by Marcus Stenbeck 6.November 2007 16:52
So you've got a fresh and steaming installation of SiteWorks right in front of you with an eager website already set up. Ready to get pampered with all that beautiful design you've finally perfected.
But... how do you start? Read on, my friend. Help has arrived.
What you want to do first is to make sure that there is in fact a theme folder in the App_Themes directory. If not, then create one and remember what you called it... and don't get funky with the characters - we want to keep this simple. I suggest you arrange your styles like we do at Mindfly (link). Basically what you want in the App_Themes directory is a folder for you theme. This is where your CSS style sheets go, and I suggest you create an "images" folder in your newly created theme-folder for organizational purposes.
Log in to the admin area of SiteWorks, gaze upon the sweet, sweet eyecandy in front of you until you find a tab called "Websites." Now click it. Then click on "edit" for the site you want to start working on (Note: You have to already have a site set up prior to this step ). Click on "Presentation" and scroll down to "ASP.NET Themes." Type in the name of the folder you created in your App_Themes directory - Yes, it has to be EXACTLY the same. Click add, and behold... Zing - your style should show up on the bottom of the page.
Now you've created a theme that you can use in SiteWorks, but don't give yourself that congratulatory pat on the back yet. You want your site to use it, right? Yeah? Then read on!
What you need to do in order for your website to use the style you created you have to click on the "Manager" tab on the top. Select the root of your website and let your eyes wander to the far left column. Under the "Set Global Site Theme," pick the theme you just created and click "Save." Without further hesitation, please celebrate your success at creating a theme for your SiteWorks website!
PS. If you want to be all cool and have different themes for every single page you can do that too - just click on an individual page in your SiteWorks website, scroll down to the bottom part of the left hand column, and change the "Page Theme" from "None" to the theme of your choice. This causes the page to ignore the default global theme you set in the website root. Remember to save your setting before jumping off to the front end to see the change!
Happy styling,
Marcus
by Rusty Swayne 30.October 2007 10:26
Last night I added a HttpHandler that generates a sitemap following the Sitemaps XML format commonly used by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, amongst others. This first run at the sitemap simply creates a list of every MF.SiteWorks.Core.BLL.Node object within a given website (root_id queried by host header) meets the following criteria:
Properties of the Node object
- display = 1
- expired = 0
- archived = 0
- template = 0
- PublishDate <= DateTime.Now()
- node_type_id = NodeType.Webpage
The HttpHandler is exposed through a new reference in the web.config file as shown here.
<httpHandlers>
<add verb="*" path="sitemap.axd" type="MF.SiteWorks.Core.HttpHandlers.SiteMap" validate="false" />
</httpHandlers>
I also recommend adding a sitemap reference to the robots.txt file in the web root.
sitemap: http://[domainname]/sitemap.axd
You can also add a reference to this url to a Google account directly once you log in.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview
by Rusty Swayne 29.October 2007 11:54
Instead of embedding an api key into each componet, last night I elected to create an APIKey configuration section in the web.config file accessible through the SiteWorksSection configuration class. This way every component/module added to SiteWorks by Mindfly will have access to the actual api keys instead of having to repeat them in the individual component settings collections as was done previously.
I patched the only compiled control that uses a remote api internally (MF.SiteWorks.Core.Web.CommentDetailsControl.ascx uses Akismet spam checking) to reference the new configuration section.
Older installations should have this section created and the Akismet key moved (if used) prior to publishing the MF.SiteWorks.Base.dll and MF.SiteWorks.Core.Web.dll.
by Kyle Weems 15.October 2007 14:27
The global static content master is used in most SiteWork installations as a location to add controls via the page editor that are then referenced via other controls placed in the various pages of your site. As such, selecting it for use as a page's template would be like unleashing a hideous, cthuluoid horror upon your website.