Included in the sample site:

• Umbraco 4.7
• Commerce for Umbraco
• Blog 4 Umbraco
• News
• FAQ

Screen Shots:

Files:

Commerce4Umbraco_ExampleSite.zip – Web Files

Commerce4Umbraco_ExampleSite_DB.bak – Database

Commerce4Umbraco_SQLScripts.zip – SQL Creation Scripts (if your cannot restore the backup above)

Setup:

Database:

• Restore the database backup to a SQL Server instance.
• Create a SQL Server user and map it to the new database.  Write down the credentials as it will be entered into the web.config.

Website:

• Unzip the web files to a new directory.
• Edit the web.config and modify all connection strings and umbraco connection info to point to the database and user credentials you just created.
• Setup the new site in IIS.  Make sure its setup to use .Net 4.0.
• Setup the file permissions on disk to allow the new website to modify files on the disk.

Commerce:

• Edit web.config and replace all “commerce4umbraco47.local” with the host binding you used when creating the new website in IIS.
• Edit the \config\commerce\commerce4umbraco47.local.config file and replace all occurrences of “commerce4umbraco47.local” with the host binding you used when creating the new website in IIS.
• Rename the “commerce4umbraco47.local.config” file in the \config\commerce directory to coincide with the host binding you used when creating the new website in IIS.
• Open the site in your local browser!

If you have any questions about the sample site, please comment below!

My favorite fun tool on the site is an XPath Axes Visualizer:

Basically, you can change the current page by clicking the tree, then see what pages would be returned by using the various axes on the bottom-right.  Fun fun!

Of course, the real meat of the site is in the articles.  Check it out!

Other XSLT Resources:

• w3schools.com XSLT Tutorial
• w3schools.com XPATH Tutorial
• XPATH Axes and their Shortcuts
• XSLT and XPATH Quick Reference

Any other XSLT resources you find yourself going back to time and time again?

This is something we generally do in IIS (see How to 301 Redirect example.com to www.example.com in IIS), but sometimes hosts don’t give you access to IIS and you have to make do.

I found and tweaked this from an old forum post (url rewrite for http://domain.com to http://www.domain.com – Thanks Bob!).

1. Go to your “Config” directory in your main Umbraco website directory.

2. Edit the “URLRewriting.config” file in your favorite text editor.

3. Add the following code between the <rewrites>(paste here)</rewrites> tags:

<add name="SEOfix"  virtualUrl="^http\://domain.com/(.*)"
rewriteUrlParameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString"
destinationUrl="http://www.domain.com/$1"
redirect="Domain"
redirectMode="Permanent"
ignoreCase="true" />

<add name="SEOfixSSL"  virtualUrl="^https\://domain.com/(.*)"
rewriteUrlParameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString"
destinationUrl="https://www.domain.com/$1"
redirect="Domain"
redirectMode="Permanent"
ignoreCase="true" />

4. Save the file and test.

That’s it!

This is clearly a very simple solution.  If you want something more robust, then please check out this post from Mike Taylor: URL Rewriting and SEO.  It has some great discussion and is Umbraco-centric despite the title.  Thanks Stefan for the recommendation!

Recently we upgraded an Umbraco 4.0.3 website to Umbraco 4.5.2 and found that the ‘Yet Another Media Picker 4′ package isn’t supported in 4.5.2. Unfortunately, simply selecting Media Picker as the new type isn’t going to work because the YAMP4 stored its media id in the NText field in the database instead of as an Integer.  Yikes!  Database deep dive…here we go!

Luckily, I found a thread from our.umbraco.org where Matt Brailsford and Nik Wahlberg work this issue out for the most part: Media Picker w/ Preview after upgrade

When I got into the thread, it was a bit confusing and it was actually referring to a different package so I thought I’d blog my experience with the conversion process and YAMP here.

1. Backup your database

2. Find the content page properties that have used the YAMP4 to store media and review to make sure it looks good.

SELECT pd.*
FROM cmsPropertyData as pd
inner join cmsPropertyType as pt on pt.id = pd.propertytypeid
inner join umbracoNode as n on n.id = pt.dataTypeId
WHERE n.uniqueID = '9C6A12A7-C7E3-4515-B0E3-5D63B402063E'

3. Copy and cast the dataNtext field to dataInt for those records.  Thanks to Nik for the process on this one.

(BTW, you backed up your database, right?)

UPDATE cmsPropertyData
SET dataInt=CAST(CONVERT(varchar(20),dataNtext) AS INT)
FROM cmsPropertyData as pd
inner join cmsPropertyType as pt on pt.id = pd.propertytypeid
inner join umbracoNode as n on n.id = pt.dataTypeId
WHERE n.uniqueID = '9C6A12A7-C7E3-4515-B0E3-5D63B402063E'

4. Clear the dataNtext field

UPDATE cmsPropertyData
SET dataNtext = null
FROM cmsPropertyData as pd
inner join cmsPropertyType as pt on pt.id = pd.propertytypeid
inner join umbracoNode as n on n.id = pt.dataTypeId
WHERE n.uniqueID = '9C6A12A7-C7E3-4515-B0E3-5D63B402063E'

5. Change the ‘Yet Another Media Picker’ Data Type in the Developer section to use the ‘Media Picker’ as its rendering control.

6. Test your Content pages with images on them and verify everything is working.

You’re done!

Want to know how to create a blog post in Umbraco? Just follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Content” section of Umbraco, find “Blog” under “Home”

2. Right click “Blog” and choose “Create”

3. Enter the title of your post and click “Create”

3a. The post will be automatically placed into the correct date folder in the content tree

4. Enter the content of your blog post

5. Enter tags for your post

6. When you’re done, click “Save and Publish” to get your post on your website

And that’s it! Happy blogging! If you have any questions feel free to ask.

This is a series of notes and what I could cobble together from various Umbraco upgrade articles and sources.  I also found a few issues that weren’t documented by anyone that gave me some grief.  I’ll likely add any 4.7 specific items as well when I get a chance to test this process with that version.

I’ve found that you may want to upgrade from 4.0.x to 4.5.2 then to 4.7 because the upgrade install script didn’t seem to run in the 4.6.1 upgrade I performed.  Basically, the database wasn’t updated properly when I went straight to 4.6.1.

My Notes:

From http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/upgrading-an-umbraco-installation

• Backup DB and Files of existing site
• Create new web site and db for “upgrade” site
• Manually merge web.config for new 4.0 changes to upgrade site (use Beyond Compare)
• Manually merge /config files
  • Remove /bin from xlstExtensions.config
  • Remove /bin/ from restExtensions.config
• Copy Merge these from the 4.6.1 base install on codeplex or 4.7 base code to the new site
  • I have found it better to copy using beyond compare so my packages don’t disappear and any UI.xml or locale changes don’t get lost.  But if you prefer, copy away!
  • /app_data
  • /app_browsers
  • /app_code
  • /bin
  • /data
  • /install
  • /umbraco
  • /umbraco_client
  • default.aspx

• Republish the content
  • From the Content section/folder in Umbraco
  • Or: http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/publishing-and-republishing

Other upgrade notes:

• Verify your /umbraco/config/create/UI.xml still has your custom items in it.  It may have been over-written by the copy above.

http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/about/roadmap/umbraco-45/upgrading-to-umbraco-45

• Delete App_global.asax.dll
• Verify “UseLegacyXmlSchema” element in umbracoSettings.config is set properly (false if no XSLT conversion has been done)
• Go to http://www.yourupgradesite.com/install/
  • Go through the upgrade install script

http://www.littlewebempire.com/blog/2010/10/29/update-umbraco-from-4021-to-452

• You may need to add the Media Recycle bin to the UmbracoAppTree and UmbracoNode tables in the DB

• Verify the \App_Data\TEMP\ClientDependency folder has stuff in it.  Delete anything in the folder and reload the website

Package Upgrades / Changes

• Copy old /data/packages/ folder contents to /App_Data/Packages/

Then you need to test that your packages work and are compatible with this latest version.  Here is a place to start: http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/packaging/umbraco-45-compatibility/umbraco-45-package-testing

Articles that may be helpful for package issue:

• Fix ‘Yet Another Media Picker 4′ For Upgrade From Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.5.2

Umbraco 4.7 Additions:

• There are quite a few dlls to remove to keep your XSLT working.  This forum article was VERY helpful in identifying the specific URLs to remove: XSLT macros not getting rendered after upgrading to 4.7 RC
  • Remove:
    • Iron*.dll (all dlls in your /bin directory starting with “Iron”, like IronPython.dll and IronRuby.dll)
    • Microsoft.Scripting*.dll
    • Microsoft.Dynamic.dll
    • umbraco.macroEngines.legacy.dll
    • RazorEngine.Core.dll
    • RazorEngine.Templates.dll
    • VistaDB*.dll
    • I’ll add more if they are mentioned…
    • From comments:
    • umbraco.standardFormhandlers.dll

That’s it so far.  Please feel free to add anything you needed to do.  I’ll edit as I find further issues.

Commerce for Umbraco (C4U) has two custom creation dialogs for the Coupons and the Products. In Umbraco 4.0.x the dialog was closed after creation of the coupon/product and the tree refreshed by injecting the following javascript:

if (returnUrl == "") {
Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this.GetType(), "refresh", "<script>\ntop.reloadCurrentNode();\ntop.closeModal();</script>");
}
else {
Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this.GetType(), "refresh", "<script type=\"text/javascript\">\ntop.reloadCurrentNode();\ntop.right.location.href = '" + returnUrl + "';\ntop.closeModal();</script>");
}

However, this didn’t work in 4.5.2. I always thought this was a bit hacky, and although the code is probably actually doing the same thing the new way looks cleaner:

BasePage.Current.ClientTools
.ChangeContentFrameUrl(returnUrl)
.ChildNodeCreated()
.CloseModalWindow();

You will need to use the following namespaces as well:

using umbraco.cms.helpers;
using umbraco.BasePages;

So that is how you close and refresh a custom create dialog in your custom admin tree in Umbraco 4.5.2.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

ProWorks Redirect Page v1.03

****** UPDATE: ******

The dll now supports 301 Redirects.  After installing the new dll, you will need to refresh your Macro parameters.  There is a new property on the UserControl called “Is301Redirect”.  If true, then the redirect will be a 301 redirect.

Please download the new dll and copy it to your “bin” directory.

PWUrlRedirect_WithPermanentRedirect

***********************

This package allows you to redirect to an external URL or internal page using the standard umbracoRedirect method.  Simply create a PWRedirectPage in your content tree and select an item from the content tree or URL.

This package creates a new document type called PWRedirectPage.  It includes the standard umbracoRedirect using the content picker as well as a URL redirect to an exact location.

In addition, there is a PWRedirectPage template with the .NET macro for URL redirection on it.  This allows you to redirect to any URL.

Pretty simple, but I had a need, so enjoy!

Oh yeah baby!

It was quite a trip to Seattle the last couple days, with Gary and Rob, to get our level one Umbraco certification and become one of the few Umbraco solution providers in North America. I’ve gone through the crash-course with Jason already, and created about seven websites with it, and gathered a working knowledge of Umbraco that’s quite enough to get any Designer in trouble. But now, after having gone through the course headed by Paul Sterling, an Umbraco Evangelist for North America, I know how to do things right and without having to ask for (as much) help.

We started off getting familiar with Document Types, which are the building blocks of an Umbraco site. Then we moved into Templates, which organize the presentation of data and content. We followed the booklet that took us through CSS, XSLT, Macros, Packages, and other Umbraco functions that went beyond the basics.

Yeah, I knew most of it at the beginning and was enjoying the review on how to create Document Types and make Master / Sub-Master Templates and hook up the CSS. But then we got into stuff I’d never done before like create a multilingual site, use Dictionary Items to translate bits of text, create a FAQ with a Contour form for submitting questions, and add a Search Engine to name a few.

I think that installing and working with Packages such as Contour Forms and Runway Search was the most valuable part of the course for me. Those were tasks that I’d known about but never really done before, so I’m glad to have a better handle on those now. Umbraco makes it really easy to manage some of these third-party applications.

This course has been really valuable for me and ProWorks, as my understanding of Umbraco now allows me a greater range in putting websites together. As a team we can do just about any web project imaginable I’m sure!

Has anyone made level two certification? Should I go for that? Should any designer be allowed to go that far??

• BySet()
• ByUserAndTag()
• ByUserWithPaging()
• ByGroupWithPaging()
• ByFreeTextWithPaging()
• ByTagWithPaging()
• ByUserAndTagWithPaging()

It also has been tested in Umbraco 4.5 and Umbraco 4.0.x

The original documentation has been updated and is located here: Flickr API Search Package for Umbraco

The Umbraco Package page is here: Flickr API Search – XSLT Extension

Enjoy and please vote up if you like this package!