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Team Development Best Practices for Kentico CMS

Team Development Best Practices for Kentico CMS. Brian McKeiver, BizStream, Co-Owner & Kentico MVP. Goals. Work efficiently as a group Make your life easier as a Kentico Developer Hone your craft, make your customers happier. Cowboy. vs. Goal 1. Team.

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Team Development Best Practices for Kentico CMS

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  1. Team Development Best Practices for Kentico CMS Brian McKeiver, BizStream, Co-Owner & Kentico MVP

  2. Goals • Work efficiently as a group • Make your life easier as a Kentico Developer • Hone your craft, make your customers happier

  3. Cowboy vs. Goal 1 Team

  4. You don’t have to burnthe place down Goal 2

  5. Goal 3 Gladwell’s 10,000-Hour Rule

  6. When you see this… Let’s talk about this over a beer

  7. Here We Go: First Time Setup • Tools of the Trade • Local Workstation • Visual Studio 2010+ • SQL Server Management Studio 2008+ • Source Control • KenticoCMS_7_0.exe • Goal: Install Kentico locally

  8. Reasons to Install Locally • Documentation • API CHM • Kentico Installation Manager (KIM) • Import Toolkit • App Pool Recycles are controlled

  9. Source Control with Kentico • Code Considerations • One branch or many ? • Depends on team size and goals • Database Considerations • Leverage built in version control, check-in & check-out • Why external SQL versioning products may not work

  10. Running Local Code • Debug with VS2012 • HTTP Trace via Fiddler • Your exceptions are yours and yours alone • No danger of breaking the build

  11. Shared Development Database • Key idea for Team Development Kentico CMS SQL DB Dev 1 Dev 2

  12. Shared Development Instance • Running full copy of your site in TEST http://mysite.devserver.com Kentico CMS Shared Dev http://localhost:42 http://localhost:42 Dev 2 Dev 1

  13. QA / Test Server Code QA / Test can see changes faster QA 1 Kentico CMS SQL DB Dev 1 Dev 2

  14. Actual Code Slinging

  15. Grow Your Craft There is no Try, only Do -Yoda

  16. Naming Standards Matter • Prefix 3 - 4 characters for project name • Followed by fully spelled out, descriptive name • Display Names • Upper Case with spaces to delimit words • Prefixing with a special character is recommended because the project specific or custom object names will roll to the top of the Kentico selectors. • Object Code Names • No Spaces, no special characters, Upper camel case • 100% Relying on the automatic naming is not recommended • Use the word “Custom” in Views / Stored Procs • Use System Tables GUI in SiteManager to create them

  17. Making it work: Custom Code Locations • 2 Strategies • ~/App_Code/<Custom Code> • project code as sub folder • ~/CMSModules/<Custom Code> • ~/CMSWebParts/<Custom Code> or • ~/App_Code/_framework/<Custom Code> • ~/_framework/<Custom Code>/CMSModules • ~/_framework/<Custom Code>/CMSWebParts

  18. Making it work: Site Settings Kentico Site Settings for Team Dev • Check in - check out (Object Lock) • Object Versioning Blog Post

  19. Object Locking & Versioning • Available for: • CSS Stylesheets • E-mail Templates • Page Layouts • Page Templates • Transformations • Web part Containers • Web part Layouts

  20. Workflow for Content Tree

  21. Warning 1 “Undo Checkout” is NOT your Friend

  22. Warning 2 You will not be able to see Web Part settings if another developer has a Page Template checked out or if it is checked in.

  23. Tip: See All Checked Out Objects My Desk tab to the rescue!

  24. Virtual Objects with Kentico • Check out to File System • Can still use Kentico UI or External Source Control • Apply Changes to move back to DB

  25. Virtual Objects: What it does Use any IDE / Source Control client you want while editing externally in the file system.

  26. Virtual Objects: How it Saves You • Kentico Cache and Object Locking • 2 Devs land on the same checked in page template at same time • One checks out the template, the second goes to get coffee • One is working, second comes back and checks out • Two checked out copies because working at localhost

  27. Virtual Objects Gotchas Object Sync Message, respect it.

  28. Deployment Mode with Kentico • When the deployment mode is OFF • location of virtual objects depends on the Source control options. • When the deployment mode is ON • virtual objects are moved from the database to the file system on your disk. Target folder is ~/CMSVirtualFiles.

  29. Continuous Integration (CI) Lots of Options: Jenkins Team Foundation Server Team City

  30. Value of CI • Technical Value: • Saves Time • Automatic build and deploy capabilities • Exercise / hone your craftsmanship • Adds responsibility to check ins / commits • Gives you metrics on code base

  31. Value of CI 2 • Business Value: • Reduces Risk • Reduces overhead across overall development process • Provides better Quality Assurance • Raises project visibility

  32. How to use CI with Kentico • Automatic polling • Build every X mins • Hooks • Build when events are triggered • Most common hook is: when a commit occurs • Most CI systems can spawn a Selenium Test • Automated /Recorded HTTP request

  33. What to watch out for in upgrade / hotfix • Files will be overwritten if you do not segment your customizations

  34. Don’t Rely on the SystemTransforms • What if someone re-installs a Module ? • POOF • Cloning is your Friend

  35. Deployment Options

  36. Import / Export (multiple)

  37. Import / Export (single) • Almost every object is export-able • Look for the small grey dropdown arrow to expand the menu

  38. Import / Export Gotchas • Update Documents • Linked Documents • License Issues WTF ?

  39. Content Stage One click deployment, YES Please! Sign me up.

  40. Content Stage Gotchas • Stage a task while target server has it checked out ** • Javascript Files in Site Manager - don’t go ** • Custom Views / Stored Procs - don’t go ** • Tasks can get out of control • Large Files • http://mcbeev.com/...Quick-Tip-Content-Staging-and-Large-Files (yes this is a shameless plug) • <add key="CMSMediaFileMaxStagingSize" value="1024" /> ** Hint Hint Kentico 8 people

  41. Web Farm Sync • Sync everything everywhere • Good for initial step in project lifecycle as far as developers go • Also great for uptime and reliability in Production Environments

  42. Deployment Setting: Macro Security • A note about Connection Strings and Macro Security • Ever seen this on your page ? • |(user)mcbeev|(hash)f2c71936597eea6f50f961a7094993459af24e51cf154f75b41032875f810dc0" • Use the appSetting key: • <add key="CMSHashStringSalt"  value="e68b9ad6-a461-4707-8e3e-ece73f03dd02" />

  43. Team Dev: A Few Other Best Practices • Keep Zone IDs and Web Part Control IDs as short as possible. Use Web Part Titles instead • Avoid Ad-hoc Templates, other devs won’t know about them

  44. Working with the Marketing People • Yes even Content Admins have a right to play in the CMS • Separate environments for DEV and Content Admins helps • Use Content Staging to keep in Sync

  45. Wrapping It Up Team Development is supported better than ever in Kentico 7.0! You’ve Learned • Work efficiently as a group • Make your life easier as a Kentico Developer • Hone your craft, make your customers happier Assimilate as a Team. Resistance is Futile. Team Development FTW.

  46. Questions

  47. Thank You Email: bmckeiver@bizstream.com Web: http://www.bizstream.com Blog: http://www.mcbeev.com Twitter: @mcbeev LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmckeiver

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