Advanced Database Crawler / Sitecore Search Contrib Update

This is a post about a maintenance update to the SitecoreSearchContrib project, which is hosted on GitHub now.

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Partial Language Fallback Module Update

Today I pushed a small update to the Partial Language Fallback module which I introduced a while back. Check out this quick screencast below. For the full list of changes hit “read more”.

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Color Picker Field for Sitecore

Here is a late Christmas present for the Sitecore community. A “ColorPicker” custom field that helps storing color codes in Sitecore.

The idea is simple: have a single line text box for color code storage and present the user with a good looking dialog to pick the color.

Technically speaking, there are two ways of color picking implemented.
The first approach is using native Internet Explorer’s color picker dialog and it is getting called via JavaScript.
The second one is using a custom built XamlSharp dialog with a ColorPicker control from ComponentArt. If you are using non IE browsers, the second dialog will be called.

Here is a short video about how it works. Turn those mics on!

Color Picker Module for Sitecore

Here are the installation steps:

1. Download the appropriate Sitecore package.
If you are planning on building the project yourself, use the “ColorPicker field items only” package.

2. Install it via Sitecore desktop.

3. After the installation, new custom field called “Color Picker” should be registered with the system.

To verify it, switch to “core” database and go to the following location: “/sitecore/system/Field types/Simple Types”

The “Color Picker” field should be there and should look like this:

Short user guide:

1. If the installation was successful, you can start using it.

2. Find the template you want to play with.

3. Create a field of type “Color Picker”

4. Create an item from this template.

5. Enjoy.

This shared source module has been implemented in collaboration with Artem Loboda (compent.dk).

Developed and tested on 6.4 Update-1. Expected to work with 6.3. There could be compatibility issues with earlier releases.

All the sources are published to our Shared Source Library. Thanks for the help, Jimmie :-)
http://trac.sitecore.net/ColorPicker/browser/Trunk

Sitecore Searcher and Advanced Database Crawler

Hi there,
Today I am proud to announce a preview release of a component that extends the standard Sitecore Searching mechanisms, specifically, the relatively “new” Sitecore.Search namespace introduced in 6.0 and provides easy search querying APIs. If you are not sure what I am talking about, check out this recently published document on SDN and also Ivan’s blog posts about it.

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Approaching Language Fallback with Sitecore

Greetings,
Today I would like to present to you a prototype I have been working over past couple of weeks. This solution is built around a story about language fallback requirements of a fictitious multinational company. This is just an example of how you can approach similar requirement.
There is a number of alternative solutions that the Sitecore gurus from all over the world came up with, so you could naturally ask me: what is so special about this approach?

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Sitecore Media Library Policeman. Free shared source module.

Greetings! It is my pleasure to announce the very first module for Sitecore CMS I developed in collaboration with Ivan Sharamok finally made it to Shared Source Library.

The idea behind the module belongs to a customer who was willing to take full control over the Sitecore Media Library in their multi site solution. Managing more than 15 sites on one instance, it is important to restrict permissions on different areas of the content tree, as well as /media library branch.

I’ve seen too many situations in my practice where this important aspect has been neglected and hundreds of media files ended up in the root of media library, causing all sorts of performance and compatibility issues.

This module will hopefully provide a good starting point for what you can do in terms of policing your Media Library.

Instead of writing a bunch of boring docs, I decided to put a boring video on YouTube.

Enjoy!