Paul Sterling's blog

Time to get excited!  If you thought Codegarden08 in Copenhagen was good, wait until you experience Codegarden08 US.  The US version of Codegarden is scheduled to include the same astounding presenters - Niels Hartvig, Per Ploug Hansen, and others.  We have secured a terrific venue at The Illinois Institute of Technology in central Chicago, IL.  The venue is literally just minutes from Midway airport and has it's own train stop for both the Red and Green lines. 

We are working on the Codegarden08 US mini-site and registration forms as I write this and will update this post as soon as they are available.  In the meantime, following are some specifics.

Event Pricing:
Early Bird (By September 1): $475.00
Standard (By September 20): $625.00
Late (By availability only): $775.00

 Discount hotels are available here (mention you're requesting the IIT rate).

By the way, Codegarden08 US is not limited only to US attendees.  We welcome attendees from around the world.  As a bonus for non-US attendees, the US dollar has rarely been weaker and you may find that traveling to Chicago, IL is a terrific bargain.  It's like getting a Codegarden08 US discount!

If you're interested in presenting at Codegarden08 US, please let Douglas Robar know via the contact form on his website.  We're open to all suggestions and presenters get free admission.

Looking forward to seeing you all in Chicago.

-Paul

I assume it's not an uncommon requirement to include multiple instances of a macro in a single template, but I hadn't encountered it until this week.  In this case, a new site design dictated including multiple category listings on a single page.  The problem was that our category listing controls were designed to render a single category listing determined by a query string parameter - though it doesn't look this way due to a Url Rewriting Rule. 

I borrowed a solution put forward by David Conlisk in this forum post termed "Resource Nodes."   In essence what I've done is to create non-visible content nodes to contain the data used by the visible node.  I simply added the properties I needed to the underlying Document Type.  Again, I'm certain this is not an uncommon approach to Umbraco configuration and has the added benefit of providing a consistent model to our site editors.

Following is a snippet from the Template underlying the visible Content node where the Macro parameter resourceNode is of the MediaPicker Data Type and the parameter ResourceNode is of the ContentPicker Data Type.  When adding the Macros to the Template the creator simply selects the relevant Media node (for the Random Image Macro) and Content node (for the Category Listing Macro).

<div class="prodImage">
    <?UMBRACO_MACRO macroAlias="GetRandomImage" resourceNode="2211">
    </?UMBRACO_MACRO>
</div>

    <?UMBRACO_MACRO macroAlias="categoryList" ResourceNode="2545">
    </?UMBRACO_MACRO>

<div class="prodImage">
    <?UMBRACO_MACRO macroAlias="GetRandomImage" resourceNode="1813">
    </?UMBRACO_MACRO>
</div>

    <?UMBRACO_MACRO macroAlias="categoryList" ResourceNode="2543">
    </?UMBRACO_MACRO>

For a straightforward example of a Random Image Macro have a look at this forum post.  Mine is implemented as a .NET User Control, but I think the XSLT solution is a bit more elegant.

From here each Macro (.NET User Controls) retrieves the relevant configuration information from the specified ResourceNode and renders accordingly.  Following is a snippet of the public property definition and usage from the User Control.

...(we create a public property to hold the NodeId)...

       private int resourceNode = -1;

        public int ResourceNode
        {
            get { return resourceNode; }
            set { resourceNode = value; }
        }

...(and then we get the value(s) from the related Node)...

            Node pageNode = new Node(resourceNode);
            categoryID = int.Parse(pageNode.GetProperty
                ("categoryID").Value.ToString());

In this manner I can add any number of instances of the same Macro to a Template and allow site editors to have control over the order and content of each Macro. 

As always, input on a better approach is welcome.

Whew!  The last 5 days have been extremely full and extraordinarily productive.  My head is full of new ideas and items to consider.  The energy and intensity of the Umbraco Core/MVP group is almost overwhelming and the passion for Umbraco and all the possibilities it affords are apparent in the community.

The community response to the newly introduced commercial aspects of Umbraco were surprisingly well received.  The new Umbraco Store is bound to see a stream of product listings in the next several months.  Also, the general response to the current state of the Commerce for Umbraco project was quite positive and we added 3 contributors to the project this week.  That's the best possible outcome I could've hoped for!

Here are a few links to other CodeGarden08 sites:

http://umbraco0008.web05.fab-it.dk/

http://flickr.com/photos/tags/codegarden08/

http://umbraco.org/documentation/books/codegarden-2008

It was an incredible event and I can't wait until next year!

We've wrapped up the Beta1 version of Commerce for Umbraco.  It's ready for your evaluation and/or usage.  Feel free to give it a go!  I paid particular attention to the installer routine since this was one of the most-often cited issues from the preview releases.  While it's far from a one-click install I think you'll find that it's not difficult.  To that end I recorded a 7-minute long screencast of the install process.  You can get it from here (no audio, sorry):

I've also placed it on YouTube but the quality is quite poor.

You can download the latest Commerce for Umbraco release here.

The project's home page remains here.

As always, please let me know directly or create issue at the CodePlex site.

-Paul

The momentum around Umbraco continues to build.  This morning I noticed that Umbraco was number nine in terms of downloads on CodePlex.  Can't wait until the 3.1 release is out!

-Paul

I haven’t written much about my motivation for creating the Commerce for Umbraco project but I think it’s time to highlight one of the core goals for this project. Aside from enabling commerce from with an Umbraco installation, the Commerce for Umbraco project allows the creation of Marketplaces. By Marketplace I mean allowing any number of sellers to offer any number of products via a common interface. (Think Amazon.com marketplace.)

This differs significantly from the single seller model and is (we believe) an area lacking in the open-source space (well, in the commercial space as well). In fact, if you look at the licensing models for most commercial web commerce products you’ll notice that a license typically corresponds to a single domain. If you have five-brands (and five-domains) you’ll need five-licenses.

Commerce for Umbraco is running in the Marketplace scenario at both Homax (googone.com, blackflag.com, gonzocorp.com, etc…) and at the Motus Connect Store (and soon at the Umbraco Store). Obviously the above is two different approaches, but the code base is identical.

We are doing our best to stick to the Beta release of Commerce for Umbraco at Codegarden’08.

-Paul

The latest build (Preview 1, Build 4) of Commerce for Umbraco is nearly ready for (gasp!) Beta.  We've included all the defect corrections (about 250!) we've come across while putting together the Motus Connect Store and also a preview site for Jonas Bohlin of Jobolito. 

Also, we've accomplished a much improved PayPal integration which supports all of the PayPal currencies via either Direct Pay or Express Checkout.  (BTW - I completed my PayPal certification and am now a PayPal Certified Developer!)  Finally, we've further streamlined and further enhanced the checkout routine to catch and recover from more of the most common errors. 

We hope to have Beta 1 ready before Umbraco CodeGarden08 - which gives us just about 5-weeks.  The Beta release will (must) include an Umbraco package to get potential users up and running quickly without having to mess with copying files, running SQL scripts and the like.

As in the past please send us your feedback and/or create an issue on the Code Plex site.

We quietly launched the Motus Connect Store last Friday night (may have actually been Saturday morning unless you're in Hawaii) and then spent the weekend making refinements and working through a quirk with cross-currency payment handling with PayPal.  (Thanks to Graham Rupe from PayPal for help).  As it stands now the store is fully-functional with all the planned security in place and ready for business.    Until we resolve the PayPal cross-currency issue we've opted to offer listed prices only in USD, I fully expect to support our full-list prior to the end of the week.

Over the last two-weeks we've had several vendors sign-up but no actual products listed for sale yet.  So, if you have an Umbraco package, extension, of documentation please create a vendor account and list your products so the Umbraco community can start benefiting.  As I've said previously, having an eco-system of products, vendors, and solution providers is vital to broadening the adoption and further legitimizing Umbraco in the Enterprise.  If you have any questions please send us an email at any of the listed contact addresses and we'll get right back to you - thanks.

Here's the store home page.

Here's a sample product listing.

-Paul

We've completed Phase 1 of the Motus Connect Store for Umbraco and it is now available to anyone in the community who has Umbraco related packages, extensions, components, documents, books, or other digital assets that relate to Umbraco they wish to offer for sale. 

http://store.motusconnect.com/

We've been working over the last four months to refine the concept and approach for the Motus Connect Store and feel we have met our primary objective in keeping it simple.  While we have the purchaser features of the store complete we wanted to hold off just a bit and allow vendors some time to register, investigate the site, and answer any questions that may arise.

The Motus Connect Store will act as a precursor to the 'official' Umbraco Store to be launched at a later date - see the site FAQ for more on this. 

As I've written and mentioned previously, every sale from the Motus Connect Store will include a 10% contribution to the Umbraco Core Team to help support the best open source project on Microsoft .NET.  More than anything, we want to see Umbraco and the Umbraco community succeed in a big way.

Phase 2, which includes the release of the browse, purchase, download feature set is due on or before 18 April 2008 - so stay tuned.

Please send your feedback our way at info@motusconnect.com.

I'd like to offer our sincere gratitude to the Umbraco Core Team for their excellent work on a platform that allows us build out a site like this.  In addition I'd like to thank Chris Cyvas, of dashCommerce, for all his work in keeping dashCommerce going and providing a great starting place for robust web commerce.

-Paul

Now that I have more than a single "webmaster" interacting with the Umbraco Administration UI I've found that the plain-text display of the source in the XSLT, CSS, and Template editors has been a source of some frustration.  Relative to other webmaster tools, such as Visual Web Developer Express, the lack of formatting and highlighting tends to slow-down these folks.  In the course of looking for solutions I came across an older post from Per Ploug Hansen on just this topic.  His solution (originally suggested by Ismail Mayat) is to apply the EditArea editor from Christophe Dolivet to the editXslt.aspx page. 

This has been so well received by my folks that I thought I'd create this simple how-to:

1. Download the EditArea archive here
2. Extract the archive to your Umbraco install
   1. ...<your umbraco root>/umbraco/js/editarea/...
3. Edit the the Umbraco files by adding a reference to the required script as follows in the <head> section
   1. For the XSLT editor:
      1. ...<your umbraco root>/umbraco/developer/editXslt.aspx
      2. <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="../js/editarea/edit_area/edit_area_full.js"></script>
   2. For the Stylesheet editor:
      1. ...<your umbraco root>/umbraco/settings/stylesheet/editstylesheet.aspx
      2. <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="../../js/editarea/edit_area/edit_area_full.js"></script>
   3. For the Template editor:
      1. ...<your umbraco root>/umbraco/settings/editTemplate.aspx
      2. <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="../js/editarea/edit_area/edit_area_full.js"></script>
4. Then, in the <head> of each file add this script:
   1. <script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
      // initialisation
      editAreaLoader.init({
        id: "editorSource" // id of the textarea to transform
        ,start_highlight: true
        ,font_size: "8"
        ,allow_resize: "no"
        ,allow_toogle: false
        ,language: "en"
        ,syntax: "html"  //change to CSS for stylesheets
        ,toolbar: "search, go_to_line, |, undo, redo, |, change_smooth_selection, highlight"
      });
      </script>
5. Save the files, and you're done.

That's it.  I notice a small delay when the pages first load but in this environment, Administration, a bit of a delay is insignificant.

-Paul