Attributes of Information Ramblings

You can classify the value of the information by asking some questions of it. The acronym CRATA describes five values, Complete, Relevant, Accurate, Timely, and Accessible (I have yet to hear the phrase, “Is your data CRATA?”).

In addition to CRATA, I have seen two additional values used, Objective and Understandable. I struggled with Objective until I considered the definition, “not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice” at Dictionary.com. Fair enough!

Sitecore in two minutes

The Sitecore content tree represents a database. Everything in the tree is an item and the data model for each item is called a template.

ASP.NET code is used to create layouts and sublayouts. A layout is an aspx file that behaves like an ASP.NET masterpage. Typical layouts are One Column Layout, Two Column Layout and Print Layout which equate to a header and footer with a content area, header and footer with a content area and side bar, and a cut down print layout.

Sublayouts are the smaller coded components that make up a page. Examples include the main navigation menu, recent news items, sidebar tag cloud etc. These components could be modular and able to be moved or they can be fixed within the location of layouts.

You write ASP.NET code to make controls and to access data to populate the templates on each item. If your page has a title tag, your code would access the field “Title Tag” from the template (template is the data model for the item).

There are two ways to code. One uses the Sitecore Developer Center that lets you create layouts and sublayouts – this is like using Visual Studio in Design Mode. The other way uses Visual Studio to build the layouts/sublayouts and point to them in the section of the Sitecore tree called Layouts. Each layout and sublayout item has a path that maps to either an aspx or ascx file respectively. The layout and sublayout items are then used via the Presentation > Details tabs for each item in Sitecore.

You can also use XSLT files to generate HTML from database items however you are not afforded the luxury of debugging. XLST files are called Renderings by Sitecore and are also referenced in the Layout section of the Sitecore tree.

Tight internal cohesion and loose external coupling

I know the philosophy but forget the mantra – “tight internal cohesion” and “loose external coupling” – it’s clearer if you apply your thinking to glue not code.

C# ASP.NET Access to Salesforce Web Service

The traditional approach to accessing a web service in Salesforce is via the webs services API. There is another way, albeit unauthenticated.

1. In Salesforce, build your web methods in a Global Class
2. In Develop –> Apex classes, find the new class and generate the WSDL
3. Create new Windows .NET App and add a button. In the code behind make it so:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{


string txtReturnWS;

System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;

WebReference1.HelloWorldService objProxy = new WebReference1.HelloWorldService();

objProxy.Url = “http://xxx.force.com/forms/services/Soap/class/helloWorld”;

try

{

txtReturnWS = objProxy.GetMessage();

textBox1.Text = txtReturnWS;

}


catch (Exception ex)

{


string message = ex.Message;

}

}

Sitecore 6.2 – CryptographicException file not found

If you get this error after upgrading your Sitecore project to VS2010 remember to set the Target Framework back to 3.5 under the Project Properties.

The failure occurred in the Sitecore.SecurityModel.License.LicenseManager class.

Missing Meeting Requests in Outlook

I was missing meeting requests in my Calendar after accepting them (usually from GoToMeeting). The problem was the detail level in the calendar – see the top of each image below. In switching detail, I would not expect the content to go away. Spot the difference below:

Last year I was convinced I broke TradeMe after bidding furiously at the end of an auction then being presented with the “out of action” page. Needless to say, I didn’t win. TradeMe must be getting worse because now all I have to do it Watch List an item and it breaks.

Back to Ascent Technology

Call me old fashioned (and many do) but with the demise of New Zealand’s Pricespy, I am headed back to Ascent. It looks like the days of super fast price comparison are over – at least until someone else starts screen scraping vendors sites and rendering the data in a clear way.

And on Pricespy, In am constantly amazed at peoples ability to screw things up – take what seems to be a winning idea and mangle it. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!

Venting completed – feeling better – over and out.

Page events not firing in Sitecore sublayout

If your nested Button or Linkbutton does not fire its associated OnRowEditing, OnRowCommand or other code behind event, you need to add the name of the parent container to the  “typesThatShouldNotBeExpanded” section in the Web.Config. Just like this:

<!– RENDERING –>
<rendering>
<typesThatShouldNotBeExpanded>
<type>System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater</type>
<type>System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataList</type>
<type>System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridView</type>
</typesThatShouldNotBeExpanded>
</rendering>

S4S – Sitecore for Salesforce

So we built a product on a whim and made a good job of it. But S4S is turning out to be really powerful – and companies across the world are coming up with brilliant ways to use it. I guess I should not be so surprised; we all carry 8Gb flash drives in our pockets. But how about this:

1. The Salesforce Lead form is given an extra dropdown field called “Profile”.
2. From Salesforce, the lead is sent an email with the login credentials to the Sitecore CMS site
3. After logging into the site, the content is completely personalised according to the selection made in Salesforce Lead Profile field.

Now how good is that!