With the culture of knowledge sharing and open source spreading, everyone races to show they have something valuable that you may want. And while you may not ask for money for your content you may still want to get something in return, say a contact, an email address that?s verified (or not), to keep in touch with the consumer of your content.

Yet a full fledged registration doesn?t seem like a proper thing to do ? cluttering your EPiServer user repository with (let?s face it ? for a large part fake or temporary email addresses that user create only to get your content).

While there may be a lot of ways to handle that (streaming it through a page Response.WriteFile might seem as one of the more obvious ones), I would like to show you a cleaner, simpler and more elegant way that I?ve come up with.

We really don?t want people to deep link to our files without them knowing the files are from our site, that?s just rude ? so hiding them behind an obscure URL wouldn?t work (thus we cannot use the regular file providers). We?ve already establish that we don?t want to log them in, so setting file rights are useless. But I want all the benefits including client-side caching.

Basically the solution boils down to creating a thin layer over the File provider of our choice, in my case the versioning file provider. The only method we need to override in it is GetFile. I want to allow downloading for logged in users and I want to allow downloading for all users that have a ?magic-cookie? set. If either of the conditions are met, the file just downloads using the underlying provider?s routines including all the logic EPiServer has put for caching and rights. But if neither of the requirements are met, the user is directed to a page of our choice.

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Once you?ll update the framework to the extended one, you will immediately notice that? nothing has changed. Hmm? did something go wrong?

Well, not really. By default the framework will be run in the ?legacy mode?. Thanks to an old article by our own Marek Blotny, I?ve learned how to build Plugin settings which are just perfect for the purpose!

So to configure and enable the new features you need to open your admin UI and in the ?Config? click on the ?Plugin Manager? item and select our framework plugin as shown in the picture

The available options are:

Read the rest of this article »

Once you’ll update the framework to the extended one, you will immediately notice that… nothing has changed. Hmm… did something go wrong?

Well, not really. By default the framework will be run in the “legacy mode”. Thanks to an old article by our own Marek Blotny, I’ve learned how to build Plugin settings which are just perfect for the purpose!

So to configure and enable the new features you need to open your admin UI and in the “Config” click on the “Plugin Manager” item and select our framework plugin as shown in the picture

The available options are:

Read the rest of this article »

Once you?ll update the framework to the extended one, you will immediately notice that? nothing has changed. Hmm? did something go wrong?

Well, not really. By default the framework will be run in the ?legacy mode?. Thanks to an old article by our own Marek Blotny, I?ve learned how to build Plugin settings which are just perfect for the purpose!

So to configure and enable the new features you need to open your admin UI and in the ?Config? click on the ?Plugin Manager? item and select our framework plugin as shown in the picture

The available options are:

Read the rest of this article »

Back in the day when we started designing our last project we’ve been presented with a following problem – a big number of templates with slightly different sidebars.

Hmm…

Is sidebar a part of content? No, rather not. We don’t want the editors to have to setup the sidebar for every article they write (and the site has a few dozens of articles created on it every day).

Is sidebar more of a template thing? Well… more like it, but still… we have articles all over the site with different sidebar elements when the articles are in different parts of the site (ok so we could add rules what controls display in which part of the site). But wait! There’s more! The sidebar will be different for every language (region). Now we’re talking a dozen of templates or a rules engine just to make the sidebar different. Customising the template with properties isn’t ideal either as it makes EPiServer UI very cluttered. Additionally we want to change sidebars across many templates so the whole branch/section of the site will be able to share the same sidebar.

To a degree this is an academic discussion as we’ve been through it with the previous version of the site and we already knew that integrating this stuff into templates just won’t work and we will be in a world of pain just changing the templates over and over adding little tweaks and changes while the customer ads promotions and performs ad campaigns. Well, we can do it, of course, but it’s not a work a programmer will enjoy, and we all want to do new and more exciting things, don’t we?

We have an internally developed  module to make something like that, that is fully home-grown by another internal team (we now have 3 “squads” capable or making incredible things with EPiServer and we tend to share a lot of technologies and try to rotate people around to adopt the good habits and experiences) and I was (and still am) VERY impressed by it. The technology uses EPiServer pages for defining every module (which are located somewhere outside the site root branch. and then you can mix and match them either declaratively in the code) or by handpicking them in the UI. It’s really cool, though, during the discussions it turned out that we might have to add big chunks of functionality and might end up with separate branches of module-pages for different languages/regions, but… frankly… about that time an article by Ted Nyberg reminded me about a technology I have read about quite a while ago in an article by Stein-Viggo Grenersen and ooohhhhhh… I got seduced. I really wanted to try if for a long time and Ted’s article made it a snap to try and get convinced, and more important… convince Stu ;) that it’s the right way to explore.

So I started to dig.

Read the rest of this article »

Back in the day when we started designing our last project we?ve been presented with a following problem ? a big number of templates with slightly different sidebars.

Hmm?

Is sidebar a part of content? No, rather not. We don?t want the editors to have to setup the sidebar for every article they write (and the site has a few dozens of articles created on it every day).

Is sidebar more of a template thing? Well? more like it, but still? we have articles all over the site with different sidebar elements when the articles are in different parts of the site (ok so we could add rules what controls display in which part of the site). But wait! There?s more! The sidebar will be different for every language (region). Now we?re talking a dozen of templates or a rules engine just to make the sidebar different. Customising the template with properties isn?t ideal either as it makes EPiServer UI very cluttered. Additionally we want to change sidebars across many templates so the whole branch/section of the site will be able to share the same sidebar.

To a degree this is an academic discussion as we?ve been through it with the previous version of the site and we already knew that integrating this stuff into templates just won?t work and we will be in a world of pain just changing the templates over and over adding little tweaks and changes while the customer ads promotions and performs ad campaigns. Well, we can do it, of course, but it?s not a work a programmer will enjoy, and we all want to do new and more exciting things, don?t we?

We have an internally developed  module to make something like that, that is fully home-grown by another internal team (we now have 3 ?squads? capable or making incredible things with EPiServer and we tend to share a lot of technologies and try to rotate people around to adopt the good habits and experiences) and I was (and still am) VERY impressed by it. The technology uses EPiServer pages for defining every module (which are located somewhere outside the site root branch. and then you can mix and match them either declaratively in the code) or by handpicking them in the UI. It?s really cool, though, during the discussions it turned out that we might have to add big chunks of functionality and might end up with separate branches of module-pages for different languages/regions, but? frankly? about that time an article by Ted Nyberg reminded me about a technology I have read about quite a while ago in an article by Stein-Viggo Grenersen and ooohhhhhh? I got seduced. I really wanted to try if for a long time and Ted?s article made it a snap to try and get convinced, and more important? convince Stu ;) that it?s the right way to explore.

So I started to dig.

Read the rest of this article »

Back in the day when we started designing our last project we?ve been presented with a following problem ? a big number of templates with slightly different sidebars.

Hmm?

Is sidebar a part of content? No, rather not. We don?t want the editors to have to setup the sidebar for every article they write (and the site has a few dozens of articles created on it every day).

Is sidebar more of a template thing? Well? more like it, but still? we have articles all over the site with different sidebar elements when the articles are in different parts of the site (ok so we could add rules what controls display in which part of the site). But wait! There?s more! The sidebar will be different for every language (region). Now we?re talking a dozen of templates or a rules engine just to make the sidebar different. Customising the template with properties isn?t ideal either as it makes EPiServer UI very cluttered. Additionally we want to change sidebars across many templates so the whole branch/section of the site will be able to share the same sidebar.

To a degree this is an academic discussion as we?ve been through it with the previous version of the site and we already knew that integrating this stuff into templates just won?t work and we will be in a world of pain just changing the templates over and over adding little tweaks and changes while the customer ads promotions and performs ad campaigns. Well, we can do it, of course, but it?s not a work a programmer will enjoy, and we all want to do new and more exciting things, don?t we?

We have an internally developed  module to make something like that, that is fully home-grown by another internal team (we now have 3 ?squads? capable or making incredible things with EPiServer and we tend to share a lot of technologies and try to rotate people around to adopt the good habits and experiences) and I was (and still am) VERY impressed by it. The technology uses EPiServer pages for defining every module (which are located somewhere outside the site root branch. and then you can mix and match them either declaratively in the code) or by handpicking them in the UI. It?s really cool, though, during the discussions it turned out that we might have to add big chunks of functionality and might end up with separate branches of module-pages for different languages/regions, but? frankly? about that time an article by Ted Nyberg reminded me about a technology I have read about quite a while ago in an article by Stein-Viggo Grenersen and ooohhhhhh? I got seduced. I really wanted to try if for a long time and Ted?s article made it a snap to try and get convinced, and more important? convince Stu ;) that it?s the right way to explore.

So I started to dig.

Read the rest of this article »

The problem that can make a grown up man cry?

You?re editing your EPiServer 4 project and suddenly the edit mode stops working. the server reports compilation errors. something along the lines:

Compiler error: CS0433: Type ?EPiServer.Global? exists in ?c:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\EPiServer\5.1.422.122__8fe83dea738b45b7\EPiServer.dll? and ?c:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\EPiServer\4.61.5.83__8fe83dea738b45b7\EPiServer.dll?

The solution is to go to your web.config and edit the compilation section. The section will most probably look something like this:

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <compilation defaultLanguage="c#" debug="true">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
        <add assembly="System.Design, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B03F5F7F11D50A3A"/>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions.Design, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.BaseLibrary, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="System.Configuration.Install, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B03F5F7F11D50A3A"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Configuration, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Implementation, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.XForms, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Events, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Lucene, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="ElektroPost.Licensing, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="System.Data.OracleClient, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Wsrp, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.WebParts, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.UI, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
        <add assembly="EPiServer.Web.WebControls, Version=5.1.422.122, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=8FE83DEA738B45B7"/>
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>
  </system.web>                  
</configuration>    

in my case only the 4th line referencing the EPiServer.dll was interfering with the editing working, but this can easily be trimmed to only first 3 options, so once you’re done with removing CMS5 entries it could look something like:

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <compilation defaultLanguage="c#" debug="true">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
        <add assembly="System.Design, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B03F5F7F11D50A3A"/>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions.Design, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>
  </system.web>                  
</configuration>    

The root of the problem supposedly lies in EPiServer SDK integrated with Visual Studio and it?s Visual Studio that puts those lines there once you attempt to add a new element with one of its toolbars or use the Insert->New item? from File menu or context menu in Project Explorer.

Thanks to the guys on #epicode IRC channel for helping out quickly with the problem.

The configuration of the module is a descendant of any EPiServer Virtual Path Provider configuration. This aspect is fairly well described on EPiServer pages.

A sample configuration for the TextImageVirtualPathProvider can look as follows

<configuration>
  <episerver>
    <virtualPath
      <providers>
        <add showInFileManager="false"
             virtualName="Text Images"
             virtualPath="~/TextImages/"
             bypassAccessCheck="false"
             name="TextImages"
             type="Cognifide.ImageVirtualPathProvider.TextImageVirtualPathProvider,Cognifide.ImageVirtualPathProvider"
             physicalPath="C:\temp\TextImages"
             allowedReferers="(localhost)"
             allowNullReferrer="false"
             replacementStrings="$colon$,:,$gt$,>,$dot$,.,$quot$,&quot;,$amp$,&amp;,$star$,*,$eol$,&#10;,"/>
      </providers>
    </virtualPath>
  </episerver>
</configuration>

where:

• physicalPath is where the cached version of images will be stored
• shownInFileManager is “false” as there is nothing to present for the user in the file manager.
• allowedReferrers is the regular expression containing the filter for sites that are allowed to access the path provider and get images. This has been added so that your server does not turn into the internet’s text-image open service :)
• allowNullReferrer should be set to false in production environment but allows for testing by directly creating URL’s without using a page to fill in the referrer.
• replacementStrings – this one actually turned out to be very useful since some characters are invalid and not even reaching the VPP if EPiServer or ASP detects them. so to allow for characters like colon or < or even a dot (which would make it hard to form regular expression if it was explicitly available) or * you need to create an escape token for them. The string is a coma separated list of token,value,token,value,…
• virtualPath is something you need to change if you want your VPP to serve images under a different root level folder. (e.g. if you have a page with that name already)

Additionally for IIS6 (most common scenario) you need to add <location> node to configuration for the VPP to work.

<configuration>
  <location path=“TextImages“>
    <system.web>
      <!– Setup the StaticFileHandler for the wildcard mapping to work in IIS6–>
      <httpHandlers>
        <add path=“*“ verb=“GET,HEAD“ type=“System.Web.StaticFileHandler“ validate=“true“ />
      </httpHandlers>
    </system.web>
    <staticFile expirationTime=“-1.0:0:0“ />
  </location>
</configuration>

Unless you want to change the location of the virtual path provider can be found under, there is nothing you need to change here.

The code is accessible on EPiCode, but you can also download a compiled binary here. All you need to do then is to unzip the archive to the “bin” folder within your site and set the web.config values to your preference.

The configuration of the module is a descendant of any EPiServer Virtual Path Provider configuration. This aspect is fairly well described on EPiServer pages.

A sample configuration for the TextImageVirtualPathProvider can look as follows

<configuration>
  <episerver>
    <virtualPath
      <providers>
        <add showInFileManager="false"
             virtualName="Text Images"
             virtualPath="~/TextImages/"
             bypassAccessCheck="false"
             name="TextImages"
             type="Cognifide.ImageVirtualPathProvider.TextImageVirtualPathProvider,Cognifide.ImageVirtualPathProvider"
             physicalPath="C:\temp\TextImages"
             allowedReferers="(localhost)"
             allowNullReferrer="false"
             replacementStrings="$colon$,:,$gt$,>,$dot$,.,$quot$,&quot;,$amp$,&amp;,$star$,*,$eol$,&#10;,"/>
      </providers>
    </virtualPath>
  </episerver>
</configuration>

where:

• physicalPath is where the cached version of images will be stored
• shownInFileManager is ?false? as there is nothing to present for the user in the file manager.
• allowedReferrers is the regular expression containing the filter for sites that are allowed to access the path provider and get images. This has been added so that your server does not turn into the internet?s text-image open service :)
• allowNullReferrer should be set to false in production environment but allows for testing by directly creating URL?s without using a page to fill in the referrer.
• replacementStrings ? this one actually turned out to be very useful since some characters are invalid and not even reaching the VPP if EPiServer or ASP detects them. so to allow for characters like colon or < or even a dot (which would make it hard to form regular expression if it was explicitly available) or * you need to create an escape token for them. The string is a coma separated list of token,value,token,value,?
• virtualPath is something you need to change if you want your VPP to serve images under a different root level folder. (e.g. if you have a page with that name already)

Additionally for IIS6 (most common scenario) you need to add <location> node to configuration for the VPP to work.

<configuration>
  <location path=“TextImages“>
    <system.web>
      <!– Setup the StaticFileHandler for the wildcard mapping to work in IIS6–>
      <httpHandlers>
        <add path=“*“ verb=“GET,HEAD“ type=“System.Web.StaticFileHandler“ validate=“true“ />
      </httpHandlers>
    </system.web>
    <staticFile expirationTime=“-1.0:0:0“ />
  </location>
</configuration>

Unless you want to change the location of the virtual path provider can be found under, there is nothing you need to change here.

The code is accessible on EPiCode, but you can also download a compiled binary here. All you need to do then is to unzip the archive to the ?bin? folder within your site and set the web.config values to your preference.