Experience Sitecore !

Introduction

Sitecore User Groups have been a commonly used way of offline knowledge sharing and socializing for long years and we all love them. However, there are some drawbacks and things that on my opinion could be improved.

As I know, there are many of participants willing to present, but typically in most cases one presentation is taken by people from sponsor, yet one more - by Sitecore employees and whatever remains - by some MVP, while there are only 3, maximum 4 speeches available. Those lucky who manage to get presented have to artificially adjust to ~40 minutes format extending their speech time frames, while in fact the core sense of most presentations can be fit into 15 minutes. In addition, user groups are the rare event, occurring once per quarter.

Another thing is that attendants are socialising only little time during breaks between the presentations, while I know few people are attending only just because of networking. At the same time some of attendees are "switched off". I suggest making user groups more interactive with participants interacting with each other apart from just socializing. Limiting presentation with shorter time frames will allow speakers to better structure their thoughts and allocate time for a bigger number of people to participate.

To address these calls, I am going to introduce and run events of a new format, called Sitecore Discussion Clubs, starting in London and that will run on monthly basis (ex. first Tuesday of each month) and in parallel to existing Sitecore User Groups, not as a replacement. This document describes what is Discussion Club and some basic rules and thoughts, however it may be subject to changes.

What is Discussion Club

Sitecore Discussion Club will be held on a monthly basis and consists of four blocks

1. Light Talks

Each of participants can present anything of his / her recent experience or some interesting aspects of work with Sitecore, that may be useful and interested to the community. We currently tend to limit these talks with 5 minutes, having up to 10 talks during the event. It serves as sort of warmup before major part - Discussion Club. Speech registration opens 48 hours before the event via Discussion Club website, with 10 slots open (first come - first spoken principle), where new participants have priority as they are obliged to present. Every new member of the club must present on first visit the club, that speech actually "opens" (or initiates) the membership.

2. Discussion Club

This is the most important part of the event. Each of participants may suggest a problem he / she currently has for a collective-mindset to challenge, but it's not limited with day-to-day issues. One would probably like to discuss new Sitecore features or whatsoever, if it is interesting to other members to discuss (ex. "can someone please tell in which cases SXA is perfect for greenfield projects and how do I 'sell' it to my client?" etc.). All suggestions are registered at the website, and upon the beginning when the organizer goes along this list - each one has 30 -60 seconds to briefly explain the problem and what is he looking from the discussion to get solved. once finished, every participant votes for topics that seems to be interested (that is done using mobile phone). Then an actual discussions start, from most to least voted suggestions on from agenda list. Each discussion limits to 10 minutes, there is also a mechanism of 5 minutes extension (if majority insist, 80% or more clicking "extend" button on their mobile phones next to current discussion).

3. What If

Is the funniest part of the event, but brings huge value. It is also a collective-mind discussion of unusual, weird or even craziest ideas we can do with our beloved platform. As a good example, I want to share few ideas that came into my head and the one I was trying to implement. The first, is a LunchPad with the live icons showing a progress or any dynamically changeable information, pulled from a Sitecore instance (or behind it), for example showing a progress of a long-running scheduled task, and clicking this live icon brings you to corresponding SPEAK app. I expect, that should be implemented with SignalR or similar technology, but very willing to discuss it in more details and potential traps. Another example is a module I have implemented in 2017, that changes item ID from a context menu - it is a great area for discussion what needs to be taken into account and things to keep in mind, such as child items, changing references to this items, reindexing, links database, etc.). These ideas unlock attendees' creativity and serve as an important source of inspiration and will be shared with Sitecore for considering and potential implementation. This is similar way how Dynamic Placeholder, Buckets and Language Fallback became part of the platform. Who knows what valuable inspiration our enthusiasts will create? Also, I am be seeking a sponsorship from Sitecore for awarding 3 most valuable of "What If" ideas, where award can be anything like free certification on choice, or free SugCon / Symposium entrance of whatsoever Sitecore decides.

4. Hiring, not Recruiting

Is the final simple block. Each member of the club can briefly say what Sitecore vacancies do they have open at the moment or in if looking for a new opportunity - make a brief self-introduction. 3-5 minutes for everything would be enough, I assume. Quick, direct, and no recruiters.

Entrance and attendance

The very first event welcomes everyone who is willing to attend - they all will be allowed and receive Discussion Club membership (but please see "First Event" section below). Then an event registration will be done via website similar to MeetUp, running with minor overbooking, just in case few people are not coming. When event bуcomes mature - new members can join the club by invites from existing member (and they still must present light talk upon first visit). Existing MVPs can attend without any limitations, cannot be denied or dismissed from the club. They also have priority for Light talks (but after newbies of course). Sponsors have another "priority lane" for Discussion Club, however not more than on 3 consecutive events, than they have "chill out" event. However sponsor can suggest a topiс on common grounds to be evaluated and voted.

Venue and sponsorship

The event will take part at sponsor's venue in central London, in 3-5 minutes of walking distance from Angel station (map: https://goo.gl/5p8v7D). Sponsor is also proving the necessary equipment, food and drinks, as normal. Dare agency is currently sponsoring the event, I am currently contracted with them building an advanced platform with Helix and Sitecore 9, they are highly interested in absorbing any of the latest Sitecore knowledge.

Benefits

Discussion Club unites the most enthusiastic members of the Sitecore scene from London and area, offering them all sharing the experience. Unlike as on the User Groups, we discuss real-life scenarios, and actual day-to-day problems, as we vote for most preferred topic from agenda. We are more engaged, communicate and discuss directly and collectively. All that enables us sharing our experience in interactive, friendly manner at unprecedented level, that becomes sort of Sitecore Community 2.0

I am currently developing a greenfield Helix-based solution on Sitecore 9. That is a challenging but thrilling path, resulting in nicely setup working platform with "one-click install + one click deploy" process, perfectly suitable for continuous integration. 

However, as soon as 9.0 update 1 has been released, I started anticipating upgrading my solution to that revision, but for a week or so we've been missing NuGet packages for the latest version. Since January 18-th they have been released so finally it became possible to update the solution. Below there are few things I have done to make it work.

Phase 1. Choosing an update approach to take. 

There are few options:

• *.update file with actual version
• upgrade zip archive with only changes + pdf guidance on how to update
• SIF archive with CMS, xConnect and corresponding configuration *.json files

For sanity purposes, I prefer to fully uninstall the previous version and reinstall the updated afterwards, rather than overwrite things. Thanks to a flexibility of Helix, now developer should not worry about losing an existing state, as soon as everything is checked into a version control system - gulp script will pick the latest changes and do that job for us. That's why approach number 3 becomes a choice. 

As I am keeping web folder under source control (just clean install of each version in order to easily restore that state) it makes sense to move .git folder outside from web folder before we go with uninstall, as it obviously will remove entire web folder. After as we remove the previous version, and newer version settles there, one can return .git folder back and immediately benefit from seeing the difference between two versions. I will cover that below during stage 2. So, to uninstall, open PowerShell and do:

.\uninstall-xp0.ps1

Once complete, got to the next phase.

Phase 2. Preparing and installing new version

First of all, download Sitecore 9.0 Update 1 XPSingle from SDN download page. Since we're doing that for our development environment, make sure you get OnPrem edition, rather than Cloud.

Obviously, to install newer version one need to update Sitecore Install Framework that supports particular version. Luckily, Sitecore Installer knows everything it should regarding how to install the version. PowerShell (with admin rights):

Update-Module SitecoreInstallFramework

If for some reason it breaks with execution policy exception, modify current user appropriate permissions:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser -Force

Copy Sitecore packages for both CMS and Xconnet into build/assets folder, along with previous version packages. In my case, these files:

Sitecore 9.0.1 rev. 171219 (OnPrem)_single.scwdp.zip and Sitecore 9.0.1 rev. 171219 (OnPrem)_xp0xconnect.scwdp.zip

and also replace *.json scripts from XP0 Configuration files 9.0.1 rev. 171219.zip

Then, quite important, update version details at settings.ps1 script:

$SitecoreVersion = "9.0.1 rev. 171219"
$InstallerVersion = "1.1.0"

install-xp0.ps1

Autofixture 3.51.0
BuildWebCompiler 1.11.375
EnterpriseLibrary.* 6.0.1304
FluentAssertions 4.19.4
GlassMapper 4.5.0.4
HtmlAgilityPack 1.4.9.5
Kamsar.WebConsole 2.0.0
Lucene.Net 3.0.3
MicroCHAP 1.2.2.2
Moq 4.8.1
Mvp.Xml 2.3.0
netDumbster 2.0.0.1
Newtonsoft.Json 9.0.1
NSubstitute 3.1.0
Rainbow.* 2.0.0
SharpZipLib 0.86.0
Sitecore.FakeDb.* 1.7.2
Unicorn.* 4.0.3
xunit 2.3.1

Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection 1.0.0 
System.Reflection 4.1.0
Newtonsoft.Json 9.0.1
HtmlAgilityPack 1.4.9.5
System.Net.Http 4.0.0
Castle.Core 3.3.3

Problem: you are running a solution with a large number of projects (as we normally have with Helix) and willing to debug it. You are attaching to IIS process (from Debug menu of Visual Studio, or using magical hotkeys) but that takes way too much time to happen. You CPU usage increases and even likely to boost the cooling fans. Another thing you can evidence - slowly responding icon os IIS Express in the system tray:

What comes to one's mind as the first possible solution? To opt out of using IIS Express in favour of full local IIS, as soon as we are using it anyway to host our Helix-based solution. So you open up Web tab of Project Properties and indeed evidence that IIS Express is configured and has Project Url set to http://localhost with some specific long-digit port number:

Then expectedly you change it to Local IIS with Project Url having something similar to http://platform.dev.localwhere hostname for platform.dev.local already exists in your Windows hosts file as well as in IIS binding for that particular website, so that running this URL in a browser will, in fact, give you that locally running website. But you get a weird error instead:

Things are a bit worse, because if you deny creating a Virtual Directory, you'll get a message box as on the image below, and won't be able to close your project tab as it remains modified and will prompt you the same message again and again until you manually terminate devenv.exe process from Task Manager.

What happens? Something has alternative settings preventing you from changing to Local IIS. So need to find this out. After investigating a while I came across...

The solution contains two steps. Part one occurs because there is already a project extension file (ex. Sitecore.Foundation.Serialization.csproj.user) along with your actual project file, that extends (overrides) project settings. Normally, all *.user files are excluded from a source control so your colleague may not experience that same problem despite running the same code from the same repo branch. What exactly prevents you from saving Local IIS changes is UseIISExpress setting, so change it to false:

<PropertyGroup>
  <UseIISExpress>false</UseIISExpress>
</PropertyGroup>

Or just delete it - then settings from actual *.сsproj file will take effect, but as soon as you somehow customise your project, even as little as just clicking "Show All Files" button in the Solution Explorer - then *.user file will be immediately created. So let's move to the second part of this exercise. Now we need to change actual project to use Local IIS. Make sure you set already familiar UseIISExpress property to false

<PropertyGroup>
  <UseIISExpress>false</UseIISExpress>
</PropertyGroup>

<UseIIS>False</UseIIS>
<UseCustomServer>True</UseCustomServer>
<CustomServerUrl>http://platform.dev.local</CustomServerUrl>
<SaveServerSettingsInUserFile>False</SaveServerSettingsInUserFile>

Sitecore Link project gained a list of additional Sitecore modules and implementations as well as their authors. With time, I tend to make it something more useful than Marketplace, so withing first quarter of 2018 will be populating it with the data and add features.

With an initial starting set of data for the beginning, it is available at:

Modules: http://Sitecore.Link/Modules

Authors: http://Sitecore.Link/Authors

I was trying to implement T4 CodeGeneration of Glass Mapper for my current Helix on Sitecore 9 project. In the beginning, it all went well, and I did not suspect any of issues. However, the issues still occurred later when trying to navigate to LaunchPad. I have been presented a very confusing error with the description, saying:

The file '/sitecore/shell/client/Speak/Layouts/Layouts/Speak-Layout.cshtml' does not exist.

on the following screen:

After investigating a call stack, I came to the conclusion that it is definitely something with Glass Mapper. After playing a while with my configuration, I have identified exact getModel pipeline processor that triggered that issue:

  <mvc.getModel>
    <processor patch:before="*[@type='Sitecore.Mvc.Pipelines.Response.GetModel.GetFromItem, Sitecore.Mvc']" 
         type="Glass.Mapper.Sc.Pipelines.Response.GetModelFromView, Glass.Mapper.Sc.Mvc"/>
  </mvc.getModel>

Commenting this line returned LaunchPad fully functional, however, obviously, Glass Mapper stopped working with a familiar Sitecore MVC error:

The model item passed into the dictionary is of type 'Sitecore.Mvc.Presentation.RenderingModel', but this dictionary requires a model item of type 'Sitecore.Feature.Navigation.Models.ILink'.

So I started digging around and assumed that maybe I have got not the latest version of Glass, that does not support Sitecore 9. With that in mind, I updated to latest stable version of Glass, which was 4.4.0.199. After upgrading, I tried to run build but it failed. Again, much time spent on investigation, so later found out that latest version of Glass does not have namespace Glass.Mapper.Sc.Configuration.Attributes. Previously that namespace was at Glass.Mapper.Sc.dll but that dll did not present within the latest package.

Suddenly ReSharper came into a play, obligingly offering to reference required library. After ReSharper added that reference - project compiled successfully. I performed a deployment, and ... it broke again, with the same error. What? Why? How? I couldn't understand that...

Furthermore investigations... at some moment, I noticed that ReSharper referenced one of the old Glass.Mapper.Sc.dll from somewhere, so the very first thing I made sure was to provide thorough sanity check and fix across entire solution. After removing all Glass Mapper trails, I've readded latest version of Glass Mapper again, and expectedly it did not find that namespace, mentioned above.

At this time I took dotPeek and carefully went through all the libraries. Just to find out that there is no such namespace, indeed- in all of the Glass libraries.

But wait! What if... What if.. If I try to check that namespace in the latest beta version?

So I picked up the latest available beta version, which was 4.4.1.331 ...

Install-Package Glass.Mapper.Sc -Version 4.4.1.331-beta

... and voila!!! Namespaces were there. So I decided to go ahead with that beta versions, and trick did work!

After couple more sanity clean-up in both my solution and web folder, I finally did some required configuration changes, then install for certain projects in your solution and finally concluded that solution work well for me.

1. First, is the most important hotkey that published a single file - whether a static file oк Razor view, to the web folder, preventing you from running gulp script. Selecting the desired file, hold ALT and then click ; (semicolon) and p. Your file will be immediately available at web destination. Then most time-taking is Application pool recycle process, running each time you add/remove/modify a config file or DLL, so current approach prevents you from wasting time on that. The result:

2. Next, in order to run Sitecore in a debugger, one usually need to go to "Debug" menu of Visual Studio, then pick up "Attach to process". Then find w3wp.exe from a long list of available processes after selecting "Show processes from all users" checkbox. When you need to do that multiple times in a day (and you do) it becomes an unwanted waste of time. There is a Visual Studio extension called AttachToAllTheThings that adds 3 handy menu items into Tools menu, one of which is "Attach to IIS". So far so good, but it would be even better to assign a hotkey to make attachments quicker, I use a combination of SHIFT + ALT + I:

3. Working with Helix you often need to run gulp tasks, that is executed from Task Runner Explorer. Normally you need, to go to View menu item then Other windows and there find out Task Runner Explorer. In a clean vanilla Visual Studio you may use CTRL + ALT + BackSpace binding. However those using ReSharper may find that combination re-mapped, so I opt-out in favour of neutral SHIFT + ALT + T combination:

4. If you are using ReSharper, you can benefit from its solution-wide code analysis tool. This is a very handy tool that is often overlooked, but it may give you plenty of insights of what's going wrong with your solution and how to fix that. But please be careful as if it is enabled permanently - if affects your performance. Double click a grey circle at the right bottom corner of Visual Studio in order to enable this feature.

After a while, it presents you with a list of issues you need to review (and likely to fix):

5. Also, one more useful trick of ReSharper will be useful for everyone working with abstractions. We got used to navigating to a class by doing CTRL + Left Mouse Click. But when doing the same on an interface, you'll navigate to the interface definition - not something useful when you expected to get some concrete implementation. Do CTRL + ALT + Left Mouse Click instead and you'll navigate to exact implementation if the is one, or will be presented with a list of all concrete classes implementing that abstraction.

6. Helix: An approach(es) for restoring WebRoot to an initial state of vanilla Sitecore installation.

7. Know your tools: The easiest way to add a new project to your Helix solution

8. Use Helix + Glass Mapper + T4 Templates = Code Generation

9. In addition to T4 Templates code generation, you may use young brother - Visual Studio code snippets. Recently Raul Jimenez prompted at https://github.com/rauljmz/Sitecore.VisualStudio.Snippets.

10. ZeroDeploy from Hedgehog, who also made TDS, Razl and Feydra. This is something unbelievable, you can't imagine that! The idea of the project is to get rid of Application Pool recycles upon deployments of code and config files. How could that be at all possible? ZeroDeploy relied on Sitecore Dependency Injection (that's why it only can run on Sitecore 8.2 or later) and instead of /bin folder it stores versioned libraries into Sitecore database, being even visible at the Sitecore tree! To make this magic possible, it is advised to separate most of your high-level abstractions into standalone libraries, that are very rarely change and that referenced from your web project. At the same time most of the concrete implementation, including Controllers, Services, Repositories and libraries down-referenced by them can be dynamically deployed and loaded back without being put to /bin, retaining the functionality. ZeroDeploy also uses Visual Studio extension and NuGet packages for Sitecore. Seriously, the magic! I am now testing a beta version of ZeroDeploy and am going to write a detailed guide on how to enable this on your development environment (your UAT / staging / prod) still remain untouched.

Hope these tips and tricks will improve your productivity!

I have managed to make Sitecore 9 and Helix working together. Yaaay!

There is a feature/v9 branch of Sitecore Habitat, where habitat guys unhurriedly adjust Habitat to Sitecore 9. I would advise you to take a look at that at least. One thing to mention (as for 01-Dec-2017) - you'd need to reference all the Sitecore 9 dependencies from NuGet manually, please use *.NoReferences version of each library)

Update: I've recorded entire process of installation Helix with Sitecore 9 on a clean developer machine, that already has Visual Studio 2017, SQL Server 2016 and IIS installed. For installation process also required: PowerShell and Chocolatey. Important: all the manipulations are done as Administrator.

Hope one may find useful this 24 minutes video. Thanks for watching!

Telegram Messenger has boosted significantly during past years, as the most convenient and functional with UX well thought and incredibly growing base of users. Since recent, Telegram allows creating informational channels, making itself more than a messenger, but a proper publishing platform.

Apart from that, the messenger is perfect for distributing binaries of any format, it also supports any mobile or desktop platform. With such a simplicity of creating the content and delivering it to all subscribers, Telegram became my communicational app number one.

Today I decided to create a Sitecore channel in Telegram, that would be a merely a news channel for the events happening in a Sitecore world. It will also provide the hottest articles created by the community in recent, with a plans to integrate this channel with Sitecore Link project by implementing a search bot, that will return you with most relevant links according to search criteria provided.

So, if you are already using Telegram messenger, just click this link and subscribe! If not - only two more clicks limits you from using the most functional and secure messenger in the world that keeps you be aware of your favourite digital platform - Sitecore.

Stay tuned!