SITECOREing

  Understanding the Roles In Sitecore XM Cloud, back-end developers primarily manage content models, custom APIs, and data within the Sitecore CMS backend. On the other hand, front-end developers focus on building the user interface and interactions using a JavaScript framework like React, consuming content from the backend via GraphQL endpoints. The headless CMS architecture of Sitecore XM Cloud allows the front-end to be largely decoupled from the back-end, providing flexibility in technology choices and development workflows. Back-End Developer Responsibilities Back-end developers in Sitecore XM Cloud are responsible for: Deployment of all custom components to XM Cloud. Synchronizing components, code, and content between Prod and Non-Prod environments. Answering questions from content authors regarding component usage, troubleshooting site load, caching, and component versions. Troubleshooting Edge CDN issues related to content updates. Designing and managing content structures,...

One of the most useful customization of Sitecore is the ability to add contextual code to an item in Sitecore. For example let say we have a page in Sitecore that works well in the English language. A content author wants to create the same page in french. Unfortunately there isn't an out of the box way to copy the English page content (including all child items) into french.  This is where adding contextual code will help.  To do this you would have to install Sitecore powershell extensions. There are lots of documentations  online about this tool.  To add contextual code to an item in Sitecore, you would need to add a new module to the powershell script library located at /sitecore/system/Modules/PowerShell/Script Library/ Under this module you can add any powershell scripts you want under the context menu node.  Make sure to enable the module and you should see these script under any item. You can even modify the rule section to d...

 How GlassMapper works  Glass Mapper is an object relational mapping (ORM) tool in Sitecore. It maps Sitecore items to strongly-typed classes. This makes it simple to access Sitecore data within C# code. Without an ORM, Sitecore developers would need to write and manage a lot of mapping code.  Below are example files that you can use. You have an interface class file, a class file that implements the interface and lastly you can use this in your cshtml file.  That's it. Happy Sitecoreing! IMySitecoreItemName class file namespace Your.NameSpace { [SitecoreType(TemplateId = Templates.MyTemplate.IdString, AutoMap = true)] public interface IMySitecoreItemName : IMySitecoreModel { [SitecoreField(FieldId = Templates.MySitecoreItem.Fields.MyField1)] string StringFieldName { get; set; } [SitecoreField(FieldId = Templates.MySitecoreItem.Fields.MyField2)] bool BoolFieldName { get; set; } } } Use it on your .cs file ...

 There are times when you put breakpoints in Visual studio and read object values within Visual Studio. This is all good if you are doing some debugging. But if you want to save an object like a Json object in Visual studio there isn't a straightforward way to do that. I found this piece of code that I copied and pasted in the Immediate Window in Visual Studio and was able to save the object as an XML file. (new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(YourObject.GetType())).Serialize(new System.IO.StreamWriter(@"c:\tmp\YourObject.xml"), YourObject) Happy Sitecoreing!

Brightcove Sitecore connector 10.0 and below use the Media Framework which is depricated by Sitecore. Brightcove Sitecore connector 10.1 and above instead using the Data Exchange Framework .  Before starting these steps, take a note of a few video pages in the environment you are setting up. That way you can refer to these pages after the upgrade to make sure these videos pages continue to work. Follow these steps in the following order.  1. Install the Sitecore Installation package: Data Exchange Framework 6.0.0 rev. 01537 via Sitecore installation wizard.   2. For CM just package install would be sufficient (Takes around 30 min). For CD we would need to copy files (unzip the package and copy the files in the "Files" folder) over.   3. Run Cleanup script migration-cleanup.ps1 from root Sitecore site. This script is found in the full source code download of the connector.  4. Install Brightcove Video connect package [example: Brightcove.Video.Connect....

 To setup Sitecore IP Geolocation functionality, you must go to the Sitecore Support & Self Service portal and sign up for a subscription. Refer to this Sitecore article  for more info.  After we have subscribed to the Sitecore IP Geolocation functionality to validate it we use the TestIP.aspx page. Check out thie Sitecore support page to get the TestIP.aspx page and upload it to the Sitecore folder on your server. Open the https://hostname/sitecore/TestIp.aspx page Sample Test IP's to test with:  Africa IP : 102.129.96.0 US IP: 69.162.81.155 UK IP: 101.167.212.0 Make sure the response from the TestIP.spx has the correct country for different test IP's. Once this works we know that the Sitecore IP Geolocation functionality is enabled.  How do we use this functionality in our application.  Just use the personalization rules in Sitecore under the "Geo IP" section (see image below) . So you can control what content is shown to a user based on the...