One of my colleague left on vacation and left me with an Orchard project to work on.
I never worked with Orchard, so please excuse my ignorance and my possibly stupid questions.
I come to you for general advice on how to implement and structure the content of my site, as my research didn't give me the answers I'm looking for.
Here are the requirements:
The site must be divided into sections (section A, section A-1, section A-2, section B, etc...)
The navigation of the site must be based on the sections, each navigation item must also contain an image
Each section has a separate page with roughly 4 types of content that must be displayed:
Title of the page
Articles associated with this section, which represent the main content
FAQ content associated with the section which should be displayed in a specific zone
Miscellaneous content associated with the section which should also be displayed in a specific zone
I'm struggling at nearly every aspect of the requirements...
We started building a taxonomy, with as many terms as we have sections, allowing us to build the hierarchy we want, which is perfect. But this had 2 downsides:
The built-in taxonomy-based navigation is static, so the only thing displayed is the term, and we couldn't find a way to change it so the user would be able to add an image to the taxonomy term.
The generated pages based on the taxonomy display every content item based on the current term, that is, the articles, but also the FAQ content and the miscellaneous content, all in the Content zone.
Is there any way to work around these issues by using the built-in taxonomy? Or will I have to build content types from scratch in order to achieve what I'm trying?
The solution my colleague came up with was to add a layer for each section, and add in this layer 3 widgets, one for each specific content (title, FAQ, misc) in different zones. But I don't think this will me maintainable, as we currently have 4 main sections, each with 4-5 subsections, so that's rougly 60 layers, which will be a nightmare for the client to maintain.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated, I'm kind of lost.
Thanks in advance,
Mickaël
Taxonomies was a good start, but now you need to study projections. You'll be able to set-up filters about what you display.
For adding an image to your terms, one way to do it is to add a media library picker field to the type that was created for your taxonomy.
Related
I am fairly new to Orchard, really impressed with what I have seen so far.
My question:
I have a site that uses blogs fairly heavily as content. On the homepage, there are the following widgets:
'featured' - a blog post that has a featured field (query)
'latest' - a list of blog posts, sorted by date (blog archives)
The featured post will have an image heavy design (while hiding things like post time/number of comments/tags/etc) while the latest posts will be a fairly traditional layout (showing the aforementioned fields). As such, these widgets, which are the same base type, need to have very different structures.
I have figured out how to access the individual widgets, the overall blog post and each of the individual parts of the blog posts, however I cannot figure out what level I should be creating a view at, to be able to style these individually.
At the content level, I have a reasonable amount of control (still reliant on the #Display(Model.Content) though) however, none of the alternates I can see in Shape Tracer will allow me to ONLY change the Content-BlogPost.cshtml (or similar) for the particular Widget or Zone (both would allow access).
What I really need is to be able to specify the zone AND the content area. (something like Zone-ZoneName-Content-BlogPost.cshtml)
Am I missing something important? or am I going about this completely wrong?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Nick
(apologies for cross posting from codeplex, has been a few days and I really need to progress)
For an academic plone site I am creating, it is desirable to support document tags (see below).
There are multiple users for this site, and each user has a (long) list of publications that they alone can add / edit.
In its simplest form, a publication entry consists of a hyperlink or even just plain text. For instance:
A. Baynes, J. Watson and S. Holmes, "The role of observation and deduction in forensics", Applied Crime Solving, 221, 210-243 (1901). doi: 10.1032/acsolv2714
(The above is a fictitious article, but it has all the elements one expects in most citations.)
For those unfamiliar with DOI links, these are fixed text strings that can be resolved to the page for the article in question using dx.doi.org. Further, copyright / license terms often prohibit the authors from providing a full PDF / HTML for their articles on their websites. The articles often lie behind a paywall (usually accessible from most Universities / major research labs). So, running full text searches on the article itself is NOT an option.
Returning to the problem definition, I am assuming that the users will add their publications as links, but I want to give them the ability to specify a comma separated list of words / phrases (or tags) that more closely identify what the article is about.
For the above article, an appropriate list of tags would be:
forensics, haemoglobin, degradation of evidence
After each user appends such tags to the article, I want to create a backend that will allow visitors to the site to simply be able to enter these tags in a search field and find all publications that pertain to, say, haemoglobin.
That search should pull all publications that list haemoglobin as a tag, for all users of the site.
I intentionally used haemoglobin as a tag to illustrate that relevant tags need not be (and usually aren't) part of the text specified in the title of the article.
Further, the Plone "Collections" feature is not an adequate solution to this problem. Collections are typically generated by the admin. That means that a) admin intervention for something like this is essential and b) tags are best defined by users, not the admin.
When adding any content type (File, Folder, Page, Link, Collection, ...) in Plone, you can apply any number of tags to the content. This is done in the "Categorization" tab when editing/creating the content.
Visitors/Users can search the site based on tags like normal searches (using the search box or accessing the /##search URL).
Moreover you can use "tag cloud" portlets to visualise the tags' frequencies. Check the followings to get an idea:
1. A tag cloud portlet that rotates tags in 3D using a Flash movie
2. TagCloud
Don't forget to check Plone documentation, and specially Plone user manual to get yourself acquainted with the way Plone works.
#user2751530
I would like to know whether you are still working on this specific project - I am currently developing a similar one using plone v4, documentviewer v3 and an as of yet nonexistant frontend. I would like to discuss different approaches to the tagging-by-user problem, you can contact me through skype (dawitt19) or twitter (pref.) through #japhigu.
I'm new to orchard development and spent the last week studying it. I'm having a hard time in understanding some concepts, such as placement.info files.
I've read the article Understanding placement info from the project site and the section from the book "Orchard up and running" related to it.
What I understand:
Placement info files work on the content item level. It is used to reorder the rendering of the fields and content parts;
This file has three main tags: placement (basically a wrapper), match(which defines if the rules will be applied to the summary or detail display) and place (which effectively defines the placement rules);
What I don't understand:
How do I define the order of the tags? In the "place" tags I see "Content:Before", "Content:After.7", "Content:2.9" and some other rules. What does it mean to define "Place Parts_Tags_ShowTags="Header:after.7"/"? Is the placement file capable of moving parts to different zones?
I'm getting a bit frustrated using it. I don't know if I'm not using the right material (they seem very brief and/or outdated). If so, could someone suggest me some links?
I'd really appreciate some help, guys..
Thanks in advance
The name of the attribute is the shape name (usually as returned by a part driver), and the value is where to send that shape. It is a zone name, followed by a colon, and then ordering. The zone name can start with a slash if you want to target a top-level zone (those are defined in the Layout.cshtml file), like this: /AsideSecond:1. The ordering can be a special number, or a dotted sequence. For example, 1.1 comes after 1 but before 2. 1.1.1 would come after 1.1 and before 1.2, etc. after and before can also be used to send a shape after or before everything else.
I hope this helps.
I am kind of new to SharePoint. I am learning it on the go and learned about the concept of pagelayout and publishing features on the site. But I am not really 100% sure what is the difference between a WebPartPage, SitePage and PublishingPage. I kind of know what all these pages be used for, but what I not get is: why do they need to separate all these pages?
I think we can just get a publishing page and have all the feature there including webpart and everything else (with our choice of PageLayout). However I dont see a way to use a pagelayout on a particular SitePage.
Is there any particular reasons for using either one of them? Even though it seems like one of them can serve as all of them?
You should use page layout when ever you know the page structure. For example you are running an online news paper. You want to show the news to the users into three columns. First column is for menu, second column is for news content and third column is for advertisements. Now in your daily usage this layout is common. So you can use this page layout for entering the news. After creating the page layout you can make it as a default to your pages. Page layout is nothing but the structure of a page simply!!
A webpart page does not have a field for content directly on the page like a SitePage has. A Publishing Page is like a SitePage, but requires extra fields for dealing with the publishing extra features.
Using a single layout for all three risks being confused as to why one page does not work the same as another when it has the same layout (the difference would be the underlying features are different.).
I will make a comparison with cars. There are three type of cars, each is better suitable for a certain purpose: tractors for farming, buses for public transport, light cars for private transport. You could use a tractor for all the purposes above but it's not ideal.
"One of them can serve as all of them". This is not true in their current implementation. I'll give you one example: prefer Web part pages against Publishing pages to better control content added by contributors in an intranet. There are many other examples.
I'm just tasked by my boss to create a Sharepoint solution for the scenerio below.
(I'm a total newbie to Sharepoint. So please forgive me if i use the terminology wrong)
The portal should open in a custom look than the default Sharepoint design and it should have links to the products. Every product page should have different look and feel but have same types of content. For example every product should have Published Materials list but with different set of content.
So, an example of the desired map is like this:
/Home
-Latest News
-Core Team List
-Products
-Product 1
-Product 2
-Product 3
I found Sharepoint a whole new and strange world. I thought i'm good at learning, until i met Sharepoint. Everything seems very detailed and i'm living difficulties in finding useful information quickly. Because i have no Sharepoint background and i don't event know what i'm lookin' for.
Could you please help me by telling me how can i accomplish this or even just telling me the name of "thing" that i'm trying to accomplish.
Thank you in advance.
PS. Oh, by the way, I learned the word Branding in my search for the holy grail. I don't even know that the word fits or not...
I did try the method you post on other page (Restaurant review site in SharePoint) but unfortunately i couldn't succeed. I stucked at choosing what type of content type in the "Create Content Type" page at first and then tried some parent types but i couldn't get it show up in Sharepoint Designer 2007's New Sharepoint Content "Publishing Page" dialog.
So i tried something else.
At my homepage created a new Document Library of type "Web Part Page" called "Products". It created me a some sort of list whose all items are web pages. At this point i felt that i'm near to accomplish something at last.
Here are some questions i've collected: :)
I add two Announcements web part to different "Products" pages. When I add a new announcement to the list from one product page, it shows up in the other one too! How can I make their content only visible in page that the content created on?
*[Theming is a recurring theme in my posts]* Is it possible to change the view of each Product page at this setup so they have different design and color?
Thanks.
Check out the links I posted in the answer to this question for some links to SharePoint 101 tutorials online:
Restaurant review site in SharePoint
Given you're looking for 'branding' that will mean a custom Master Page. A Master Page is what will determine the overall layout of your SharePoint Web Application's pages. After creating a standard SharePoint application, connect with SharePoint Designer and play with that Master Page for a while until you get the hang of it.
In modifying or creating custom Master Pages, it is important to take note of all the controls (special ASP.NET server-side tags) in particular Content Place Holders; if you create your own Master Page and these are missing you're in a world of uninformative-error-message hurt.
You're going to want to create Lists ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA011199881033.aspx ) to represent 'News' and 'Products'... for Products you may even want to create a Content Type.
Once you create 'News' and 'Products' lists, to see those lists of Products you'll want to make views and use List View Web Parts ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100240521033.aspx ) to include those views in Pages... but at the subject of Web Parts this is probably getting a bit overwhelming so I'll stop here. Comment me if you'd like more.
Addendum
"Is is possible to show only categories of a document library in home page and documents of the selected category in another page?"
-> Yes, and there are several ways. I'd suggest you look into either defining a View for that list which filters based on the category field, then add List View Web Parts to your home page, or writing custom XSLT for the Content Query Web Part, and then add it to your home page. Writing the XSLT for he Content Query web part is a little more difficult, but using the List View has it's short comings in being not-as-configurable, much like this guy is finding out: No-code solution for calendar view of SharePoint news items
"But how can i change a list item to show its details as a whole new page with its own web parts and theme?"
-> Here's the kicker; in SharePoint, each Site you create has a special list for Pages, and each Page actually belongs to a Content Type.
So you can take any content type and turn it into a page; all you have to do is create a Page Layout for it, and add that Content Type to the list.
(So, an example. This is purely speculative; I'm not saying do this specifically, and you probably can't do it exactly as I describe it as I'm oversimplifying a little)
You create a Content Type 'Product', but you also decide 'Category' should be a Content Type too. So you create a content type for 'Catagory', and you give it a lookup column, which refers to items in the 'Product' List. You specify that the lookup can contain multiple items.
Now you want a Page where people can see a category, and all the Products which belong to it. You create a 'Page Layout' (an aspx file) for the 'Catagory' Content Type. In the Page Layout aspx file you can include web controls which render the Catagory's fields, such as 'title' and 'description' and you can probably even add one to render the 'Products' lookup field. (maybe you'll have to code it yourself)
I hope I haven't lost you.
Now that you've created a Page Layout for 'Catagory' you can add 'Catagory' to the Pages list/library and then create pages which represent Catagories, and when people edit those pages, they will also edit the Catagory.
More Addendum
If "Announcements" is a list, the web part you added was a list view web part, and so it just shows the contents of the list (which is independent of the product pages)
You'll want o specify filters of your view. I dunno if you can specify unique filters on the web part... but you can try :)
You might want to consider looking into The Content Query Web Part.
I don't fully understand your second question, but I get the feeling the answer is yes... what do you mean by "view"? You gotta be careful with the lingo; do you mean the Page Layout? or the List View Web Part? or the List View? or the Master Page? ...
you HAVE to check out Heather Solomon. She is the shiznat when it comes to sharepoint branding.
A good start would be using Sharepoint Designer.
Use SharePoint Designer to do your CSS work, particularly in discovering the CSS rules in play. DO NOT publish the finished work from SD; if you do, future Windows Updates may wipe out your files. Instead, deploy your customizations as a Feature. In MOSS 2007, you can add a single custom CSS file using Central Admin - this will then be applied AFTER core.CSS at runtime, To the best of my knowledge, this is the only practical way of doing this.
You need to indicate whether you are using WSS or MOSS. With WSS, you can use themes.