Is it possible to export an Orchard Theme without using the command line? - orchardcms

I have next to no experience with Orchard, or .NET in general for that matter, but I have agreed to do some development on an existing Orchard website.
I have an admin-login with access to the Dashboard and I have an admin-login at the hosting provider (Arvixe). I've started moving the site over to Azure so I can use that as a staging environment.
I've successfully exported all the content, but the site is also running a custom theme that I also need to move over. From what I gather the only way to package that theme is using the command line interface, but I can't find a way to run the command line executable via the hosting provider's web interface (I haven't been able to connect to it with SSH).
Is there any way to run what is usually command line operations via the Dashboard? Some kind of module that I have not discovered? Is there any way of moving a theme from one installation to another without using the command line?

If you have access to the Arvixe account, you also have access to ftp. Do that, then look under the Themes directory. Copy the theme's folder. What's the web site?

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How to develop foxx services using arangodb web interface

I am creating foxx services, right now I am doing it in VS Code and uploading the zip file in the services section with a mount point in DEVELOPMENT mode. Now I want to quick edit the foxx service in web interface itself. I was reading this possible but for some reason I do not get an option to edit it using web interface. Am I missing some configuration/setting or something.
One way to do rapid development with Foxx is to use an IDE that automatically uploads modified files to a local 'deployment' location.
For example, if you use WebStorm IDE, and edit the files in a directory that is integrated with GIT, then you can checkout and check in your code.
WebStorm (or other IDE's as well) have a feature where they monitor edited files, and then automatically copy those files to a destination location.
You can set it up so that it notices when you save a file, then rather than zip it and deploy it via the web UI, it just copies the files to the directory that Foxx is using as the source of your web service.
If you have the Foxx service running in 'Development' mode, then it recompiles every invocation, so it will pick up the newly edited changes that just got copied in.
You need to find the target directory that you have your Foxx Service running out of, when you enable Development mode it will tell you the path in the Web UI.
Not sure if you can do that with VSCode, but if you can then that's the easiest way to do it.

Web Deploy Set Parameter using external file

We have an Website project that's hosted in Azure, and we use Web.config transforms for setting environment variables. However, our current approach for building the system for different environments is to build the project multiple times (currently this is 3), which is inefficient.
We'd like to move to using Web Deploy, as this would then set us up nicely for using Release Manager.
Our issue is around using Web Deploy parameters instead of web.config transforms; we need to substitute multiple xml elements, rather than single values.
After much research, I found these 2 articles which detail almost exactly what I'm trying to do
http://blogs.iis.net/elliotth/web-deploy-xml-file-parameterization
http://www.iis.net/learn/publish/using-web-deploy/parameterization-improvements-in-web-deploy-v3
Essentially I'm trying to replicate Scenario 5, but using a separate Set Parameter file for the value.
Unfortunately, in the examples, referencing an external xml file only works if it is on the target machine. Some testing with a colleague confirmed this; works on local machine, but not on Azure.
Is there a way I can force Web Deploy to look in a particular location for the external configuration files?
As you've already noticed, Web Deploy is only able to read replacement values on the local machine or on a UNC share. It can't read that specific file over HTTP.
If you're deploying to an Azure Web App, then one thing you could try would be to use Kudu/FTP to manually upload that file one level above your wwwroot folder. Then you could specify the file location like so:
D:\home\site\prices.xml:://book[#name='book1']/price
Of course this implies that you'd have to pre-upload this file before publishing to your site, so it's not a perfect solution, but it should work for what you're trying to accomplish.

Web Deploy create Virtual directory and add application

I need to deploy web applications to an IIS 7.5. I have tried to create a web deploy package but I run into a problem.
Most of the applications I need to deploy are nested under virtual directories. Example:
Web Site/vDir/vDir/application
This seems to work if the virtual directories are already created. But if they are missing the application are instead created directly under the Website.
I create the package with the parameters /t:build;Package
Atm. I am using the cmd file to deploy with parameters /Y /m:[Servername]
I can't find a way to change the dest parameter. Do I need to use msdeploy directly instead?
I saw a very similar question containing a good answer by AaronS.
He basically suggests creating a custom build task, including an example code.

How to use IIS app_offline.htm file with Azure

I have a brilliantly designed app_offline.htm file that I'd like to display on my site periodically when I'm doing things like backing up the DB. On a server with a real file system, this wouldn't be a problem: I'd just copy app_offline.htm to the my app's root, and IIS will work its magic and redirect all requests to this file.
However, I'm using Azure, so there's no real file system and there's no easy way move files around from one location to another.
How I can I make app_offline.htm play nicely with Azure?
I figured I'd add this, I haven't seen it mentioned yet. You can actually do this via web publish from Visual Studio (or WebMatrix) as well, just put app_offline.htm in the root of your project - the same level as your main web.config. When done, just rename it and redeploy to go back online. 2 clicks - easy.
The manual option is to drop it into your /site/wwwroot via FTP.
A little personal secret, none of your site files will be accessible, style sheets etc. So put your includes into an azure blob container, and viola.
Actually there is a real file system, as each VM instance runs on Windows 2008 Server (SP2 or R2 SP1). To see this for yourself, enable Remote Desktop for your deployment and connect to a running instance.
Knowing this, you should be able to set up a mechanism to perform a file-copy of your app_offline.htm to your app root based on some type of administrative command. You'll just need to make sure each of your web role instances perform this action.
David has provided you with a good answer. However, you might be missing out on what Azure can do for you. You should be able to virtually eliminate down time with Azure by running multiple instances and using SQL Azure which is triple backed up for you. You can also backup SQL Azure using http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff951624.aspx

Setting read / write / execute privilege on "cgi-bin" folder in Windows Azure webrole

We're talking about a simple webapp.
So I have a file called "modulev2.cgi" which is part of a trusted 3rd party online payment company. This file has to be put in a folder named "cgi-bin". For windows IIS environnement the file is renamed "modulev2.exe" and put in the same directory. This is what the documentation says.
Module is called as this :
FORM ACTION=../cgi-bin/modulev2.exe METHOD=post
with a bunch of parameters. It should not download when called of course but execute.
And indeed it does work in my dedicated server, provided the "cgi-bin" folder and the file in have "execute" setting level in IIS.
So to the point, would I be able to set the rights to execute to this file in Windows Azure ? If yes, how to script such a process ?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks !
The best way to do this is to script it out locally against your IIS using appcmd.exe. You want to add your CGI handler programmatically. By default, IIS in Windows Azure is already running CGI/Fast-CGI, so you don't have to install it, it should be ready. I think you need to add it to the CGI restriction list and add your handler mappings.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732851(WS.10).aspx
Once you have a .cmd file that will correctly configure your local IIS settings, you can use that as the basis for a Startup task in Windows Azure to bootstrap the role.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Cloud-Cover-Episode-31-Startup-Tasks-Elevated-Privileges-and-Classic-ASP
http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Cloud-Cover-Episode-34-Advanced-Startup-Tasks-and-Video-Encoding

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