Web Garden Limited is now an Umbraco Certified Professional! Last week I travelled to Copenhagen to attend the Level 2 Umbraco training course to become an Umbraco Certified Professional. As promised, here are some of the tips and tricks that came up over the two days. There was a lot more covered than I'll touch on here, but these are the bits that I found most useful - hopefully you might too.

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Testing�your .NET Controls that use the Umbraco API within Visual Studio

Previously, I would always use post-build events to copy my dll and .ascx files into my Umbraco installation, create macros, add them to�a test�page in my Umbraco�site�and then hit the page to see if it works or not. I'd attach to the process in Visual Studio to step through and debug the code. But what if you want to test by hitting F5 in Visual Studio? To acheive this, you need to:

1. Copy your web.config, data/ and config/ folders, and the urlrewriting.dll�into your Visual Studio project.

2. Remove the Channels HttpHandler entries from the web.config.

3.�In your test page code-behind�you need to set the Page ID of the page you are simulating so that Umbraco knows where you are. So in your WebForm1.aspx.cs file, you need this:

        protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnInit(e);
            HttpContext.Current.Items["pageID"] = 1055;
        }

And that should be it. Hit F5 in Visual Studio and step through your code to your heart's content.

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Using the Dictionary Object to store configuration settings for your site

In the past, I have created a Configuration node in my Umbraco builds where the user can specify email addresses for the contact page, etc. Then in the web.config I would store the ID of the Configuration Node, which I could then use to access the information in my user controls, like this:

Node n = new Node(int.Parse(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ConfigNodeId"]));

Another way of achieving this is to use the Dictionary object to store these items. In your codebehind you would code something like this:

Node n = new Node(int.Parse(umbraco.library.GetDictionaryItem("ConfigNodeId")));

A small change, perhaps, but it means that you can update the ID through the Umbraco UI without having to edit your web.config file - so you could do it from any web browser. To give the user access to the Dictionary object, you can move it from the settings section into the content section, bringing me to my next point:

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Moving the Dictionary Object from the settings to the content section

You may not want to give access to the settings section of Umbraco to your content editors, but you may want them to be able to update the email address that the contact us messages go to. So move the Dictionary into the content section by updating the database table dbo.umbracoAppTree table and change the appAlias of the Dictionary entry from settings to content.

Disclaimer: I couldn't get this to work! I can move the Dictionary object to the developer tab, for instance, using this method, but not to the content tab. Solutions in the comments please!

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Using Windows Live Writer to update your blog

This has been covered already:

Umbraco using Live Writer book

Umbraco UK Developer Meeting Summary of the Day

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Resharper add-in for Visual Studio 2008

Apparently this is a great tool, I am looking forward to trying it out myself. Opinion on the course is that it saves you loads of time as a c# developer.

Resharper add-in for Visual Studio 2008

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Umbraco Extensions

If you take a look at the umbracoExt project in Codeplex there are loads of Umbraco extensions with full source code to play with, for example the Dashboard Controls. This is a set of some very nice controls that appear when your content manager logs into Umbraco. Can be downloaded from the Umbraco repository in the usual way, however, the package expects your dashboard configuration file to be called dashboard.xml (it's now called dashboard.config). So you'll need to rename your dashboard.config file to dashboard.xml before you start, and rename it back afterwards.

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Using XSLT Extensions as your data layer

You can create an XSLT Extension which goes to an external datasource (or wherever) and returns an xPathNodeIterator object which you can then format in your xslt template. I haven't tried this one but it would be very useful for quickly formatting external data in your Umbraco site.

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Just a few tips there that I hope you find helpful. I highly recommend the course as a way of cementing your existing knowledge, even if you do already know it all! It's also a good way to meet other Umbraco professionals - I got to hang out with Darren Ferguson again and we had some very interesting discussions related to Umbraco and freelancing in general. Well worth the money!

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