K# And Kentico EMS – Part 1

1. K# And Kentico EMS – Part 1 Karol Jarkovsky Consulting Services Manager Kentico Software http://devnet.kentico.com/Blogs/Karol-Jarkovsky.aspx karolj@kentico.com

2. Agenda • K# • K# Facts & Syntax • K# Security & Performance • K# Demo I • Rendering MegaNav using macros • K# and On-line Marketing • OnlineMarketingContext • K# Demo II • Sending complex score notification e-mails • Q & A

3. K# Basics K# Basics Complete guide available at http://devnet.kentico.com/docs/devguide/macro_expressions_overview.htm More in depth information available at http://devnet.kentico.com/Blogs/Martin-Hejtmanek/December-2011/From-developers-to-developers---K-.aspx

4. K# Facts & Syntax • K# is Kentico compilation-free scripting language, • K# is available for any context macros, • {%CurrentUser.UserName%} • You can still take advantage of K# and work with other types of macros,

5. K# Facts & Syntax • K# creates hierarchical structure from all the objects available in the current context, • Testing tool available at ~/CMSAdminControls/UI/Macros/ObjectBrowser.aspx, • To retrieve context information you can access one of the following collections: • CMSContext – Complete information on the current request related objects – user, document, client browser, page template, CSS, website, settings, etc., • {% CMSContext.CurrentSite.SiteName %} • CommunityContext – Information on current group and other community related objects, • {% CommunityContext.CurrentGroup.GroupCreatedWhen %} • EcommerceContext – E-commerce related data valid for the current request, • {% EcommerceContext.CurrentCustomer.CustomerLastName %} • ForumContext – Forums related information, • {% ForumContext.CurrentForum.ForumName %}

6. K# Facts & Syntax • MediaLibraryContext – Media library data collection, • {% MediaLibraryContext.CurrentMediaLibrary.LibraryLastModified %} • Use K# and context macros to access any global or site specific object through the following selectors: • GlobalObjects – Provides access to all global objects available, • {% GlobalObjects.Users.Administrator.UserID %} • SiteObjects – The same as above but includes only current site objects., • {% SiteObjects.Roles.CMSBasicUsers.RoleID %}

7. K# Facts & Syntax • Several ways how you can actually access value in the data context item, • For example to access current website home page data you can use • {% CMSContext.Current.RootDocument.Children.Home%} • {% CMSContext.Current.Documents["/Home"]%} • To access document object containing coupled data (data stored outside CMS_Tree and CMS_Document table) you need to access document through the WithAllData selector • {% CMSContext.Current.RootDocument.Children.WithAllData.Home %} • {% CMSContext.Current.Documents.WithAllData["/Home"] %} • or in case you’re looking for information on CMS Basic Users role • {% SiteObjects.Roles.CMSBasicUsers%} • {% SiteObjects["Roles"]["CMSBasicUsers"]%} • {% SiteObjects[“cms.role”]["CMSBasicUsers"] %} • K# supports variable declarations and allows you to use variable declared earlier towards the end of the whole text where it was declared,

8. K# Facts & Syntax • K# makes nested macros much simpler and transparent, • Previous version required you to write something like • {(1)% CurrentUser.LastName|(default){(2)%CurrentUser.UserName%(2)}%(1)} • You can achieve the same results using K# and the following expression • {% name = CMSContext.CurrentUser.LastName; (( name != "")? name : CMSContext.CurrentUser.UserName; ) %} • You can even combine two different types of macroswithin single expression • {% OnlineMarketingContext.CurrentContact.ContactLastName+ " visited this page at " +  Custom.CurrentDateTime%} • K# you can use integrates with Kentico UI and provides several tools that makes writing macro expressions easier, • Automatic completition, • Macro selection control, • Macro condition editor.

9. K# Security • Security • When the macro is evaluated permissions are checked for the user that specified the macro – permission of the user content is displayed for aren’t checked at all, • When the macro is defined the ‘#’ appears at the end of the expression to indicate that macro author user identity stamp was just added to the definition, • When the macro is evaluated system checks permission for the user whose identity stamp is coupled with the expression, • Actual value of the stamp hidden in the UI, but stored in the back-end looks something like: • {% <macro expression>|(user)administrator|(hash)a3309399c0fd38344b57c18b87528b4e15f36b059c59b8cd152e6fd01371da72%} • Even though you cannot see identity stamp value in the UI it’s still part of the macro and therefore stored as field value in the DB – make sure field length is sufficient for both macro as well as hash, • To avoid signing macro expression insert ‘@’ at the end • (instead of ‘#’). Macro is then evaluated as for • public user.

10. K# Performance • Performance • Data context content by default valid through the time of request processing – available and re-usable across the whole system, • Data aren’t retrieved from DB unless required = when navigating through the context tree or during the evaluation when specific collection/object/property is accessed – data context and macro engine both leverage a lazy-read, • If you access many objects from the data context in your macro expressions you can cache data context and re-use data you already requested during previous requests, • CMSCachedContext(Int32 cacheMinutes, String cacheItemName) • Data context is cached for specified amount of minutes and stays in the cache unless it’s flushed or cache period expires – no cache dependencies, • If you need to make sure cached context is invalidated when certain change occurs in the system you can cache result of macro expression instead of whole context, • Cache(Object expression, Int32 cacheMinutes, Boolean condition, String cacheItemName, String cacheItemNameParts, • CMSCacheDependencycacheDependency)

11. K# Demo I K# Demo I Rendering MegaNavigation using macros

12. Questions & Answers ?

13. Thank you!