navigation, etc.
Is there any other ideas? Am I missing something? I was also having a look at Buckets...
Thank you
I'm going to disagree with Marek and recommend you opt for option 2.
Storing your articles in folder under a Data node allows those items to be datasourced. This is the principle Sitecore was built on. You can then surface those articles in a number of interesting ways via Widgets such as Promo Panels, prompting the user to click through to read about the article without duplicating its data and requiring Content Editors to manage data multiple times.
It even supports multiple sites, so the Articles can be used in other sites you may add to your Sitecore instance in the future.
As you state it will require extra work in terms of Urls and Navigation but it can be achieved via Sitecore's Wild Card Item and you an even use a great open sourced Module from Sitecore's Marketplace to complete 90% of the work for you. See links below for more information.
You can still implement Marek's point of applying Presentation Details once on the Standard Values of the Wild Cart Item you create. If you are using Sitecore 7 and above you can store all your articles in a Bucket so if you have lots of articles they are stored and searchable in a meaningful way.
http://www.sitecore.net/learn/blogs/technical-blogs/getting-to-know-sitecore/posts/2011/09/wildcards-and-data-driven-urls.aspx
https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/Wildcard_module.aspx
In a standard one instance setup the easiest implementation is to create articles as pages.
In Sitecore you want to limit the items in a folder to 100 or less which is best practice to keep the content editors experience optimal.
This then leads you needing a folder structure and a couple options:
Manually maintain a folder structure for your articles. For example articles/year/month/day. This gives your editors the most control over the folder structure and allow them to navigate the articles in a more traditional way via a visible folder structure.
Use a bucket which automatically generates the folder structure and hides this complexity from the content editor. This takes the manual folder creation and maintenance away from the content editor and are automatically generated based on the configuration you set out for your bucket. The folders wont be visible to the content editor so they will be forced to search in the bucket for any articles rather then navigate the folders.
Use the shared source News mover module (https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/News_mover.aspx). This takes a different approach to the above. It works via a traditional folder structure however it generates folders and moves the item on save based on the date field in the article. So the news mover handles the generation of folders however you will still need to check your not exceeding 100 items per folder again for performance when opening folders with large amounts of items.
With all solutions you must still consider the URLs for your articles as they will include the folder structure by default. This is not always acceptable. I prefer to remove the folder structure from the URL. For this you need to create a custom linkProvider and a custom HttpRequestProcessor. Firstly the linkprovider allows you to ensure the new URL is always created and displayed in your site as you want. Next the HttpRequestProcessor ensures that when navigating to the shortened URL Sitecore recognises it as a valid URL and presents the correct page.
By excluding the folder structure from the URL it also adds the additional benefit that the URL is not dependent on the structure. This means editors can change that folder structure and not need to create redirect items to ensure SEO rankings or users bookmarks are not lost.
The cleaner data model is to use the wildcard approach for the URLs and centralize the storage of articles data in a bucket of datasources. This will give you optimum performance and reuse of the data.
However, this isn't how an author thinks about their website. When they use the system, they tend to navigate to the area where they would view articles and try to create a new one there. Authors tend to think in 'pages', so try to hide whatever data model you are using from them and give them the ability to edit the page with Experience Editor.
Some developers try to optimize too far and forget that the authoring experience is likely the most important piece of the delivered solution. The author doesn't care how efficiently you stored the data, only that they can edit it easily and publish efficiently. Whatever model supports that for your author base is how you should implement it.
My recommendation is a page-based approach where the author creates the URL structure with folders and items, something they understand. Then, if you really need to, you can have the primary article data be a datasource-driven component on the page. The user gets to use all the tools they are familiar with (Experience Editor,preview navigation) but you can still store the raw data in a centralized folder. You could then theoretically swap out the article data using DMS rules, or hide information based on authentication or membership status.
Go with approach 1: article is a page.
Define all your presentation details on Article Page template __Standard Values. All new articles will get them. And you can change some of the presentation details for your chosen articles if you want.
If you know that you'll have lot of articles, think about year/month/day folder structure, e.g. articles/2015/06/12.
Approach 2 doesn't give you anything - you still need to have an item for every article. And as you wrote, it would require additional coding which is not required.
Related
I'm new to Sitecore XP 8.2 and try to study by articles and youtube.
However, I can't figure out why we should use datasource, instead of having multiple items in the content tree? How can I enable Global on the content tree?
If you by 'datasource' means 'Rendering Datasource Location' heres a real life example, where using datasource is helpfull, instead of having data items underneath each page item.
Lets say, you have a Footer module, which you would like to include on all content pages in your website. And the Editors should be able to change the content of the footer module on all pages, but the effect should be global.
In this case, could a solution be, to make a folder at the top of your tree structure called 'Shared Modules', and point the 'Footer Rendering Datasource Location' at this folder.
In case an editor changes the footer text on the main page or a subpage, the effect will allways be saved in the same location.
unlike, a 'Texbox module' which you would like to have multiple of on multiple pages. these would you like to have placed underneath each of your content pages in a folder e.g 'Page Modules'.
You can use Sitecore Datasource for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is to use this instead of context item so that you can refer to another item in Sitecore content tree. Another good reason is to personalize your content or run the A/B testing, content testing. Using Sitecore datasource, make different parts of page componentize and all this helps content editor to improve experience in content editor.
For some good information on using Sitecore datasource, you can look at
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-improve-experience-editor-sitecore-number-ways-rohit-chopra
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sitecore-personalize-content-conditional-renderings-sub-rohit-chopra
In short, with datasources you can re-use your items, makes your life much easier if you want to go with personalization and its easier to manage in terms of security/workflows.
A datasource is a pointer from your presentation to a content item. This item can easily be picked from a global or local placement in the content tree. You can still navigate from the datasource to other items (like subitems) if you want a more complex structure for your content.
The advantages of using datasources, is that Sitecores presentation engine, Experience Editor and marketing/personalization is based on the usage of datasources. Further you cater for reuse of content, as multiple presentations can point to the same datasource item.
By using datasources you decouple the content from the structure of your content tree and hierarchy.
I used to implement listing/detail scenarios using wildcard items, meaning that, for the sake of URL, I create a regular item to display the list and then under that node, I create a wildcard item to represent all possible detail pages, like:
/news/*
(i generate a friendly name by code to replace wildcard and produce the full URL such as: mywebsite.com/news/the-meeting-press-release)
Then I create a folder or a bucket of content items somewhere else as my repository. Then I assign same datasource to listing node and wildcard node to give them same repository of content items.
Main reason I want to do this is to use datasources and make navigational nodes (which generate actual pages and URLs) to be separate from Content folder structure. In other words, separation of concerns: navigational items as presentation nodes and content items as my data repository.
This is an easy way to work around master/detail requirements but I always feel guilty about this, it feels like this technique breaks integrity (sitecore links table on database) and design pattern in Sitecore back-end.
For example when I look at Analytics, I get * as name of items, clearly the it feels like aliens to back-end system.
I know this is not a new topic. I have seen threads like this or ideas like Sitecore Pipeline Processor for Virtual Items to implement such requirements.
Is there any best practice about this? Have anyone good example of what is most sitecore-friendly way to implement such pipeline processor? How do you address this issue with wildcards on Analytics?
I'm going to go a different way to Martin here. I have successfully used Wildcards many times for the exact purpose you are suggesting (For an example have a look at http://www.atpworldtour.com/news - all news articles are items in a bucket with a wildcard to resolve the url).
There are 2 options to enabling the page editor.
The news article item becomes the page. In this way, you need a new processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline that resolves the url to the item and then sets Sitecore.Context.Item to the current item. IIRC you do this by setting one of the pipeline argument properties. This will work fine in the page editor as the context item - the one being edited - is the news article. And then other renderings on the page can just use data sources as needed.
The news article resolves to a Datasource. I have also tried this method. To do this, you need a custom Datasource resolver. I sill used a processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline so that I didn't have to resolve the Url multiple times for each rendering that needed the datasource. But then in the RenderRendering pipeline I had a processor that detected if I wanted a wildcard Datasource and used the item that had been resolved in the httpRequestBegin processor.
There are pros & cons for each method.
Option 1 is nice and simple. It means that you could use a single wildcard to resolve different "types" of page item as the presentation is on the page item and not the wildcard item, also each item can have its own custom presentation, so Datasources set in the page editor would be unique to an article. That is also a disadvantage in someways. A/B testing becomes more difficult with main article text etc... You are limited to testing article versions.
Option 2 is more flexible in the testing area - you can easily test/personalize parts of the article by changing the Datasource. But you are more limited as the presentation must be set on the wildcard. So renderings that are not part of the main article will have the same content/settings across all news articles.
I was previously in the same boat as you are. The are few issues with wildcard items, like resolving datasources or disability to run a page in Page(Experience) Editor or nested wildcards. Regardless of that, I have used wildcard few times and they do their job.
I've managed to resolve datasources properly, based on URL (see blog post: Automatically resolving correct Datasources for wildcard items based on URL), still did not sort the rest others.
Update: Richard suggests the way of implementing Page Editor below, you may find this helpful
Thus, my answer would be:
I would recommend you to keep classical approach of having a page item for each news item, rather than using wildcards. Content authors would use habitual approach (and page editor) rather that editing datasources somewhere on the content tree in Content Editor. If you configure that properly with templates and standard values - there would minimal hassle to create new news article.
In case if you worry about potential raise of number of news articles - use Buckets along with it (or suggest manual strategy to group them into folders).
For a website we're working on, we had a pretty complex design to support. So, we chose the strategy where all content on each page is made up of components. Authors can insert various components such as a heading, rich text block, images, etc, allowing them flexibility in laying out pages. This was the only away we could support the complex design that was created.
This set up is working well except when it comes to versioning and search. When pages are versioned, the components on the page are not. When items are indexed for search, the components on the pages are not being indexed as part of the page. We think we may be able to solve the search issue with a custom search index, but the versioning issue seems much more complex.
Has anyone else faced these issues or have thoughts on solutions? We're on Sitecore 7.5.
A simple answer would be to upgrade to version 8 as soon as its released as version 8 will add versioning to the renderings field.
My Guess is that you are setting the content of the fields on the rendering parameters of each item? If that is the case I would suggest taking a slightly different approach. Use DataSources. You could have a few templates that hold the data, e.g. RichTextTemplate, SingleLineTextTemplate, ImageTemplate - all with a single field in, then when you add a heading or rich text block to the page, setup the rendering to all the editor to create the data source.
This way all the content can be versioned properly and you are still separating your content and presentation.
To keep the tree un-cluttered, we use an "Assets" folder under the item for all content:
Example Tree:
Sitecore
Content
Home
Assets
Page 1
Assets
Heading
Rich Text Block
Page 2
Assets
Heading
Rich Text Block
Image Block
etc...
The search problem sounds similar to this post: How to index sub-content in Sitecore with Lucene?
That suggests a computed field. In your computed field, check that your template is a page and then get all the renderings for that page. Once you have those, get the renderings DataSource items and you can build a big search field using the content from the DataSource item's fields.
This would save having an extra index with a custom access layer. It all stays within the Sitecore API.
I am building a brand new website in Sitecore and I am looking for advice on the following scenario:
My site has 2 version of its homepage. Both are quite different. The layout is the same, but most of the components and sublayouts on it will change depending on whether the user is logged in or not.
Does anybody has a suggestion of a good practice, or way to do that in Sitecore? My basic requirements are, have a single URL for both (the website root, it is a homepage) and do not harm the content author experience.
My thought so far was:
Use of personalization to control the components to be displayed (Concerns: performance and the content author experience he woudnt have to change component by component to see both versions)
Use of two item in the tree and intercept a pipeline to resolve the right item at the right time (Concerns: the content author would have two home items to maintain *not actually a big problem)
Does anybody has any other approach or considerations on those I listed?
Thanks
An alternative solution would be to make use of devices, and use a pipeline to switch devices if the user is logged in.
Set up your Device in Sitecore to use the default layout as a fallback so it does not affect other pages in your site (and they continue to work as expected). You are then able to set different sublayouts and components for that Item (directly or in Standard Values for the template) for each device. You can make use the VaryByDevice caching option to make better use of the Cache.
Your content editors can also switch between the devices easily in the Page Editor from the ribbon. Any further customization you need in other areas of the site, such has switching out a single component, can be run using a Personlization Rule taking advantage of "where the current device compares to value".
It does sound like you have the need for personalization based on authenticated status, so I would recommend staying with the built-in personalization interface to avoid confusion. Authors will have been trained during Sitecore training on how to use personalization, and introducing an alternative method for accomplishing the same thing could lead to a less-than-optimal experience for the author.
To address your concern of the author needing to view components by toggling each one, I would recommend installing the Experience Explorer module. You can create presets that meet your rules on your presentation and then the author can preview the site for different 'experiences'.
If you have a single URL for the home page, it is more straight-forward to go with a single item, so I would definitely advise against having two home page items that are being resolved by the same URL.
You mentioned a concern for performance, so I would recommend you making sure that you enable your sublayout caching settings. In your case, varying by Data may be the way to go, given you would personalize with two sets of datasources.
In the past I have used the following crude technique:
Make two components, one for "logged in" and the other for anonymous.
Each rendering has just one line, a single placeholder, either:
<sc:placeholder key="logged-in" runat="server" />
or
<sc:placeholder key="anonymous" runat="server" />
For "logged in" I make a personalisation rule which hides the component if anonymous, and for the anonymous component I make a personalisation rule which hides the component if the user is logged in.
I then nest all the components under the correct placeholder key.
Let's say there exists a presentational component in a project that renders an unordered list (called ListRenderer, perhaps.) We have a couple options of supplying data to any given ListRenderer on a page:
Have a TreeList (or TreeListEx) field on the content item, and have ListRenderer read from it.
Supply a DataSource (or other Parameter) to the ListRenderer via the presentation details.
I usually avoid #1 in my projects because it binds Sublayouts to templates, which gets quite messy. If you go down that path, eventually you'll have fields to support every potential sublayout in your project.
So my solutions tend toward option #2, which gets rid of that problem. It does, however, come with its own bag of questions. Where do I put these various "Lists" for a given ListRenderer to use? To maximize reuse and sharing, I usually create a components directory near the site root that contains all these types of things, if I predict the Lists will be shared. This seems less findable and harder to use for the content author, who suddenly have no idea where the source for their ListRenderer is unless they know how to crack open the presentation details (which is slightly advanced for my average user).
If I feel like Lists won't be shared, and are very specific to the page, I'll put them directly underneath the item in question. This has a tendency to muddle up the content tree, though, and any dynamically generated navigation sublayout then has to check for whether or not an item is an actual page before it generates the link to it. The more I work in Sitecore, the less I use this approach, but it seems easier for the content author. There is much easier access to information when you use this approach.
Is there any industry-accepted way of approaching this problem? It happens in projects all the time, and in my head I struggle to balance technical and content authorship concerns in situations like these.
Great question. I've used all the techniques you mentioned, depending on the audience and specifics of the project. The problem is that, as with all things Sitecore, they are all valid ways of achieving the same goal and you will struggle to find one answer that will work in every situation.
I almost always use #2 as well, but some content author retraining maybe necessary and make sure you add in restrictions to what the content author is able to select as a target. I have (within the same project) structured the items near the root (in a shared content folder) and under the item in question, depending on what I felt would provide the best context.
Also, if other child pages would exist below the item as well as the list items, then I would put the list items in a separate folder (with a common "list items" icon") and re-order it to be the first item for separation and clarity.
If you want to use any kind of personalization and DMS then you will need the ability to switch out the datasource anyway so you shouldn't hard code locations.
You might also (if you have not already) want to consider using:
Convert Data Source Paths to IDs Using the Sitecore ASP.NET CMS
- Useful if you need to restructure your content at a later date
Queryable Datasource Locations
- Useful for multi-site situations when you need to make clones, or setting as the default datasource value in Standard Values when the lists are directly below the item but gives you the flexibility to change it.
I prefer using querable datasources personally, I find the xpath syntax more logical.
As Mark has commented, there is no real industry standard.
I feel like this is something that needs improvement.
Especially when you are using the DataSource option, things become less transparent to the editors and as the size of the site grows, so does the complexity.
All I can tell you is how I would do it, which is most likely much like how you are doing it.
1) For overview pages like news, events and faq items, I will put the items underneath the overview item and use the NewsMover shared source module to auto-create a hierarchy.
2) I will create a Global site that contains items that are shared across sites or pages. DataSource items for components will be put in here.
3) For components that are present on the standard values, I will add a list field to the template (for example, when you display related items on a content page)
Most often it's a logical choice and sometimes it's just a matter of taste.
I'd like to add that I've written a blog post on how to have datasource items created automatically for components that are set on standard values. That might help you if you are using those.
Edit:
"I usually avoid #1 in my projects because it binds Sublayouts to templates, which gets quite messy. If you go down that path, eventually you'll have fields to support every potential sublayout in your project."
Today I've blogged about a method of hiding fields and sections in the content editor if there is no sublayout set on the item that requires those fields, which helps to prevent the mess of having a lot of unused fields on your items.