One of the things that developers new to the SDL Tridion templating language struggle with is the creation of web-page layouts that are built up using rows and columns of content. I hope this short post shows a simple way to built this logic into your SDL Tridion layouts.
I was recently asked by a customer how they could pass some additional information to dynamic links (in this case, adding query string parameters to resolved component links). Easy I said, just extend the Tridion.ContentDelivery.Web.UI.ComponentLink web control, add a property for the parameters, and ensure this is added to the resolved link URL. I had in fact recommended this approach several times before, however I never actually implemented it myself. It was not quite as straightforward as I had expected, so this post shows you some code to get this done if you face a similar requirement.
I came across a requirement recently that needed a page to be published automatically when any component on it completed workflow. Here are some pointers if you need to do this as well. Â Note, this tip is based on Tridion 2009, however, the lessons provided here may also apply to Tridion 2011.
Nickoli previously wrote a post introducing Context Variables, with nice Custom Functions to get and set them from your Dreamweaver Templates. Â This post discusses the scope of Context Variables, and how that leads to other useful applications like caching.
If you’re following the SDL Tridion guidelines for implementing the new UI within your compound page templates (Link – Note log-in required) you’ll notice that you need to specify the URL of your CME enviroment. As this value is required on each page template that will utilize UI functionality, this could be a bit of a pain to manage once you migrate your templates between different environments (Development, QA, Production etc). It doesn’t need to be, here is a simple solution to make content porting and migration easier to work with.
Back in February I posted an article about Custom Resolvers. Yesterday I rolled my first Custom Resolver into a production environment, so I figured it was time to share my findings.
To set the scene, it probably helps to explain the business requirements first. We have a large implementation with over 300 publications. Many of these share content, some of which needs to be secured, and links to binaries that also need to be secured. We have a third party security solution, which is implemented as a proxy on top of our published site. The proxy looks for a security.xml in the folder of any request, and then prompts for login etc depending what is contained in the XML file. This works very well for pages, but the pages often link to binaries (which were all contained in the “/images†directory for each publication). In order to secure binaries with different sets of restrictions we needed to bind the binaries in different Structure Groups. To simplify the concept, we decided to publish a variant of each binary linked from a page to the same Structure Group as the page. This has the desired effect of securing all binaries that are linked from secured pages with the same restrictions. When a binary is linked from multiple secured pages, multiple variants of the binary are published. Continue reading
After you have been developing with SDL Tridion for a while, its easy to be a bit blasé about Schemas. Thats the easy bit right? Bung a few fields in, mandatory or not? multi-value? Configure the RTF fields a bit and off we go… on to the tricky parts: templates, integrations with 3rd party systems, automation etc. etc.
Making a schema is so simple that it is easy to forget how complex good schema design is. In this article I hope to bring a reminder to implementors of all levels of ability just what makes good schema design.Â
The SDL Tridion MVPs were chatting on Skype last week, and the subject of workflow came up. One MVP told us he was working on a particularly interesting workflow challenge, and another shared the fantastic one-liner “Rule #1 for SDL Tridion Workflow: Don’t do itâ€.
Now based on my last post “Welcome back SDL Tridion Workflow†I thought it would be interesting to take a look at why so few clients implement SDL Tridion’s workflow solution for managing their content. After all, I bet 9 out of 10 clients list workflow as a feature in RFIs when making their WCM selection shortlists. Continue reading
Over the last two weeks, I have had the privilege of spending a lot of time with some of the R&D folks at SDL who are working on the forth coming releases of their world beating WCM platform SDL Tridion. At both SDL Innovate 2012 and SDL Tridion HQ in Amsterdam this week, there has been a lot of talk about “bundlesâ€. Now I can’t really tell you anything about bundles per se (because I really don’t know the details), but from what I hear “it will be the revolution of SDL Tridion Workflow†which has been the thorn in many a consultant and customer’s side since R4. The biggest feature of the new workflow offering will be grouping items together into “Bundlesâ€, allowing you to process complete work packages through a workflow process instead of just a single Page or Component. Continue reading
Please see below slides for the discussion we hope to have initiated in the Community Webinar held on the 14th March 2012.
Essentially, as a wise man once noted, there are as many ways of rendering navigation as there are Tridion Consultants… The purpose of this discussion is for us, as a community, to share and discuss our experiences.
Please feel free to post links to blogs with specific examples but ideally here we would have more of a discussion of why we would choose one method over another (implementation timescales, environment, editor requirements etc.) and whether, on reflection, previous decisions would be the same…
Let’s talk….