Experience Sitecore !

You might came across Variant Template Field when going through rendering variants insert options and wondered, what is that? Variant Template Field is a special field that uses NVelocity templates (supported by Sitecore.NVelocity.dll) in order to render the value.

One of the MVPs - Michael West - has briefly mentioned built-in token tools coming with SXA. I decided to take a look on these tools. I found them in Sitecore.XA.Foundation.Variants.Abstractions.dll under Sitecore.XA.Foundation.Variants.Abstractions.NVelocityExtensions namespace. Here's their code:

public class DateTool
{
    public string Format(DateTime dateTime, string format) => dateTime.ToString(format);

    public string Format(string dateTimeString, string format)
    {
        DateTime time = DateUtil.IsoDateToDateTime(dateTimeString, DateTime.MinValue);
        if (time != DateTime.MinValue)
        {
            return time.ToString(format);
        }
        return dateTimeString;
    }
}

and

public sealed class NumberTool
{
    public string Format(double value, string format) => value.ToString(format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    public string Format(int value, string format) => value.ToString(format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
    public string Format(float value, string format) => value.ToString(format, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}

DateTool is used internally by another field type - VariantDateField, that's how it works. Let's say I have a template:

and it renders to: 

But you may also use it from templates (since it is already mapped) for example combining with your custom tools (not just this one line):

resulting with:

It is also briefly mentioned in the official documentation.

I was following the official guidance, so dropped search box component to my header and configured search results parameter. Then created page /search and dropped search results on it. Tested and got an exception (from logs):

14260 17:31:37 ERROR Unable to connect to [https://localhost:8983/solr], Core: [sitecore_sxa_master_index]
Exception: SolrNet.Exceptions.SolrConnectionException
Message: 
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<title>Error 404 Not Found</title>
<h2>HTTP ERROR 404</h2>
<p>Problem accessing /solr/sitecore_sxa_master_index/schema. Reason:
</p><pre>Not Found</pre><p></p>

Source: SolrNet
   at SolrNet.Impl.SolrConnection.Get(String relativeUrl, IEnumerable`1 parameters)
   at Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrNetExtension.Impl.SolrBasicServerEx`1.GetSchema(String collection)
   at Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.SolrSearchIndex.InitializeSchema()
   at Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.SolrSearchIndex.InitializeSolr()

Nested Exception
Exception: System.Net.WebException
Message: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
Source: System
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
   at HttpWebAdapters.Adapters.HttpWebRequestAdapter.GetResponse()
   at SolrNet.Impl.SolrConnection.GetResponse(IHttpWebRequest request)
   at SolrNet.Impl.SolrConnection.Get(String relativeUrl, IEnumerable`1 parameters)
14260 17:31:37 ERROR Unable to connect to [https://localhost:8983/solr], Core: [sitecore_sxa_web_index]

Exception: SolrNet.Exceptions.SolrConnectionException

Obviously, my SXA indexes got misconfigured, and Sitecore Indexing manager showed nothing there. I identified a responsible config file: App_Config/Modules/SXA/Z.Foundation.Overrides/Sitecore.XA.Foundation.Search.Solr.config - it adds two SXA-related indexes as below (irrelevant lines skipped):

<index id="sitecore_sxa_master_index">
  <param desc="name">$(id)</param>
  <param desc="core">$(id)</param>
</index>

I tried populating schema:

 But got such an exception:

Looking at Solr I've noticed that all my cores are prefixed (ie. Platform_master_index) by the installation, so obviously there are no such cores (ie. sitecore_sxa_master_index). Indexing Manager claims these as "never run". I decided to collocate SXA indexes within cores for corresponding databases, along with traditional non-SXA indexes.  So that both indexes sitecore_master_index and sitecore_sxa_mater_index will reside within Platform_master_index core.

So I ended up making this patch Foundation.ContentSearch.config:

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/" xmlns:role="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/role/" xmlns:search="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/search/">
  <sitecore search:require="solr">
    <contentSearch>
      <configuration type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentSearchConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
        <indexes hint="list:AddIndex">
          <index id="sitecore_sxa_master_index" type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.SolrSearchIndex, Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider" role:require="Standalone or Reporting or ContentManagement or Processing">
            <param desc="core" patch:instead="param[@desc='core']">Platform_master_index</param>
          </index>
          <index id="sitecore_sxa_web_index" type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.SolrSearchIndex, Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider" role:require="Standalone or ContentDelivery or ContentManagement or Reporting">
            <param desc="core" patch:instead="param[@desc='core']">Platform_web_index</param>
          </index>
        </indexes>
      </configuration>
    </contentSearch>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

Upon the new clean installation, Sitecore 9.1 puts the following certificates (as per below example of habitat project hostnames):

1. Current User\Personal - nothing

2. Current User\Intermediate Certification Authorities - SIF

• Sitecore Install Framework / Sitecore Install Framework

3. Local Computer\Personal - xConnect and Identity Server

• habitat_xconnect.dev.local / DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert
• habitat_IdentityServer.dev.local / DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert

4. Local Computer\Intermediate Certification Authorities - Sitecore and SIF

• DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert / DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert
• Sitecore Install Framework / Sitecore Install Framework

Hope this helps!

People sometimes ask me, what is Sitecore Discussion Club and how it differs from Sitecore user groups. Well, I have covered plenty of times and also got some description on Sitecore Discussion Club website. But this time I made a panoramic 360-degree video, showing how it looks like (the first part with presentations). This time there were slightly fewer people than usual, which created even more cozy and friendly atmosphere.

Thanks to the members attending Sitecore Discussion Club!

Just a cheat sheet for myself to have them here all in one place so that I bookmark this URL and don't waste time digging out all sorts of documentation in order to find the right one. Taken out from here and here.

Available tokens:

• $compatibleThemes - path to all themes
• $theme - currently used theme
• $pageDesigns - root of page designs
• $partialDesigns - root of partial designs
• $currenttemplate - name of the current template
• $tenant - path to the current tenant
• $site - path to the current site
• $home - path to the current site start item (Home)
• $templates - path to the current sitetemplates
• $siteMedia - path to Virtual Media folder located under site
• $sharedSites - for multiroot fields, resovles shared site for current tenant.

Recently I came into a weird situation. So, to start with ...

I got Sitecore 9.0 update 2, installed SXA 1.8 for 9.0 on top of it. Created a tenant and a site, also made few pages for test and some initial settings as we usually do as per documentation, so far so good. 

Then I made a solution, configuration and serialized everything I made on the previous step, then reinstalled an instance in order to test my solution, configuration and serialization deploys well on top of clean Sitecore and to confirm everything works as expected.

Build process went fine, deployment worked well, Unicorn ran and created the site with all my pages and all relevant items - all good, except for one issue. Before Sitecore reinstallation, a new page in Experience Editor looked that way:

After the deployment on top of the new clean instance, running Experience Editor brought the following layout:

Clearly, there was something missing from either my configuration or serialization. So I started troubleshooting and comparing.

In both scenarios, I had instances sites of the same version and both with SXA 1.8. Since this issue was reproducible, next time I made git init just within webroot in order to get a version diff with a post-deployment state, so that I could see all modified files and see the diff as I usually do with git tools. However, nothing suspicious found at bin and within App_config folder. Deployment went as expected so that should be something in Sitecore then.

First of all, I compared templates and standard values, but they were the same for both cases. Next, I ensured presentation details are also identical, even ensured Layout files and binary equal.  Yes, it contains body-top placeholder, but in one scenario it is presented for some reason.

Then I went to the actual page items in order to compare those, but they were also the same. View options have same parameters checked. No idea then...

Finally, after spending plenty of time I figured out that something was wrong with SXA themes. Unfortunately, did not identify what exactly causes the problem, but after re-creating it at serialization config and re-serializing items the issue has gone. So, the outcome is: if you see unexpected placeholders - please make sure your SXA theme is in the correct state and serialized properly.

I was very anticipating to upgrade my solution to recently released XP 9.1 with SXA 1.8 and all its great features, however, I got a dependency on Sitecore Commerce, which hasn't (yet) updated to 9.1. Got nothing to do with that, but just wait for a month or so until XC 9.1 is out...

But wait, why not just update at least SXA to version 1.8 meanwhile? SXA 1.8 comes for both versions for 9.1 and 9.0 which means - in two runtimes .NET 4.7.1 and .NET 4.6.2 correspondingly. Done, upgraded. SXA 1.8 works well on top of clean Sitecore 9.0 update 2 instance for me.

But when it came to updating NuGet packages in my solution, I was unable to do so because NuGet packages for my version for some reason demand .NET 4.7.1:

And that is my error:

Package Sitecore.XA.Feature.CreativeExchange 3.8.0 is not compatible with net462 (.NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2) / win-x86. Package Sitecore.XA.Feature.CreativeExchange 3.8.0 supports: net471 (.NETFramework,Version=v4.7.1)

Version 3.8.0 is the correct version of SXA 1.8 for 9.0 and it should support .NET 4.6.2, not 4.7.2. Version of SXA 1.8 for 9.1 has number 4.8.0 and that one indeed supports 4.7.1 runtime.

Since I cannot do anything about NuGet feeds, I turned back to the old lib\LocalRepository folder in my solution, simply copying all the required SXA 1.8 libraries from instance webroot (where I have SXA 1.8 working with clean 9.0 update instance) and referencing them instead from affected projects. 

That did me a job for the moment. I will either update to the NuGets once it is fixed with the correct version or upgrade the entire solution to 9.1 when XC 9.1 is out, whatever comes earlier.

Just in case you are facing the certificate error while installing Sitecore 9.0 update 2 with SIF 1.2.1 as step CreateSignedCert : NewSignedCertificate, as below:

Install-SitecoreConfiguration : Cannot process argument transformation on parameter 'Signer'. Cannot convert the "System.Object[]" value of type "System.Object[]" to type "System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2".

The issue is coming from having the certificate already in a system, so you might manually delete that those from Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe from Windows start menu).

In my case, I had several certificates named DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert installed under Certificates - Current User - Trusted Root Certification Auhorities- Certificates, deleting them helped progress.

Hope this helps!