Book Image

Enhancing Microsoft Content Management Server with ASP.NET 2.0

Book Image

Enhancing Microsoft Content Management Server with ASP.NET 2.0

Overview of this book

The release of Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) Service Pack 2 opens up the world of ASP.NET 2.0 to MCMS developers. Written by the masters of MCMS, this book shows you how to use the new features of ASP.NET 2.0 that everyone is talking about in your MCMS development. You will first learn how to install and configure MCMS SP2. There are two approaches to setting up a development environment for SP2: an upgrade from a previous SP1a installation or starting from scratch and building a fresh installation including SP2. Of course, both approaches are covered. You will become familiar with the MCMS Service Pack 2 development environment, and create custom Visual Studio 2005 templates to overcome some of the issues which are present with the templates shipped with MCMS SP2. After that, its time to look at some of the most exciting features of ASP.NET 2.0, and how you can make use of them in MCMS: master pages, site navigation, themes, and the membership provider model. One of the coolest features introduced with ASP.NET 2.0 is master pages, which allow developers to enforce common layout and behaviour across pages within an application. You will learn about the benefits of using master pages and see a step-by-step guide for implementing them in your MCMS applications, where they become master templates! ASP.NET 2.0 introduces a whole new way of implementing site navigation, driven by site maps. By programmatically adding channels and postings to a site map you will see how to smoothly integrate these controls to any MCMS site. To customize the look of your site, we will see how a common look and feel can be applied efficiently to a MCMS site by using ASP.NET 2.0 themes. An essential customization required for themes to work correctly in an MCMS site is a must-read feature of this chapter. MCMS has its own role based authorization and user management system which cannot be extended. However, the new ASP.NET 2.0 Membership Provider Model and the shipped controls can be used within MCMS applications to improve the implementation of Forms Authentication and provide a more elegant solution for authenticating against an external store. A collection of tips and tricks round off the book, including using the Provider Model design pattern to ease migration to Office SharePoint Portal Server
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Enhancing Microsoft Content Management Server with ASP.NET 2.0
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
Preface

Authentication Controls


ASP.NET 2.0 ships with seven authentication-related composite controls such as the Login control (which provides a standard user interface for implementing Forms Authentication) and the PasswordRecovery control (which allows retrieval of a user's password). These controls can be seen within the Login tab of the Visual Studio 2005 toolbox.

As MCMS has its own user management system that does not provide a supported API, only three of these controls can be used with MCMS applications:

  • Login: provides the necessary user interface for Forms Authentication.

  • LoginStatus: provides a Login or Logout hyperlink depending upon the user's current logon status.

  • LoginName: displays the name of the currently logged-on user.

The LoginName control can be used directly without modification in MCMS applications regardless of their authentication mode to display the name of the currently logged-on user. The LoginStatus control, however, has no useful purpose unless Forms Authentication...