Installing Sitecore Rocks

The best way to describe Sitecore Rocks is to tell you that it is the Sitecore Developer's and Administrator's Best Friend.  Sitecore Rocks is an extremely valuable tool both for starting a new project and for maintaining an existing projects.  It saves you time creating a New Sitecore Installation.  It saves time setting the instance up.  As well, it saves you time doing some of the regular maintenance tasks such as bulk updating items, running simple item queries to look find items that a user may have misplaced.

Given this tool is so valuable it only makes sense that our first article walks you through installing Sitecore Rocks on you Development Computer.

If you cannot install Visual Studio in your environment or are using an Express Edition, you can still take advantage of the Sitcore Rock Windows Edition.

Here are the steps to install the Visual Studion Sitecore Rocks Plug-In:

Step 1: Open Visual Studio and click on the Tools Menu the click on Extensions and Updates

Step 2: Click on Online

Step 3: In the top right corner, click on the search box and type in "Sitecore Rocks".

Step 4: Click on Download to download Sitecore Rocks.

Step 5: Once Downloaded it will prompt you to Install.  Click Install.

Step 6: Sitecore Rocks Will Install.

Step 7: Click "Restart Now" to Restart Visual Studio

Step 8: Once Visual Studio Restarts you will see the Sitecore Rocks information on the Start Page.

If you are creating a new Sitecore Instance, please check out the second article in the series that discusses Using Sitecore Rocks to Create a Sitecore Instance.

If you have any suggestions for a QuickStart or a tip, trick or resource that would help someone starting out with Sitecore, please email them to me at chris.williams@readwatchcreate.com

The Guilds and Sitecore QuickStarts

As some of you may know, I have been working on The Guild Project slowly for over 4 years.  It all started as a series of blog articles presenting technical solutions I found for common problems.  Sometimes they were solutions I found, other times people have mentored me with their solutions and advice.  It is now time to take the Guild to the next level and start on The Guild website.  Here is the guild's philosophy:

The Guild is a warm friendly place for the technical and non-technical to come for guidance and mentoring on their technical projects. It is a place to share expertise, tips, tricks, resources and referrals for a fair and reasonable cost. Cost may not always be cash, it may be a referral, reference, friendship, or mutual guidance. Together we can make the guild a positive community for all.

Over the next few months, I will be focusing on Sitecore and more specifically the Sitecore QuickStarts. Sitecore is a very robust and flexible Web Content Management System. As such it is really easy to get overwhelmed on your first project.  The focus of a QuickStart is to ensure you collect have the right tools installed and configured, have links to the best resources, and have access to the right people to guide you going forward.

Check out our first QuickStart on how to Install Sitecore Rocks in Visual Studio

If you are just starting out with Sitecore or wish to provide some advice or constructive criticism to the content, or advice on tools, tricks, tips or resources that would help someone new to Sitecore.  I look forward to hearing from you at chris.williams@readwatchcreate.com

Sitecore Project Warning Signs

Someone tweeted this today and I thought I would share it with the Guild.  There are some really good points here regarding your Sitecore implementation. I suggest you create a checklist and use this as a health check at various times during the project as a sanity check.

Signs That Your Sitecore Implementation Project is in trouble

Websites look really small on new Smart Phones

With the new screen on smart phones, web sites that previously looked good now look tiny.
The solution is using viewports.  This article explains how to do this for an iPhone but this will work for any mobile device with the new style screens.

Small Web Pages on Smart Phones

If you have any tips tricks or resources you would like to share please email them to sitecoreguild@outlook.com

Beginning Sitecore 6.6. MVC

I myself have started to look at Sitecore 6.6 MVC and was looking for an example.  Some one else asked a similar question on LinkedIn and were directed at this blog article by Chris Van de Steeg.

I found this article very helpful so I thought I would pass it on to others in the Guild that may find it useful as well:

http://www.sitecore.net/Community/Best-Practice-Blogs/Chris-van-de-Steeg/Posts/2012/08/MVC-Controller-Renderings-for-Sitecore.aspx

If you have any tips, tricks or resources you would like to share with the guild, please email them to me at sitecoreguild@outlook.com and I will post them here.

Sitecore DMS Personalization Out of Box Conditions List

Someone asked for the out-of-box conditions that can be applied during Personalization.
A simple look in the content tree allowed me to create a list.

You can find the list in the content tree at: /sitecore/system/Settings/Rules/Conditional Renderings/Conditions

Below is the list I found:

Automation State

* Has Automation

* Has Automation State

Classifications

* Visitor Identification Condition

Events

* Has Goal Condition

Geo IP

* Area Code Condition

* City Condition

* Country Condition

* DNS Condition

* IP Address Condition

* ISP Name Condition

* Keywords Condition

* Latitude Condition

* Longitude Condition

* Metro Code Condition

* Name Condition

* Postal Code Condition

* Region Condition

Profiles and Patterns

* Has Pattern Condition

* Profile Condition

Referrers

* Has Keywords Conditions

* Traffic Type Condition

* Visitor Tags

* Has Visitor Tag Condition

* Visitor Tag Condition

Visits

* Engagement Value Points Condition

* Global Visit No Condition

* Has Campaign Condition

* Has Visited Page Condition

* Page Index Condition

Hope this helps others looking for this information.  If you have any tips, tricks or resources you would like shared with the guild or you have any questions please email them to sitecoreguild@outlook.com

Remove ashx extension in Sitecore media item urls

I found this article referenced on a LinkedIn Group and thought I would share it with the guild.

When developing your web applications, rather than having the item extension be ashx, if you make a simple web.config change you can keep the actual extension.

Check out the article on how to Remove the ashx extension in urls for media items in Sitecore and use the real type extension for the media items IE jpg, gif, etc

If you have any tips, tricks or resources you would like shared with the guild please email them to sitecoreguild@outlook.com