Resources for Webinar “MVVM & Validation using Kendo UI in Web Applications”

On May 30 we conducted a webinar titled ”MVVM & Validation using Kendo UI in Web Applications”. We had around 600+ registrations for this webinar. We were very excited that many of you felt that the topic is an interesting one. So we are thankful to all of you who made it to the webinar. Hope you found the webinar useful and that it will be helpful in your day to day work.

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Slide deck from the webinar:

If you missed attending the webinar, here is a chance to recap it through the slides. Here is the slide deck if you want to download:

Video Recording of webinar:

Many of you had asked if the webinar was recorded. Yes we do record all our webinars and here is the recording of this webinar. Hope this gives you a chance to catch up with the webinar:

Questions & Answers:

Many of you had a lot of questions during the webinar. We did try our best to answer many of them. So we are making sure that we address each one of them through this post. Here are the questions asked during the webinar and answers for the same:

Q: I am a .Net/Silverlight developer. What is the Usage of Kendo UI

A: Kendo can be used to develop HTML 5 apps. More details at: http://www.kendoui.com

Q: Can we use Kendo UI for Windows mobile or only for Androids?

A: Kendo UI Web can be used for Web App development. Kendo UI Mobile controls can be used for developing Hybrid Mobile Apps for multiple platforms i.e. iOS, Android, BB, WP8

Q: Can we use the Kendo UI using C# using .net ?

A: Kendo UI Web & DataViz provide server side wrappers for ASP.NET MVC. So you can program with your comfort of C# & Razor.

Q: Can we develop the Kendo Mobile Project on visual studio IDE, right?

A: Yes you can. Since its just a couple of stylesheet and  javascript, you can always use any editor of your choice. For Hybrid Mobile Application development we also have a cloud based IDE called Icenium – www.icenium.com

Q: By Kendo UI we can create widget – like calender, grid etc

A: Yes you can, though it is only one of its capabilties. Kendo UI Web already provide close to 20+ widgets out of the box. The demos for the available widgets can be found at: http://demos.kendoui.com/web/overview/index.html

Q: Is Kendo UI support all the browsers currently available?

A: We support the following – Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox ESR, Chrome, Safari 5+, and Opera 11+.

Q: Is it mandatory to use MVVM with Kendo UI?

A: No it is not. Kendo UI does support MVVM if you need it.

Q: Is Kendo UI a free version

A: No, Kendo is a paid product. You can

Q: So what is the next roadmap for Kendo?

A: Available here: http://www.kendoui.com/roadmap.aspx

Q: Does Icenium stores my code in a cloud based storage?

A: Yes. It does. The code is stored in Telerik servers. If you do not like our cloud, you can get a GitHub account and integrate Icenium with GitHub.

Q: Is Kendo UI like knockout.js, etc.,?

A: Knockout,js is a JavaScript library for supporting databinding on client side. Where as Kendo UI is a framework which supports the data binding out of the box. So you don’t need any extra library to support databinding and Kendo UI is the only thing you need.

Q: Can it run out of the browser?

A: it runs in the browser only. the browser can be on desktop or on mobile.

Q: So, If I use Kendo UI reference then we do not have to explicitly use jQuery.js reference?

A: Kendo UI depends on JQuery. So you will need to first reference JQuery and then Kendo UI scripts.

Q: In what all flavors(commercial) is Kendo available?

A: Details available here: http://www.kendoui.com/purchase.aspx. You can contact us at sales@telerikindia.com in case you want to make a purchase for yourself / organization.

Q: Does Kendo UI has specific framework for mobile ?

A: One part of Kendo UI known as Kendo UI Web is geared for mobile: http://www.kendoui.com/mobile.aspx

Q: What is this Kendo UI Framework, key points?

A: Marketing folks have done a good job and the features are provided here: http://www.kendoui.com/

Q: Can we use MVVM pattern in normal Asp.net web application?

A: Sure you can, using JavaScript.

Q: So what’s more beneficial to use KENDO UI rather than other available UI tool

A: 1. It is a fully integrated framework (data, UI, MVVM, charts, mobile) 2. Works better 3. Is continuously updated 4. Fully supported.

Q: Which all .Net framework version does Kendo UI supports?

A: Kendo UI Web is server technology obnoxious. Kendo UI is a HTML5 based client side framework. All you need is 2 stylesheet and a JavaScript. But we do provide Server Side Wrappers for ASP.NET MVC 3+.

Q: Does older versions of Visual Studio supports Kendo UI?

A: JavaScript API of Kendo can be used with any IDE (older versions of VS or Eclipse or Notepad)

Q: If i want by pass MVVM and use standard approach / does it support that , What is the licensing model with Kendo?

A: You can use Kendo UI without MVVM as well. MVVM is available in case you need it. Licensing is on a per developer basis.

Q: After getting product, is there any charge for support or maintenance from Kendo UI team?

A: The licenses are perpetual in nature. If you want product updates and support from the team, you have to maintain an active subscription by paying a renewal fee.

Q: Can we update the theme?

A: Yes. By simply changing the CSS file. And you can create your custom themes as well.

Q: Does Kendo UI has dependency on jQuery?

A: The only dependency Kendo UI has is that on JQuery and nothing else.

Q: Kendo provides any database also ?

A: No. Data has to be available over a Web Service. Kendo provides a client side data connectivity solutions.

Q: So after getting this product, is any training or demo free from kendo team?

A: A good getting started tutorial is available as Kendo Dojo: http://www.kendoui.com/dojo.aspx You can also request training from the product team as a paid activity.

Q: For email field, can we place two messages, suppose one for mandate entry and another for the format, ex: email is required and invalid email format?

A: Yes you can. you can use data-email-msg format to provide a message when email format fails.

Q: where can I view the old videos?

A: Telerik India Webinar resources: https://telerikhelper.net/category/webinars/. More Videos at: http://tv.telerik.com

Q: Definitely Kendo UI reduces the development effort. Can you quantify? How much it will reduce ?

A: We estimate this to be in the range of 20-30%.

Q: Does kendo use Knockoutjs for MVVM?

A: Nope. Kendo has its is own framework for MVVM. Doesn’t use KO.

Q: can we access server objects like sessions and application variables using Kendo?

A: No. Because Kendo UI is a client side framework.

Q: Do i need to download anything to use Kendo UI in VS2010?

A: Kendo UI can be used in 2 ways. Pure JavaScript way – for which you will  need the stylesheet and JavaScript. We provide Server Side Wrappers for ASP.NET MVC 3+. That will let you code Kendo UI from server side.

Q: More specific to Kendo UI : Does it take advantage of HTML5?

A: Kendo UI is based on HTML5 based. So we make use of HTML5 features to the core.

Q: How do we integrate web services in REST based calls in Kendo UI data binding?

A: Kendo UI has a feature known as Data Source. So this data source can be configured with CRUD endpoints and rest of the things will be done by the data source.

.NET Ninja T-Shirt Giveaway:

If you have been following our webinars you will know by now that we have been raffling out 2 .NET Ninja T-Shirts in each of our webinar. So we pick the following two people to receive our t-shirt for this webinar:

  • Mirang Parikh
  • Mohanrao Theeda

Congratulations to the winners. We will be contacting you shortly with the email you have provided. We will be shipping you your t-shirt. Rest of you folks don’t worry, we still have many more webinars to come. So make sure you attend without fail.

Till next time, Happy coding.

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Revamping Web Applications: Upgrading to RadListView

We have finished the ORM deployment with our previous post. Now we are ready to start migrating the default controls to Telerik controls. In this post we will take a look at converting asp:ListView to telerik:RadListView and we would learn about telerik:RadDataPager which will replace the asp:DataPager.

Add RadListView

For this exercise we will take Directory page from our Event Networking application. Remove the existing ListView control and add a RadListView control from the Telerik AJAX Components.image

Note: After adding the control rename the ID property same as your asp:ListView ID property. We might see an error because the underlying type has changed. The error occurs because initially the same id was linked to asp:ListView. The error will eventually disappear. Again, we need to first remove the already existing methods defined for the ListView from the aspx.cs i.e. codebehind page. Now copy the rest of the properties from ListView. We need to add the property DataKeyNames to our RadListView. Now we copy all the templates from asp:ListView.

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If you run the application RadListView should have been populated by the data, as the data binding has already been handled at the Page_Load event (explained in our previous blog <Hyperlink>).

Your data is now populated but currently there is no paging option. To provide paging add the property AllowPaging=”true” to RadListView.

Add Event Handler to RadListView

To add an event, type the name of the event and click <Create New Event>. So add an event handler for OnItemCreated. We are using this event to populate the pictures of each attendee.

We had the following code under asp:ListView event:

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Lets tweak the existing code for the RadListView:

NOTE: Do not forget to add “using Telerik.Web.UI;” in your aspx.cs

protected void directoryListView_ItemCreated(object sender, RadListViewItemEventArgs e)
 {
var item = e.Item as RadListViewDataItem;
if (item != null)
{
var userId = item.GetDataKeyValue("UserId").ToString();
var u = (from x in uu
where x.UserID == int.Parse(userId)
select x);
if (u.Count() != 0)
{
((Image)e.Item.FindControl("ProfileImage")).ImageUrl = u.First().URL;
}
 }
 }

Add RadDataPager

If you use ASP pager, you only have the numeric option. But using RadDataPager gives you lot more option.
imageimage

The main aim is to get a better UX and hence we replace asp:DataPager with telerik:RadDataPager. We changed the following properties PagedControlID=”directoryListView” and PageSize=”15″. Next we add a field and within it we insert the <telerik:RadDataPagerSliderField /> . This provides us a natural gesture to slide through various pages.

To do it declaratively switch to Design view and select the RadDataPager. Then expand the smart-tag and change the PagedControlID and the Pager Mode to NextPrevNumericAndAdvanced. This would allow users to do more than just select the page numbers.

Error Explanation

But if we had copied the same code to our RadListView item created event it throws following error:

‘Telerik.Web.UI.RadListViewItem’ does not contain a definition for ‘DataItem’ and no extension method ‘DataItem’ accepting a first argument of type ‘Telerik.Web.UI.RadListViewItem’ could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

This occurs because the “e” defines the event argument which at runtime has type RadListViewDataItem but has RadListViewItem at compile time. Hence we need to explicitly need to typecast it into RadListViewDataItem and then we can use it in a similar way.

Why Change it after all:

In case of customisation RadListView gives us far better UX and functionality.

The dataPager is static for ASP control whereas we have many more features and modes in which we can operate while using RadDataPager varying from just numeric pagers to smooth sliders gesture.

The following image gives us an overview of how the ASP control looked. And in the following image we can the great UX and the additional features available with us.

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Read- Revamping Web Applications Part-9: Working with RadWindows & Converting GridView to RadGrid

Revamping Web Applications: Adding DAL (Data Access Layer) Part 2

Following the previous post – Revamping Web Applications part 5: Adding DAL (Data Access Layer)

After the Data Access Layer (DAL) has been implemented by moving the ORM into a new project, there would be further errors experienced in our web application. This happens because of two reasons:

  1. Initially, LINQ data source was used which is now no longer used.
  2. The ORM which we have implemented here is Open Access, and syntax to implement CRUD operations are different from that of LINQ.

Hence, we need to change all the LINQ CRUD operations, and the following snippets explains the same. The commented line was the LINQ operation and the non-commented part is the new Open Access syntax. For further knowledge on implementing Open Access CRUD operation click here. \

imageimage

After replacing the LINQ commands we still might see few more errors such as:

Error 1image

Then it has occurred because we have converted the Linq to SQL to Open Access ORM. Hence, the control LinqDataSource will not help us map it to the new ORM.image

Since we have removed the Linq Data Source so we have to also remove the existing LinqDataSource and create a new DataSource.

Solution #1

We can use an OpenAccess DataSource control replacing the LINQ DataSource and keep the same ID. Hence, no more effort is needed.

Solution #2

More preferred practice in the industry is to remove the DataSource control and do the following:

We added the following code under the Page_Load event. We created a DataTable and then linked the DataSource property of the DropDownList with the newly created DataTables.
This helps in insulating the data. We also need to remove the DataSource property from the controls where we had linked to the Linq DataSource.

if (User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
int userid = (from uid in ndx.UserProfiles
where uid.Username == User.Identity.Name
select uid.UserId).First();
// Storing the value of the userid in a hidden variable
loggedUserId.Value = userid.ToString();
}

MasterData.getMasterData();
ds = Context.Cache["masterdata"] as DataSet;
if (ds != null)
{
DataTable dtcity = ds.Tables["CityMaster"];
DataTable dtcountry = ds.Tables["CountryMaster"];

if (!IsPostBack)
{
citySearchDropDown.DataSource = dtcity;
citySearchDropDown.DataTextField = dtcity.Columns["CityName"].ColumnName;
citySearchDropDown.DataValueField = dtcity.Columns["CityID"].ColumnName;
citySearchDropDown.DataBind();

countryDropDown.DataSource = dtcountry;
countryDropDown.DataTextField = dtcountry.Columns["CountryName"].ColumnName;
countryDropDown.DataValueField = dtcountry.Columns["CountryID"].ColumnName;
countryDropDown.DataBind();
}
}

How to Add telerik:OpenAccessDataSource

    1. Drag the OpenAccessDataSource tool under the OpenAcces group.image
    2. You will have something like this in the design view.image
    3. Click on “Configure Data Source…”
      Here we are asked to save changes to our items. Click Yes.
    4. Choose the data context for your application and click next.image
    5. Choose the table you want to retrieve from the database and click finish.image
    6. We also rename the ID as same as the asp:LinqDataSource so that there is no name-conflict anywhere else in our application. Now your code will look like this.
<telerik:OpenAccessDataSource ID="badgeLDS" runat="server"
ObjectContextProvider="EventNetworking.Data.NetworkingDataContext, EventNetworking.Data"
TypeName="EventNetworking.Data.Badge">
</telerik:OpenAccessDataSource>

Where “Badge” is our table-name.

Note: We have not used OpenAccessDataSource anywhere because it takes direct dependency from the OpenAccess.

Error 2

Another Runtime error you may encounter is over the DataBind property.

This occurs because LINQ sends the data as a list but now since we are using OpenAccess the data returned is in the form of iEnumerable and hence we need to convert it to a List explicitly.

Solution

It can be solved by simply adding the ToList() property to the DataSource.

directoryListView.DataSource = users.ToList();

Read-Revamping Web Applications Part-8 : Upgrading to RadListView

Revamping Web Applications: Adding DAL (Data Access Layer)

Read – Revamping Web Applications part 5: Proposed Enhancements

As a part of following best practice we need to separate the data access from our existing project. Here, we talk about how we create an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) and create a separate DAL.

Prerequisites

  1. Remove any Projects which might be unavailable.
  2. We must reconfigure our Connection String to the localhost within Web.Config file.
  3. Any connections to the TFS server shall be currently closed, because our development will be focused initially on local server.
  4. Build the Solution and execute it to check for any errors exist prior to the changes.

To begin with the process we add a class library to the existing EventNetworking (EN) web application.

  1. In the Solution Explorer tab, right click on ‘Solution’ and Add -> New Project
  2. Create a new ‘Class Library’ and name it “EventNetworking.Data”imageMake sure to change the target framework similar to the same version as the existing project. This is a very common mistake that a developer encounters.
  3. Right click on EventNetworking.Data->Properties. In our case we need to change the Target framework to 4.5Next we need to add an App.Config file and set the “ConnectionStrings”.
    We might get the following Output when adding the App.Config
    “Could not parse the configuration file. The error message is: ‘Could not find file ‘D:\Telerik\ZipFiles\EventNetworkCS\EventAdmin\Web.config’.’. Try editing the file manually and then saving it.”
    We should copy the connection string from Web.Config file of the existing project.
    Once we have done that, we again need to go to the Properties of new project and check the “Settings” tab to see if the connection string has been validated.
  4. Now we will transfer the existing data layer file to our new project. Transfer the “Networking.dbml” from “EventNetworking” project to EventNetworking.Data. DBML stands for DataBase Markup Language. The DBML file represents the data model for a LINQ to SQL project – it’s used to generate the C# code for the various entities. And build the “EventNetworking” project to get a list of errors. These errors have occurred because we have moved the DBML file to another project.
  5. To resolve the above errors, first we need to add a reference to the EN project.
    Right click the “EventNetworking” and Add Reference -> Projects -> Select “EventNetworking.Data”. image
    Next, we will have to refactor the code as all the data links have been shifted from its current location to a new project. clip_image001
    Select “using EventNetworking.Data;” for all such errors.
    Rebuild the project to remove errors depending on the above dependency.
  6. We create a new class within “EventNetworking.Data” named “ENData.cs” and copied all the dependent files from “Utilities.cs” within “EventNetworking”.
    We also have to add references in the project for the following assemblies:

    using System.Data.Services.Client;
    using System.Data.Entity;

    image

  7. Remove Utilities from the EN project. Don’t forget to build the project and check for silly errors. Shortcut to build the “current project” is Ctrl+Shift+B. We would still see some error. These errors are produced because there is a discrepancy between the TaskList as a class and a file. So wherever we get an error saying such an element does not exist. Append the using statements with:using EventNetworking.Data;
    using DataEntities = EventNetworking.Data;What these two lines would do is help differentiate between the TypeCollision caused by TaskList as file from the current project and TaskList as class from EventNetworking.Data. How to do that:
    Instead of

    TaskList[] tl = new TaskList[2];

    we alias

    DataEntities.TaskList[] tl = new DataEntities.TaskList[2];

    and make the above changes at all places where TaskList is being referred as class. Now we are left with around 20 errors and all of them having the same construct.
    We will have to make these changes in more than one aspx file.

  8. Finally, we have resolved all the build time errors. The build is a success but there is a runtime error which still lingers.image

This occurs because, we have moved the data access layer to a new project and modified the direct references. But we are still left with the most important reference which is mapping Linq to SQL.
To do so, change the property “ContextTypeName” from the “asp:LinqDataSource” control which is defined as:

ContextTypeName="EventNetworking.NetworkingDataContext"

to

ContextTypeName="EventNetworking.Data.NetworkingDataContext"

Make changes to all the LinqDataSource control in all the aspx files. Build the project and we should be left with neither compile time nor runtime errors.

Conclusion

We have managed to create a separate DAL (Data Access Layer) and reproduce it into a new project named “EventNetworking.Data”. This blog post explains the various errors we faced while we moved the data layer from one project to another and how to resolve these issues.

Read-Revamping Web Applications Part-7 : Adding DAL (Data Access Layer) Part 2

The Heat is On – Telerik India Webcasts (June – July ’13)

summerheatThe hot Indian summer sun is doing its thing! And we are pretty sure that you have found your own way of chilling out in this relentless heat.

If you are reading this, obviously you are not away at a cool hill station. As your A/Cs and coolers do their best, we at Telerik India continue to bring some amazing content that you would love to spend time with. Check out what we have in store for you this summer:

Webinar Topic Date Time (IST)
Building Uncomplicated Single Page Apps (SPAs) with Kendo June 6th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Reporting Best Practices for ASP.NET applications with Telerik Reporting June 13th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Cloud based Enterprise Apps using Icenium Everlive June 20th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Hybrid Mobile Application Development with Cloud based IDE Icenium June 27th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Developing ASP.NET MVC Applications Quicker with Kendo UI July 11th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Data Driven Testing with Telerik Test Studio July 18th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
HTML5 Charting in ASP.NET AJAX July 25th 3:00 – 4:00 PM

The Redux webinars bring the best of international content in the Indian Time Zone. Check out the Redux Week webinars below:

Webinar Topic Date Time (IST)
Redux: What’s new in ASP.NET AJAX Technologies
Q2 2013
July 1st 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Redux: Code faster in ASP.NET MVC with updates
in Kendo UI suite
July 2nd 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Redux: Become a software craftsman with
improving productivity in Visual Studio with Just Suite in Q2 2013
July 2nd 4:00 – 5:00 PM
Redux: Advances in Windows 8 Development with
Telerik Technologies
July 3rd 3:00 – 4:30 PM
Redux: Agile Project Management gets a facelift
with Telerik TeamPulse R1 2013
July 4th 12:00 – 1:00 PM
Redux: Introducing the Free Telerik Testing
Framework
July 4th 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Redux: What’s new in Telerik Windows Development
Technologies Q2 2013
July 5th 3:00 – 4:30 PM

Click on the webinar link above to register for the event.image_thumb.png

If the list above hasn’t pleased you, we would ask you to yell at us in the comments section below with your suggestion(s).

The least we could do to ease the sweating was to continue our Ninja T-Shirt contest every webinar. This cool T-Shirt is bound to get you some developer envy in your campus!

Most of the past webinar recordings can be found on our blog here: https://telerikhelper.net/category/webinars/

Recap of webinar: Building Windows Phone 8 Apps using Kendo UI

Download Source Code and Slides from here

clip_image001

On 23rd May 2013, we at Telerik India hosted a webinar on “Building Windows Phone 8 Apps using Kendo UI Mobile”. This webinar received great response from audience and we had around 150 developers attending webinar. Participants were very active during webinar and there were a flood of questions around Windows Phone 8, Coredova and Kendo UI.

We discussed following topics in webinar,

  • What is Hybrid App
  • Why we need Hybrid App
  • Setting Visual Studio2012 to develop Wp8 apps using coredova
  • Setting WP8 App project to work with Kendo UI

In demo part we covered following topics,

  • Creating Kendo Datasource
  • Consuming OData and REST Srervice in Kendo Datasource
  • Working with Kendo Template
  • Working with Layout , Views
  • Working with dynamic navigation

We learnt and experienced that how easily a developer could work with all complexities such that consuming services, navigating between views, working with layouts rendering native to WP 8, adaptive rendering etc. using Kendo UI Mobile.

If you create a Hybrid App for Windows Phone 8 using KendoUI Mobile and Coredova then with minimal or zero effort you can publish same app as iPhone app and Android App.

image

You can watch recorded webinar below,

As you can see in recorded webinar that we focused on writing codes and shown you how easily and quickly a Marketplace ready Windows Phone 8 app can be created using Kendo UI.

Download Source Code and Slides from here

You can revisit presentation of webinar below,

If you want us to do webinar on a particular topic related to Telerik products then feel free to send is mail at Dhananjay.kumar@telerik.com

Download Source Code and Slides from here

We had promised that we will be giving away 2 .NET Ninja T-Shirts as a webinar give away.

image

We normally pick 2 people randomly from the audience and raffle it out. So, as part of this webinar we are happy to say that the following 2 people are winners of our .NET Ninja T-Shirts:

  1. Ramu Naik
  2. Ardhendusekhar Kanungo

Congratulations to the winners. We will be contacting you shortly as we need your postal address to ship your t-shirts. Rest of you folks, don’t worry you still have chance to win the t-shirt. Do attend our next webinar which is on May 30 titled – MVVM and Validation with Kendo UI Web. Register for that webinar here

Download Source Code and Slides from here

clip_image001

Resources for webinar “ Web Content Management with Sitefinity”

On May 16 we conducted a webinar titled “Web Content Management with Sitefinity”. We pretty much had a full house on that day and we had a great show from Greg our Sitefinity Sales Engineer. We are thankful to one and all who attended the webinar and posted all your questions pertaining to Content Management System and Sitefinity in particular.

image

Slide deck from the webinar:

Greg did a great job in showing Sitefinity in action. So there was hardly any slides used. But if you would like to review the presentation, we have provided the same below:

Video Recording of webinar:
Also, as many of you had asked during the webinar – we do have a recording of the whole presentation. Here is the link to the video recording:

Questions & Answers:

Many of you had questions regarding the Sitefinity as a product. Here is a quick recap of some of the major questions asked during the webinar:

Q: Could you provide some website url which are running using sitefinity
A:  You can go to SiteFinity.com and look at Showcase area http://www.sitefinity.com/customers/showcases .

Q: is it customization friendly?
A: If you know ASP.NET WebForms or MVC – you can customize it to your will and wish

Q: what is the cost of license?
A: Take a look at pricing here http://www.sitefinity.com/purchase

Q: What is Connector for SharePoint?
A: If you have already an investment with SharePoint you can do a two way sync from Sitefinity to SP and vice versa using the connectors. You can know more about this here: http://www.sitefinity.com/sharepoint-integration

Q: Can we add new Contents other than in built Contents?
A: Yes you can create your custom content.

Q: Can we host the website built on Sitefinity on cloud?
A: Yes we support Azure – http://www.sitefinity.com/benefits/for-it-managers/windows-azure

Q: Does Sitefinity provide any Template Designer?
A: You can always upload a ASP.NET Master Page and make it as a template for your page. We do have a online template creator which lets you design a template with complete drag and drop feature.

Q: Can we integrate external controls like payment gateway to the pages ?
A: Yes. We have a ecommerce module built it in. So integration with payment gateways is easy

Q: Can the content be Role based contents as per authentication?
A: Yes. Granular access to content is possible with Sitefinity.

Q:  Can we host MVC3 based pages?
A: Yes. we support hybrid mode of development. Meaning you can customize and have either a Web Form based User Control as a customized widget or MVC based widget.

Q: how can we control the page access rights?
A: The page themselves have access rights defined which can be controlled from the back end.

Q: Is Sitefinity limited to e-Commerce only?
A: – No. We have news/events/forums/blog etc. modules out of the box. Take a look at our showcase area to see how this is used for a real world examples.

Q: : Can I develop and apply themes on Sitefinity?
A: Yes. Sitefinity supports ASP.NET theming.

Q: Can we create CSS layout from own template?
A: Yes you can do that.

Q: Can i apply different CSS/Page modeling for different display size?
A: Yes you can. Sitefinity comes with Responsive Design Module out of the box which will let you create different rule based on where your content can be viewed. The rule will define how your content needs to be shown when rendered on those devices/screen widths and Sitefinity will automatically take care of that.

Q: Can you explain how we can add DLL reference?
A: Sitefinity source code is a ASP.NET solution. so you develop using the VS IDE and add reference like you do with any asp.net app.

Q: Other that .NET 4.0, does Sitefinity have dependency on any other third party libraries?
A: No – we use our own controls within Sitefinity for e.g. RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, Kendo UI, Open Access ORM.

Q: Can i create large web application using Sitefinity?
A: Yes you can. Take a look at our showcases area to see what people have built with Sitefinity: http://www.sitefinity.com/customers/showcases

Q: Can we develop application by Sitefinity for my android phone?
A: Yes. With Sitefinity 6 we have a mechanism where in you can create a custom module and with one click a Hybrid Mobile Application can be created for this custom module. The app will be able to perform full CRUD on your module and since it is hybrid, it can run on all platforms and provide you with native look and feel as we use Kendo UI Mobile controls.

Q: what are the features of Sitefinity?
A: Sitefinity features are listed here: – http://www.sitefinity.com/product/see-also/cms-features-list

Q: Is any Open Source version available of Sitefinity?
A: We do not have any Open Source version of Sitefinity. But we do have Community Edition which is completely free for personal site scenario. Here is more info on what does Community Edition contain: http://www.sitefinity.com/try-now/free-asp-net-cms

Q: Which version of ASP.Net does this belong to?
A: Currently Sitefinity supports Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0

Q: Does it support workflow functionality?
A: Absolutely. Custom and standard workflows, all based on Windows Workflow Foundation 4

Telerik .NET Ninja T-Shirt Giveaway:

We had promised that we will be giving away 2 .NET Ninja T-Shirts as a webinar give away. We normally pick 2 people randomly from the audience and raffle it out. So, as part of this webinar we are happy to say that the following 2 people are winners of our .NET Ninja T-Shirts:

  • Pramod Gupta
  • Ranjit Singh

Congratulations to the winners. We will be contacting you shortly as we need your postal address to ship your t-shirts. Rest of you folks, don’t worry you still have chance to win the t-shirt. Do attend our next webinar which is on May 30 titled – MVVM and Validation with Kendo UI Web.

How to add .NET Assembly or Reference in Test Studio standalone version

Recently I was demonstrating Test Studio to a group of Test Studio professionals. While working with Coded Step I had to add a .NET Assembly Reference. Adding reference in Visual Studio plugin is quite simple. However adding that in Test Studio standalone version requires certain steps.

In this post we will have a look on adding assembly reference in Test Studio standalone version. Follow following steps,

Select Project option in top menu

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Click on Show Settings in project tab

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On clicking on Show Settings you will get Project Settings dialog box. In dialog box click on Script Options. To add assembly reference click on Add Reference.

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When you clock on Add Reference Test Studio will open File Chooser dialog box. In that browse .NET Assembly Reference location in file system and select that to add as reference in current Test project. I hope you find this post useful. Thanks for reading.

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