This is a module that I have had built for a while but was too busy to get it to a release state. Finally I have released it onto the Sitecore Shared Source Library so everyone can have a look at how it was implemented. Bottom line, could be done better, but am still pretty stoked with the way it works.

After installation you will receive a “ClickMap” button in the Analyze tab.

This will toggle a context editor ribbon.

This will allow you to change the click maps for different web users (default is “extranet\anonymous”).

This will purge all click maps data from the analytics DB.

This will refresh the page if clicks have been logged since the last time you loaded the click map interface.

Here is the result of a browse on our Nicam demo site.

The module also shows click dispersion and highlights popular click areas.

You can get the download here.

Thanks,

Tim

I finally got the caching webinar uploaded and you can watch it here -> http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/wmv/CacheRecordingWebinar.mp4



I should find some time over the next week to be able to answer all the caching questions that were posted on the webinar by the attendee’s.

Enjoy the video and feel free to send me comments or ideas of what you would like to see in the next webinars. Speaking of which, this is probably a good time to announce the next webinar. Thanks to the Learning Sitecore Portal for their reference image on the Caching Stack.

Webinar : Sitecore Performance Technical Deep Dive

Presenter : Steve Green (Sitecore Australia and New Zealand)

Description : Sitecore has many builtin ways of adding better performance to your website but it is also important for developers to adhere to good standards as well to make sure they use the functionality available to them. In this webinar we will cover everything that is to do with Sitecore and performance and even touch on some handy hints from developers that have been working with ASP.net and Sitecore for some time.

Topics :

• Non Sitecore Developer Tips
• Sitecore Developer Tips
• Configuring for high end performance
• Tools that we have available to test our performance
• Sitecore tips and tricks

Thanks,

- Tim

I was working with a clients code today (they didn’t have an issue with me publishing it for everyone else) and they want a way to migrate content from an existing database. Included in this data was importing Media items into Sitecore. We have a handy helper class for this already in the shape of the MediaManager.Creator.CreateFromFile(a, b). They way it works is that Sitecore looks at the file type and uses this to determine the data template. When we create items programmatically we have the power to choose the template we base the item off, this is not the case with Media items. There is however a little trick that you can use to get around this which is highlighted in the code below.

MediaCreatorOptions md = new MediaCreatorOptions();

md.Destination = @”/sitecore/media library/images/” + <Insert File Name Here>;    // Set options

md.Database = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase(“master”);   // Set options

Item mediaItem  = null;

using (new SecurityDisabler())   // Use the SecurityDisabler object to override the security settings

{

// Create Media in database from file

mediaItem = MediaManager.Creator.CreateFromFile(Path.Combine(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["migrator_targetFileLocation"], String.Concat(fileNamePrefix, “.pdf”)), md);

}

mediaItem.ChangeTemplate(newsArticleTemplate);

The important trick is after this has all been done and the MediaItem has been created, simply change the template that the MediaItem is based off to your custom template by calling ChangeTemplate(<Insert Template Object>);

Hope this helps,

- Tim

In light of a couple of recent events, i.e. Dreamcore and the release of the Top 100 cool things in Sitecore, I thought it would be a good idea to collate some of the things that were mentioned into something tangible. This being, taking all the keyboard shortcuts for Sitecore and making them into a Desktop Background that you can use within Sitecore. In no way am I a design expert, so it would be great if others could take the shortcuts and have a go at making their own Sitecore Desktop backgrounds as well! I will send the winner some Sitecore goodies! Send your entries to tiw@sitecore.net

Below is the image (click on the image to go to the full resolution version) and all you have to do is save this image to your C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<hostname>\Website\sitecore\shell\Themes\Backgrounds directory.

Enjoy!

- Tim

I thought I would write another blog post that has nothing (well not strictly nothing) to do with Sitecore but to do with coding and developing software. I am constantly in contact and meeting developer’s everyday and a topic that usually comes up is how, when and where you like to code. I personally am the kind of developer that likes to get up early and work on code with little distractions. Most developers I meet are quite the opposite i.e. they like to stay up all night, fuelled by Coffee to the point where their eyelids hurt, their mouth is parched and it is 3 hours before they have to wake up for work. In response to where I like to code, this answer is simple. As the developer myth says, “we like dark rooms, preferably basements to code in”. What a joke! I personally like a well lit room, multi-monitor setup and not a lot happening in the background. As for how, this is the main reason I wanted to write this blog post. Most developers I talk to cannot say enough about coding to music. Some of the best code I have written has been to good music, turned up to max in my headphones. I find that speakers just don’t have the same effect. The idea of shutting off everything around you is the thing that puts you into the coding zone. In light of this I have also discovered that different music works well for different occasions. I thought I would share my list of songs that help with working in different technologies and with different problems.

It would be great to get comments on other songs that help developers, managers, marketers get through their work. I recommending buying the songs I have mentioned above (legally of course) and seeing if they help you as much as they have helped me.

Thanks,

-          Tim

After 2 months of taking Sitecore apart and putting it back together again I have finally finished my list of the top 100 cool things that you may have missed in Sitecore just because the system has so much inbuilt functionality. I have received lots of feedback from developers, users and Sitecore partners mentioning that there were great tips in the list and that they even had some of their own that they would like to add. Although I haven’t added them into the top 100 list so far, in time I have a feeling Sitecore will propel me to make a top 200 list and for that I will definitely include your easter eggs you have found with Sitecore. I thought I would mention that this top 100 list covers the Sitecore CMS product and in no way covers the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite, Foundry and Intranet product – they have their own little easter eggs as well! Thanks to all those whom offered feedback, advice and cool tips that should go in this list.

1. Sitecore Fast Query – Using the Sitecore Data Provider instead of the SQL Data Provider to query items in the database (so much faster, but not all queries apply)

2. Change the Welcome Title and Message for the Login Screen (Web.config)

3. Ctrl + F2 to see all windows currently open in the Sitecore Desktop

4. Hold down Alt while dragging an item in the tree to change its sort order.

5. Instead of deleting and recreating a sublayout or layout to get a designer and cs file, simply right click on the control and click “Convert to Web Application”, this will build it for you.

6. Add more backgrounds to the Sitecore Desktop by placing images in the following directory “<System Drive>\inetpub\wwwroot\<website>\Website\sitecore\shell\Themes\Backgrounds”.

7. By clicking the drop down under sorting in the Home tab, you get many more sorting options.

8. Right click on the top ribbon to add more tabs such as the Developer tab.

9. You can insert sibling items but clicking the drop down button in the Insert chunk in the ribbon.

10. You can remove the “Insert from Template” option by logging into the “core” database and removing the following item “/sitecore/content/Applications/Content Editor/Menues/New/Insert from Template” (Maybe don’t delete this, but just move it so if you ever want it back, you can easily put it back in the right place)

11. You can see a compiled version of your web.config and all other configuration files in one view by accessing you site url and appending /sitecore/admin/showconfig.aspx

12. When using the “source” property for an image, if you use the “~” at the start of the path it will still show the entire tree but will have the source path selected. (This solves the issue of setting a source field and overriding it in another derived template)

13. There is built in Type and Assembly validation for fields where you specify a Class and a DLL. It will use reflection to make sure that the class and assembly exist.

14. You can specify at a field level if an item being blank will reset the values to the standard values. Simply select the “Reset Blank” checkbox on the field and whenever an item based off that template is blank it will act like it is NULL and get its value from the standard values of the template.

15. Insert Rules are much more powerful than insert options and can be learnt here.

16. Use Ctrl + Windows Key to open the Sitecore Start Menu.

17. You can see a different view of the content with the DBBrowser which can be viewed by appending the following to your URL “sitecore/admin/dbbrowser.aspx”. It will show RAW values by default.

18. You can set context help on important items within your tree from within the Configure tab and by clicking the Help button. You can insert things like links, help text etc in here.

19. Use FieldRenderers when in the API and the Developer Center for rendering your HTML.

20. Putting “height:30px;” (or something similar) in the Style field for a field will render the control appropriately. For example, doing this for a Multi-Line field or a RTE will change the height of the control for the content author.

21. Smart Tags. You can change the look of the content editor to have smart tags that will be “smart enough” to know which options you want to use on a field type. You can change this via the Applications options from the Sitecore Logo button in the content editor.

22. Shared and Unversioned check-boxes on fields to make fields share values between versions and languages.

23. Ever wondered why you are getting Danish dates in your Calendar? Change the globalisation settings in the Sitecore Control Panel to another language.

24. There is a PublishingAgent that will run a scheduled Publish at a particular interval which is available from within the web.config.

25. Right clicking on the Task Bar will give you an option to Show the Desktop and minimise all open applications.

26. When you upload an image to the media library you can put a URL into the Upload Image path and it will download the image and put it into the media library for you. This beats downloading the image to your desktop first and then uploading it.

27. To make a field non-searchable in the Sitecore back-end, check the EXCLUDE Text Checkbox on the Field in the data template.

28. When in the Sitecore Login screen (/sitecore)  once you have filled in your username and password, you can double click on an interface to login.

29. If you have the content editor open and you have a node with children highlighted, you can press the <- and -> (arrow keys) to expand and collapse the parent item.

30. Use the upload advanced from the Media Library to upload a zipped file and Sitecore will unpack it for you. Not only this, but it will keep the folder structure as well.

31. Want to access the desktop from any browser? Simple, just append this to the end of your URL once you have logged in /sitecore/shell/default.aspx

32. You can (and should) put the full PATH of a placeholder when entering the presentation layout details e.g. when binding a sublayout to the “content” placeholder (which is a nested placeholder) you should put the full path, starting with a “/” character i.e. “/main/left/content” instead of just “content” – don’t forget the “/” at the start!

33. Drag Applications onto the Desktop from the start menu to have quick links to applications that you use regularly.

33. Right click on Applications on your desktop to change properties such as Icon and Name or remove the icon from your desktop (this won’t remove the application itself)

34. F9 will run the publishing wizard dialog box.

35. Want to be different and have your taskbar at the top of your Sitecore Desktop instead of the bottom? Then change part of the source code in the /sitecore/shell/Applications/Shell.xml file from

<GridPanel>

<Border ID=”Desktop” GridPanel.Class=”scFill” ContextMenu=”ShowContextMenu”>

<Border ID=”Links” DblClick=”Launch”/>

</Border>

<Startbar GridPanel.Class=”scStartbar”/>

</GridPanel>

to

<GridPanel>

<Startbar GridPanel.Class=”scStartbar”/>

<Border ID=”Desktop” GridPanel.Class=”scFill” ContextMenu=”ShowContextMenu”>

<Border ID=”Links” DblClick=”Launch”/>

</Border>

</GridPanel>

36. Holding down Ctrl and dragging an item will copy that item to wherever you drop it instead of moving it.

37. You can actually drag items from the content editor onto the desktop as well and it will open that item in the content editor when you double click on it e.g. Settings.

38. There are MANY more columns available for the Security Editor to allow or deny for site, language read and language write, Site enter, or wildcard (*). Simply click “Columns” button when you are in the security editor to show the other columns.

39. If you select an item, you can delete all its children by clicking the drop down under the Delete button in the Home Tab.

40. Do you know that you can install a package programmatically from code behind? (Code does not work in all versions)

string packageFile = @”path to your Sitecore package”;

TaskMonitor Monitor = new TaskMonitor();

Monitor.Start(new ThreadStart(new AsyncHelper(packageFile, “”).Install));

41. Double Clicking on your license.xml file on the file system now has a style sheet applied to it to make it look nice and pretty! It will show you information on how many concurrent authors you have and what modules you can install.

42. Want to have a place to store Dictionary<String, String> type content items, no worries, one comes out of the box with /sitecore/system/Dictionary

43. Want to play with the Sitecore Media Handler and the parameters? Easy, just paste the link into a browser and then append the paramters to see the genric handler working on the fly e.g.http://demo.sitecoreaustralia.com.au/~/media/Images/Nicam/Spots/are_you_an_advanced_amateur.ashx?w=123

44. When building packages of items and files using the package designer you can use dynamic filters to determine what items and files will be in your package e.g. all items with the work “Australia” in it, or “all items based off the product template”. Use Dynamic Files and Dynamic Items instead of Static Files and Static Items.

45. This is a far stretch, but I have run into developers that have worked with Sitecore for quite a while and were still not aware of the event pipeline system and the fact that you can raise your own custom events as well. Have a look in the web.config in the <events> element to see preexisting events such as item:added, item:saved etc.

46. With Sitecore security, a user will always overwrite any permission set at a role level.

47. If you have something that Sitecore is logging into the log file and you no longer want it to show up you can ask the log4net class to clear it by updating your web.config accordingly by adding a filter like so within the web.config (this will stop the string “INFO: sitecore/admin has logged in” from being logged into the Sitecore log files.

<log4net>

…

<appender name=”LogFileAppender” type=”log4net.Appender.SitecoreLogFileAppender, Sitecore.Logging”>

…

<filter type=”log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter”>

<stringToMatch value=”INFO: sitecore/admin has logged in” />

<acceptOnMatch value=”false” />

</filter>

…

</appender>

…

</log4net>

48. You can validate a Rich Text Editor Field by itself (without having to do the entire item) by going into the RTE, clicking the “Module Manager” button and click Validate XHTML. There are also some other handy modules here such as HTML View andStatistics on Words and Character counts.

49. Don’t know what all the Rich Text Editor buttons do? Then click the last button in the Rich Text Editor and it gives you help describing every button and its functionality.

50. You have a context menu in the Rich Text Editor as well, so use it for pasting, copying etc. Right click on images, flash and media to change properties including building an image map.

51. You can drag a column onto the grid within search dialogues to group the results.

52. You can search for locked items, users, roles etc in their respective dialog boxes.

53. Sitecore has Placeholder Settings which are so easy to setup and allow users to change placeholders from the design interface with the Page Editor. It also allows us to specify which controls you would like to give users the ability to change the placeholders. Simply add a Placeholder Setting item under the Placeholder Settings folder in the Layouts part of the Sitecore Content Tree and make sure the name of the Placeholder Setting matches the name of the Placeholder itself or it won’t work.

54. Clicking on the Warning sign in the Page Editor or the Developer center when you have a presentation component that either doesn’t compile or doesn’t pass validation will pop up the .net exception you are getting with your presentation components. (Mouse over the warning to see the error as well).

55. You can reuse the Telerik RAD control that Sitecore uses for rich text entry in your website as well with the following code (This does require a RAD license) ->
< rade:RadEditor runat=”server” Width=”800px” ID=”WebContent” RadControlsDir=”~/sitecore/shell/RadControls/”> < /rade:RadEditor >

56. You can run your site in LIVE mode by pointing the site node named website to the “master” db. Simply change the “database” attribute to “master” instead of “web”. I would recommend this for a developers environment if you don’t want to waste time on publishing content items just to test code.

57. If you extend the User Data Template to have extra fields they will actually show up in the User Manager by default.

58. Going on holidays soon? Easily make another person an admin in the tick of a box instead of giving them your login details.

59. You can show more information in the Sitecore Content Tree by right clicking on the bar to the left of the content tree.

60. Are you a content author and want as much screen space as possible? I have two hints for you. Firstly, go the View Tab and uncheck the “Content Tree” checkbox. Once you have done that, double click on any of the tabs and it will hide the ribbon. Pure content author canvas

61. You can set a Default Layout File for all content items. This is useful for the items where you have forgotten to add a layout to an item but you don’t want the default “No Layout” error, you would actually like it to try and show the right thing for if a Layout was specified, it would work.

In your web.config set the “DefaultLayoutFile” setting

62. When you publish content you can have default Publishing Targets set by going to your web.config and setting the “DefaultPublishingTargets” element.

63. Sitecore has a cache watch on the “/layouts” folder so it is a good idea to place your layouts and sublayouts under this folder in the file system.

64. You can set the Maximum structural level of you tree to mandate that content authors can’t go past a certain level. Set the “MaxTreeDepth” element in the web.config.

65. You can speed up performance for using Sitecore Query by specifying the Query.MaxItems to a limited number. If you can make the decision that you will never be bringing back more than 20 items in your query then set this number to 20, it will speed up the search.

66. Don’t want the recycling bin functionality? Set the RecycleBinActive to false.

67. If you know that you have a Sitecore site with only one site then turn the Rendering.SiteResolving to Off.

68. Are all your Sitecore sites from the one solution on the same physical webserver? If to set RequestErrors.UseServerSideRedirect to True as it will conserve server processing and will use Server.Transfer instead of Response.Redirect.

69. Not sure off all the Sitecore Controls that you can use for rendering fields, here they are :

1. sc:date
2. sc:dot
3. sc:html
4. sc:image
5. sc:link
6. sc:memo
7. sc:sec
8. sc:text
9. sc:wordstyle
10. sc:enableSecurity
11. sc:disableSecurity
12. sc:editFrame
13. sc:feedItem

70. I have saved the best to last. Sitecore comes with a Translator server already built in. Just enable WorldLingo in your web.config and you will see a translate button show up against some different field types within the content editor.

71. You can have code directly in your XSLT files if you want instead of using XSLT Extension methods (warning there is a performance hit)

Simply add the xmlns:msxsl=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt” namesplace to your stylesheet element.

<msxsl:script implements-prefix=”ext”>

Place your code in the XSLT file (make sure it isn’t between the <template match=”*” … node

public string ToUpper(string inString)

{

return inString.ToUpper();

}

</msxsl:script>

Call the code within your <template match=”*” …. node

<xsl:value-of select=”ext:ToUpper(‘s’)”/>

And make sure you enable XSLT in your web.config

<setting name=”EnableXslScripts” value=”true”/>

72. Sitecore’s Desktop is completely configurable to say…..look like MAC OS X

73. You can use the Mouse Wheel to Scroll in between tabs in the Sitecore Ribbon.

74. The User Agent field on a Device is using the Contains logic, not a regular expression.

e.g. to get all iPhone devices you can simply place “iPhone” in the User Agent.

75. In the Developer Center, if you are working on a group of presentation components and you want to be able to return to all those presentation components being open the next time you open the developer center, you can use the Windows Tab to save and open existing Workspaces.

76. You can register your own languages in the .net Framework and surface them to Sitecore e.g. Pirate talk!

77. You can add your own Keyboard Shortcuts using the following methods ->

1)  Go to the Sitecore root/sitecore/shell/Controls/Applications/Global Keys.xml file

Insert a string like “<RegisterKey KeyCode=”120″ Click=”system:publish”/>”  within the <GlobalKeys> tag.

The “KeyCode” attribute defines a shortcut key code, which you can get using the “Keyboard Map” application from “Development Tools” menu in Sitecore Desktop.

The “Click” attribute defines a command that you want to assign to this key, which should be defined in the /App_Config/Commands.config file.

2) Use global key map items:

- switch to the “core” database and go to the sitecore/system/Settings/Key Map folder

- add a “Key Map” item to the Key Map folder and fill in the fields of this item the way it was described above in method 1.

78. Forgotten your admin password? No worries, if you have access to the core database then you can change the password from there. (This works in 6 and above)

Open the dbo.aspnet_Users table and find the record where the UserName column contains the sitecore\admin value. Note the value of the UserId column of this record. Open the dbo.aspnet_Membership table and find the record where the UserId column contains the saved value in the point above. In this record change the current value of the Password column to the “qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=” value (this is the hash value of the “b” password).

79. You can change up the Start Page of the Developer Center by clicking the drop down next to “Recent Files”. You will see the following Dialog ->

80. Within the Page Editor you have handy drop downs which show direct children and siblings as well.

81. You can put the Page Editor into Split screen mode by selecting the 3 Blue Boxes from the Home Tab.

82. You can edit your Media Library files in the Sitecore CMS or in an external application (6.2)

83. Shift + Ctrl + Home keyboard shortcut will take you to your home item in the content tree.

84. You can set caching on presentation at a Global (Content Tree), Static (Developer Center) and Dynamic (Placeholder) Level.

85. Sitecores Debug interface allows you to turn on “Borders” which draws <div> elements around all editable content.

86. Sitecores Media Library will bring in metadata from files including what Camera your images were taken on, mime type, file size etc.

87. Ctrl + Shift + Alt + I will launch the Icon Wizard to change the icon for the selected item in the content editor.

88. Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T will toggle the Standard Fields in the Content Editor.

89. Double clicking on a Field Section in the Content Editor will toggle the expansion and collapse of that Field section. This is instead of using the + and – button.

90. Not only can you have multiple Aliases per item in Sitecore but you can have paths that resolves as well e.g. http://<hostname> /products/new/contest.aspx can resolve, not just http://<hostname>/content.aspx

91. If you want a Field section to be collapsed by default, simply highlight the Field Section in the Template Manager and set the “Collapsed by Default” to checked.

92. Ctrl + / will give focus to the Instant Search in the Sitecore Desktop.

93. When in the Rich Text Editor, you can accept your changes with Ctrl + Enter.

94. When using Wizards within Sitecore you can use the Escape key and the Enter Key to move through or cancel the wizard. This does not work in other window types.

95. Shift + Insert will also paste the information you have on the Clipboard (the other is Ctrl + V).

96. When using the Instant Search, you can scroll through the results with the up and down arrow, you can select a result with the enter key and escape will stop the search.

97. Here is the list of Keyboard Shortcuts in the Rich Text Editor

Find and Replace – Ctrl + F

Copy – Ctrl + C

Paste – Ctrl + V

Cut – Ctrl + X

Undo – Ctrl + Z

Redo – Ctrl + Y

Image Manager – Ctrl + G

Link Manager – Ctrl + K

Unlink – Ctrl + Shift + K

Bold – Ctrl + B

Italic – Ctrl + I

Underline – Ctrl + U

98. You can change you Rich Text Editor to have other Skins e.g. navigate to the following file on your file system C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<hostname>\Website\sitecore\shell\Controls\Rich Text Editor\Default.aspx and open in an editor. Look for the string “Skin=”Default”” and replace with “Skin=”Mac””

99. When creating an XSLT file in Sitecore, Sitecore will stub out some XSLT for you that includes extensions, parameters etc. If you want to modify this template, you simply have to do it from ->

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<hostname>\Website\sitecore\shell\Templates\xsl.xslt

100. The easiest way to remove the HTML tab from your Rich Text Editor is to go to the following file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<hostname>\Website\sitecore\shell\Applications\Content Manager\RichText\Rich Text Editor.xml and comment out the following line

<!– <Toolbutton Header=”HTML” Icon=”Software/16×16/text_code.png” IconSize=”id16x16″ Click=”ShowHtml”/> –>

Hope this list helps!

Thanks,

- Tim

I have finally found some time to sit down and go through the next 10 cool things that you may not be aware exist in Sitecore.

61. You can set a Default Layout File for all content items. This is useful for the items where you have forgotten to add a layout to an item but you don’t want the default “No Layout” error, you would actually like it to try and show the right thing for if a Layout was specified, it would work.

In your web.config set the “DefaultLayoutFile” setting

62. When you publish content you can have default Publishing Targets set by going to your web.config and setting the “DefaultPublishingTargets” element.

63. Sitecore has a cache watch on the “/layouts” folder so it is a good idea to place your layouts and sublayouts under this folder in the file system.

64. You can set the Maximum structural level of you tree to mandate that content authors can’t go past a certain level. Set the “MaxTreeDepth” element in the web.config.

65. You can speed up performance for using Sitecore Query by specifying the Query.MaxItems to a limited number. If you can make the decision that you will never be bringing back more than 20 items in your query then set this number to 20, it will speed up the search.

66. Don’t want the recycling bin functionality? Set the RecycleBinActive to false.

67. If you know that you have a Sitecore site with only one site then turn the Rendering.SiteResolving to Off.

68. Are all your Sitecore sites from the one solution on the same physical webserver? If to set RequestErrors.UseServerSideRedirect to True as it will conserve server processing and will use Server.Transfer instead of Response.Redirect.

69. Not sure off all the Sitecore Controls that you can use for rendering fields, here they are :

1. sc:date
2. sc:dot
3. sc:html
4. sc:image
5. sc:link
6. sc:memo
7. sc:sec
8. sc:text
9. sc:wordstyle
10. sc:enableSecurity
11. sc:disableSecurity
12. sc:editFrame
13. sc:feedItem

70. I have saved the best to last. Sitecore comes with a Translator server already built in. Just enable WorldLingo in your web.config and you will see a translate button show up against some different field types within the content editor.

Until next time, keep searching the product as there are so many hidden treasures.

Thanks,

- Tim

51. You can drag a column onto the grid within search dialoges to group the results.

Dragging a Column

52. You can search for locked items, users, roles etc in their respective dialog boxes.

Search

53.  Sitecore has Placeholder Settings which are so easy to setup and allow users to change placeholders from the design interface with the Page Editor. It also allows us to specify which controls you would like to give users the ability to change the placeholders. Simply add a Placeholder Setting item under the Placeholder Settings folder in the Layouts part of the Sitecore Content Tree and make sure the name of the Placeholder Setting matches the name of the Placeholder itself or it won’t work.

54. Clicking on the Warning sign in the Page Editor or the Developer center when you have a presentation component that either doesn’t compile or doesn’t pass validation will pop up the .net exception you are getting with your presentation components. (Mouse over the warning to see the error as well).

55. You can reuse the Telerik RAD control that Sitecore uses for rich text entry in your website as well with the following code (This does require a RAD license) ->
< rade:RadEditor runat=”server” Width=”800px” ID=”WebContent” RadControlsDir=”~/sitecore/shell/RadControls/”> < /rade:RadEditor >

56. You can run your site in LIVE mode by pointing the site node named website to the “master” db. Simply change the “database” attribute to “master” instead of “web”. I would recommend this for a developers environment if you don’t want to waste time on publishing content items just to test code.

57. If you extend the User Data Template to have extra fields they will actually show up in the User Manager by default.

UserFields

58. Going on holidays soon? Easily make another person an admin in the tick of a box instead of giving them your login details.

MakeAdmin

59. You can show more information in the Sitecore Content Tree by right clicking on the bar to the left of the content tree.

QuickAction

60. Are you a content author and want as much screen space as possible? I have two hints for you. Firstly, go the the View Tab and uncheck the “Content Tree” checkbox. Once you have done that, double click on any of the tabs and it will hide the ribbon. Pure content author canvas

Stay tuned for the remaining 40!

Thanks,

Tim

26. When you upload an image to the media library you can put a URL into the Upload Image path and it will download the image and put it into the media library for you. This beats downloading the image to your desktop first and then uploading it.

27. To make a field non-searchable in the Sitecore back-end  specipfy the EXCLUDE Text Checkbox on the Field in the data template.

28. When in the Sitecore Login screen (/sitecore)  once you have filled in your username and password, you can double click on an interface to login.

29. If you have the content editor open and you have a node with children highlighted, you can press the <- and -> (arrow keys) to expand and collapse the parent item.

30. Use the upload advanced from the Media Library to upload a zipped file and Sitecore will unpack it for you. Not only this but it will keep the folder structure as well.

31. Want to access the desktop from any browser? Simple, just append this to the end of yourURL once you have logged in /sitecore/shell/default.aspx

32. You can (and should) put the full PATH of a placeholder when entering the presentation layout details e.g. when binding a sublayout to the “content” placeholder (which is a nested placeholder) you should put the full path, starting with a “/” character i.e. “/main/left/content” instead of just “content” – don’t forget the “/” at the start!

33. Drag Applications onto the Desktop from the start menu to have quick links to applications that you use regularly.

33. Right click on Applications on your desktop to change properties such as Icon and Name or remove the icon from you desktop (this won’t remove the application itself)

34. F9 will run the publishing wizard dialog box.

35.Want to be different and have your taskbar at the top of your Sitecore Desktop instead of the bottom? Then change part of the source code in the /sitecore/shell/Applications/Shell.xml file from

<GridPanel>

<Border ID=”Desktop” GridPanel.Class=”scFill” ContextMenu=”ShowContextMenu”>

<Border ID=”Links” DblClick=”Launch”/>

</Border>

<Startbar GridPanel.Class=”scStartbar”/>

</GridPanel>

to

<GridPanel>

<Startbar GridPanel.Class=”scStartbar”/>

<Border ID=”Desktop” GridPanel.Class=”scFill” ContextMenu=”ShowContextMenu”>

<Border ID=”Links” DblClick=”Launch”/>

</Border>

</GridPanel>

36. Holding down Ctrl and dragging an item will copy that item to wherever you drop it instead of moving it.

37. You can actually drag items from the content editor onto the desktop as well and it will open that item in the content editor when you double click on it e.g. Settings.

38. There are MANY more columns available for the Security Editor to allow or deny for site, language read and language write, Site enter, or wildcard (*). Simply click “Columns” button when you are in the security editor to show the other columns.

39. If you select an item, you can delete all its children by clicking the drop down under the Delete button in the Home Tab.

40. Do you know that you can install a package programatically from code behind?

string packageFile = @”path to your Sitecore package”;

TaskMonitor Monitor = new TaskMonitor();

Monitor.Start(new ThreadStart(new AsyncHelper(packageFile, “”).Install));

41. Double Clicking on your license.xml file on the file system now has a style sheet applied to it to make it look nice and pretty! It will show you information on how many concurrent authors you have and what modules you can install.

42. Want to have a place to store Dictionary<String, String> type content items, no worries, one comes out of the box with /sitecore/system/Dictionary

43. Want to play with the Sitecore Media Handler and the parameters? Easy, just paste the link into a browser and then append the paramters to see the genric handler working on the fly e.g. http://demo.sitecoreaustralia.com.au/~/media/Images/Nicam/Spots/are_you_an_advanced_amateur.ashx?w=123

44. When building packages of items and files using the package designer you can use dynamic filters to determine what items and files will be in your package e.g. all items with the work “Australia” in it, or “all items based off the product template”. Use Dynamic Files and Dynamic Items instead of Static Files and Static Items.

45. This is a far stretch, but I have run into developers that have worked with Sitecore for quite a while and were still not aware of the event pipeline system and the fact that you can raise your own custom events as well. Have a look in the web.config in the <events> element to see preexisting events such as item:added, item:saved etc.

46. With Sitecore security, a user will always overwrite any permission set at a role level.

47. If you have something that Sitecore is logging into the log file and you no longer want it to show up you can ask the log4net class to clear it by updating your web.confg accordingly by adding a filter like so within the web.config (this will stop the string “INFO: sitecore/admin has logged in” from being logged into the Sitecore log files.

<log4net>

…

<appender name=”LogFileAppender” type=”log4net.Appender.SitecoreLogFileAppender, Sitecore.Logging”>

…

<filter type=”log4net.Filter.StringMatchFilter”>

<stringToMatch value=”INFO: sitecore/admin has logged in” />

<acceptOnMatch value=”false” />

</filter>

…

</appender>

…

</log4net>

48.  You can validate a Rich Text Editor Field by iteself (without having to do the entire item) by going into the RTE, clicking the “Module Manager” button and click Validate XHTML. There are also some other handy modules here such as HTML View and Statistics on Words and Character counts.

49. Don’t know what all the Rich Text Editor buttons do? Then click the last button in the Rich Text Editor and it gives you help describing every button in the and its functionality.

50.You have a context menu in the Rich Text Editor as well, so use it for pasting, copying etc. Right click on images, flash and media to change properties including building an image map.

That is it for another week. At this rate you are probably thinking of what could possibly be left! Rest assured, there are plenty more hidden features within Sitecore that are yet to be shown and yet to be discovered.

If you have anymore tips and trick, please send them and I will add it to this list.

Hope this helps,

Tim