Sitefinity 4.3-4.4 Webinar notes

I was so blown away by how cool 4.4 is, I had to record the Q/A part.

I’ve also written down a question or two that gabe answered verbally (paraphrased).

Q/A From GoToWebinar

_Q: Might I perhaps ask an obvious question...Page designer doesn't run javascript, and kendo IS javascript...how will that be handled? **- UNANSWERED**_

Audience Question

Q: Your translation .... funny :) Hope you didi not pay for it. ;)

A: Lesson learned!

Audience Question

Q: can you set a limit on the number of times a coupon can be redeemed?

A: At this stage you cannot set the limit of redeemed coupons.

Audience Question

Q: Will you incorporate the radcontrols socialshare introduced in Q3 or custom implementations ?

A: We are using the RadControl SocialShare control for the upcoming Social Sharing feature in 4.4

Audience Question

Q: is it possible to use coupons for subset of departments or products only?

A: No

Audience Question

Q: we don't sell products online so we did not license ECommerce.  For our organization conversion is tracked differently.  Is it possible to use Google Conversion without the ECommerce module?

A: Yes, the usually the google conversion functionality tracks your "success" page for the payment so you can utilize it to your best need.

Audience Question

Q: can you sync from a single staging server to a production load balanced servers?

A: Yes

Audience Question

Q: concerned about losing features with conversions. We lost breadcrumbs in our move to 4.3

**A: The breadcrum will be available in the upcoming short releases**

Audience Question

Q: Will you be able to sync only parts of a site tree, or does it have to sync the whole site?

A: You can sync only parts of the system such as news, blogs, events, pages and so on.

Audience Question

Q: can you automate the sync process to run at a specific time?

A: No, it is on demand for now

Audience Question

Q: will it support staged synchronization ?

A: Yes we support A->B->C scenario for your staging environment so you can tie as many server as you want.

Audience Question

Q: I meant can we set it to sync only a subset of pages.  (Say, only the "About Us" pages, and leave other pages alone.)

A: Not yet :)

Audience Question

Q: Can you show how to link content from two separate modules built through this builder? (e.g. relate knowledge base items with news).

**A: We still don't have this capability**

Audience Question

Q: Also, will there be a way to export a module so that you can use it in a different site rather than have to recreate the entire thing?

**A: We have export as a zip file that has a high chance to make it for the 4.4 release**

Audience Question

Q: Is it a 1-* module, so like the KB example, then you have KB items...or can it do like blogs where you can have multiple blogs all with multiple blog items.

**A: No, we don't support hierachical content types for the first version, but this is on our radar for 5.0**

Audience Question

Q: can you link an image to a download? such as a graphic button to a pdf file?

A: Yes, however you have to modify the widget template for that.

Audience Question

Q: The url field should be able to concatenate two fields especially for a module like People. You'd want the url to be firstname-lastname.

A: that is actually a pretty handful feature request.

Audience Question

Q: Will we be able to manually package these dynamic modules to move them to other servers?

**A: Yes we will provide export as a zip file option either in 4.4 or 4.4 Sp1**

Audience Question

Q: What I'd like to see is a "Person Photo" that automatically adds image picker. Text fields are easy currently, it's the WebControlDesigners like image and page selection that we need

**A: we have them :) images, videos and files are already part of the custom fields for the dynamic modules**

Audience Question

Q: Did you give the PM who arranged to have this in v4.4 a big payraise?

**A: Just watch what is next :) _(steve: He shows the widget editor with syntax highlighting and a horizontal scrollbar....no more wall of wrapping text!)_**

Audience Question

Q: I also think that not being able to link two content types in a one-to-many scenario really limits ths usefulness. Even a Person/Department scenario, you'd want to put multiple people into a department, so you need some sort of linking mechanism.

A: You can create a custom field of type Taxonomy to create your categories or tags that link your items

Audience Question

Q: What about the process of deploy modules created with module builder ?

Can I package (export) and release them  as a module package (assembly) ?

A: the definition for the module is currently a simple xml file with a couple of additional files packaged to a zip

Audience Question

Q: is it possible to select pages too? (like the image and document selector)?

A: No.

Audience Question

Q: is a custom "module" just a single data table??

A: No

Audience Question

Q: When you do a sync, is it all or nothing? Or, can you do an individual page?

A: for now it is all or nothing.

Audience Question

Q: damn nice grids! v5.4 for everything?

A: Yes!

Audience Question

Q: How would I display this dta on a web page for people to see?

A: you have a widget generated for you for each custom module :)

Audience Question

Q: Is it possible to convert this module to a Visual Studio project for more advanced changes?

A: At this stage no.

Audience Question

Q: will modules be localized in later versions or will the remain invariant?

A: It is invariant for 4.4

Audience Question

Q: How would I import a widget I created in one intance of Sitefinity and import into another.

**A: If it is created using the module builder you will be able to export it as a zip file.**

Audience Question

Q: Will there be an import interface for these dynamic module that are in zip format?

A: Yes

Audience Question

Q: Is there an advantage to building a complete custom module versus these dynamic modules.

**A: The advantage is certainly speed vs. flexibility at this point.**

Audience Question

Q: What will happen to the current facebook control\widget with social share...thye will co-exist?

A: Yes they will be still part of the toolbox just in case you want to like a page for example

Audience Question

Q: will site synchronization support file library provider aswell?

A: It is in the works. We plan to have support for all Libraries

Audience Question

Q: Are custom modules localizable?

A: Custom modules in 4.4 will be culture invariant.

Audience Question

Q: The customer wait also 1 year with migration because off missing **_forums module_**. When will be the module completed by Telerik ?

**A: First-half of 2012**

Audience Question

Q: The module builder looks great. If I want to extend default modules (news, blogs, etc); can I do this in the same way as the module builder?

A: Yes

Audience Question

Q: Can you talk about Azure?

A: Sitefinity 4.4 will feature an Azure Blob storage provider for 4.4

Gabe Verbal Answers:

Q: Coupon Code Limits

A: Current is no (must stress), what you see is what you get, as they are universally applied throughout the store.  Feature is on the radar, do not worry, they just have a lot to impliment.

Q: Excitement about module builder comments

A: Everyone internally is super excited as well (about the possibilities, etc)

Q: Sync in 4.4 staged support

A: Yes, ABC types scenario, etc

Q: Data relations between module builder content

A: They are aware, but will not be addressed by the first release

Q: Will we be able to dynamically package module builder modules

A: Addition to answer: Attractive to telerik because of marketplace integration

Cheers!  Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

Steve