Category Archives: Development and templating

Publishing Performance of DCPs

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Does publishing a Component linked to many Dynamic Component Templates lead to publishing performance issues?

I recently ran into a scenario where, due to an update to business requirements, I had to change Component Templates from statically embedded to dynamic.  In my case there were 14 different CTs linked to the same Schema.  This means that when 1 Component is published there are 14 Component Presentations being rendered and sent to the Broker.  The question then arose, does this kind of a design lead to publishing performance issues?

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Inside SI4T search integrations : Controlling what gets indexed

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si4t-logoThe open source SI4T (Search Integration for Tridion) project allows you to pass through 3 levels of control over what content gets indexed: Firstly, the default, zero-configuration behaviour. Then there is fine-grained configuration via metadata and parameters, and finally total extensibility by coding your own indexing TBBs. This article talks through how you can refine your indexing strategy by passing through these levels. Continue reading →

ECL event handlers

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illustrationIn my previous post about ECL, I’ve discussed querying ECL Metadata in the Broker, by making it available as part of the Multimedia (stub) Component Metadata. Now in that post I explained how it could be copied at Publishing time and the “evil” twists that process came with. In this post I’ll discuss an optional approach, using the SDL Tridion Event System which makes the process of copying external metadata to (normal) metadata less evil (just the process, not the fact that we do it ;o).

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Client-side Templating with JSON, oData and Angular

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Myself and fellow MVPs Alex Klok, Angel Puntero and Mihai Cadariu came up with an open source framework for Client-side templating during the recent MVP retreat in Portugal. Apart from giving us the chance to mess around with some fairly new technology I like to think that we were putting some solid thought into an area that I expect to see more and more traction in Tridion implementations in the coming couple of years. 

This post talks through my thoughts on why you might want to execute templates in the browser, and describes the elements we pulled together for our framework. Continue reading →

Tridion Language Switcher

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language-switcherSDL Tridion is known for its superior capabilities when it comes to managing multi-lingual websites, and such websites typically have a some kind of a switch to allow switching between languages.  In this article I’ll attempt to explain the concept of setting the Publication Context and how to use Tridion’s Dynamic Linking to allow us not only switch from a site in one language to another, but to do it for any given page on the site.

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The Field Behavior Injection extension or SDL Tridion Behavior Field Framework

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FBI logo During the 2013 SDL Tridion MVP retreat I’ve worked on the FBI extension, also known as the BFF framework. Now some of you might think that all the MVPs do during that event is drink and have fun, which is actually right. The MVPs, love SDL Tridion, they love to code, they like to have fun and they enjoy a drink while they talk. So while at the retreat, they are actually in their natural element since everybody likes the same things and those things are all actually done during their stay (sometimes at the same time). Mind you coding and drinking don’t always mix, liquids dripping out of a laptop is one of the least fun things we actually saw this year.
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Using .NET Resources for localization in UI extensions

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As by now you all have gathered, the annual MVP retreat has started and 16 MVPs are currently hard at work in a castle in Óbidos, Portugal. Our team, is working on what was defined on LinkedIn as Custom Editor Screens, for which we chose the working title Tridion Field Behavior Injection (available as open source on Google code of course).

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Quick TBB – Serialize Component as JSON

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JSON LogoWhile doing some preparation for a hackathon on client-side templating (ie javascript in the browser) on our upcoming SDL Tridion MVP retreat, I created a simple component JSON serializer TBB. This basically takes the TOM.NET Component object and converts it into a JSON format which is friendly for Javascript templating frameworks like Knockout.

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Using Text Fields as HTML Content Areas (Content Porter & inline CSS friendly)

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Recently a client requested that we give them the capability of controlling a pages inner content by allowing them to paste markup into a text field (or possibly a RTF), with the following requirements:

  • Must be Content Porter friendly.
  • Must be able to use Tridion hosted and external multimedia in the markup (including inline CSS), such as images, videos, pdfs etc.
  • Images will be hosted inside and outside of Tridion.
  • Videos will be hosted completely outside of Tridion, although the client would like the ability to host external Video URLs in Tridion.
  • Must be able to use Tridion hosted items in inline styles.
  • Simple to use syntax and interface for the content editors.

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