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

Alternatives to Connected Postings


Apart from using connected postings and templates, there are other ways to share content across a site.

Connected postings are not the best solution when the postings to be connected have shared placeholders that contain different placeholder content. For example, you may have shared content such as legal disclaimers or the company's logo. Apart from the shared content, each posting will have its own unique content, perhaps the main body or story. In such cases, connected postings and templates will not work.

With connected templates and postings, all placeholder definitions and content are shared. You can't share just the legal disclaimer and have different content in other placeholders. In the example above, we have seen how updating the About placeholder content automatically updates the About placeholder content of all connected postings.

In this situation you need to use other ways to tackle shared content. You could retrieve placeholder content programmatically...