Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Book Image

Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server

Overview of this book

Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 is a dynamic web publishing system with which you can build websites quickly and cost-efficiently. MCMS provides the administration, authoring, and data management functionality, and you provide the website interface, logic, and workflow. Once your website is up and running, your content contributors can add and edit content on their own, without the need to work with developers or the IT department. First time developers of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 face a relatively steep learning curve. Not only are they expected to be conversant in the Microsoft .NET Framework, they are also required to be familiar with the concepts of MCMS 2002. Many beginners to MCMS start out by looking at the example site that ships with the product; tweaking it, dissecting it and turning it inside out using the obscure code comments as markers. However, when it comes to starting their own website from scratch, many are baffled ? where do they begin? This book exists to answer that question; teaching the essential concepts of MCMS 2002 in a clear, straightforward and practical manner. Containing answers to some of the most asked questions in developer newsgroups, this book is a treasure trove of tricks and tips for solving the problems faced by MCMS developers. This is a unique resource focused exclusively on the needs of developers using MCMS. It doesn?t waste time and pages on user or administrator level information that is well covered in other documentation. It?s a distillation of practical experience that developers need to get results, fast. The authors carefully structured example project complements and extends the knowledge gained from an initial look at the examples that ship with MCMS.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server
Credits
About the Authors
Introduction

Building Blocks of the Web Author Console


Given that the Web Author Console recognizes seven different Web Author context modes, we need to know how it is able to show different sets of controls for each mode. To understand this better, we need to look at how the Web Author Console is constructed.

The Web Author Console consists of three basic building blocks:

  1. The Console Object

  2. Site Mode Containers

  3. Action/Status Controls

These blocks are packaged neatly into a single Web User Control, the Default Console. A good place to begin our study of the Web Author Console is to look at the copy of the Default Console that we made earlier. Open CustomConsole.ascx file in Visual Studio.NET and view its HTML code. Identify the basic blocks that make up the Default Console as you work through this section.

The Console Object

The Console object is the parent block that marks the beginning and end points of the Web Author Console. There are two types of Console objects:

  1. Authoring Console: Displays the authoring...