How-To Tutorials - CMS & E-Commerce

(For more resources on Oracle, see here.) The top three things As we've just seen, the most common things you can do are these: Get content approved: This is the most obvious use of the workflow we've just seen. Get people notified: Remember when we were adding workflow steps there was a number of required approvers on the Exit Conditions tab in the Add New Step dialog. If we set that to zero we accomplish one important thing: Approvers will get notified, but no action is required of them. It's a great way to "subscribe" a select group of people to an event of your choice. Perform custom actions: And if that's not enough you can easily add custom scripts to any step of a workflow. You can change metadata, release items, and send them to other workflows. You can even invoke your custom Java code. And here's another really powerful thing you can do with custom workflow actions. You can integrate with other systems and move from the local workflow to process orchestration. You can use a Content Server workflow to trigger external processes. UCM 10gR3 has an Oracle BPEL integration built in. This means that a UCM workflow can be initiated by (or can itself initiate) a BPEL workflow that spans many systems, not just the UCM. This makes ERP systems such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle e-Business Suite easily accessible to the UCM, and content inside the UCM can be easily made available to these systems. So let's look at the jumps and scripting. Jumps and scripting Here's how to add scripting to a workflow: In Workflow Admin select a step of a workflow we've just created. Click on the Edit button on the right. The Edit Step dialog comes up. Go to the Events tab (as shown in the following screenshot): There are three events that you can add custom handlers for: Entry: This event triggers when an item arrives at the step. Update: This happens when an item or its metadata is updated. It's also initiated every hour by a timer event, Workflow Update Cycle. Use it for sending reminders to approvers or escalating the item to an alternative person after your approval period has expired. Exit: This event is triggered when an item has been approved and is about to exit the step. If you have defined Additional Exit Conditions on the Exit Conditions tab then those will be satisfied before this event fires. The following diagram illustrates the sequence of states and corresponding events that are fired when a content item arrives at a workflow step: Great! But how do we can actually add the jumps and custom scripts to a workflow step? How to add a jump to a workflow step Let's add an exception where content submitted by sysadmin will bypass our Manager Approval workflow. We will use a jump—a construct that causes an item to skip the normal workflow sequence and follow an alternative path. Here's how to do it: Add a jump to an Entry event of our very first step. On the Events tab of the Edit Step dialog, click on the Edit button—the one next to the Entry event. The Edit Script dialog displays (as shown in the following screenshot): Click on the Add button. The Add Jump dialog comes up (as shown in the following screenshot): Let's call the jump Sysadmin WF bypass. You don't need to change anything else at this point. Click on OK to get back to the Edit Script dialog. In the Field drop-down box pick Author. Click on the Select… button next to the Value box. Pick sysadmin (if you have trouble locating sysadmin in the list of users, make sure that the filter check-box is un-checked). Click the Add button below the Value field. Make sure that your clause appears in the Script Clauses box below. In the Target Step dropdown pick Next Step. Once you have done so the value will change to its script equivalent, @wfCurrentStep(1). If you have more than one step in the workflow, change 1 to the number of steps you have. This will make sure that you jump past the last step and exit the workflow. Here's how the completed dialog will look (as shown in the following screenshot): Click on OK to close. You're now back to the Events tab on the Edit Step dialog. Notice a few lines of script being added to the box next to the Entry event (as shown in the following screenshot): OK the dialog. It's time to test your changes. Check in a new document. Make sure you set the Author field to sysadmin. Set your Security Group to accounting, and Account to accounting/payable/current. If you don't, the item will not enter our workflow in the first place (as shown in the following screenshot): Complete your check-in and follow the link to go to the Content Info page. See the status of the item. It should be set to Released. That's right. The item got right out of the workflow. Check in a new document again, but use some other author. Notice how your item will enter the workflow and stay there. As you've seen, the dialog we used for creating a jump is simply a code generator. It created a few lines of script we needed to add the handler for the Entry event. Click on the Edit button next to that code and pick Edit Current to study it. You can find all the script function definitions in iDoc Reference Guide. Perfect! And we're still not done. What if you have a few common steps that you'd like to reuse in a bunch of workflows? Would you just have to manually recreate them? Nope. There are several solutions that allow you to reuse parts of the workflow. The one I find to be most useful is sub workflows.

(For more resources on Oracle, see here.) How to set up and change workflows First thing's first. Let's start by looking at the tools that you will be using to set up and configure your workflows. Discover the Workflow Admin application Go to Administration Admin Applets| and launch Workflow Admin. The Workflow Admin application comes up (as shown in the following screenshot): There are three tabs: Workflows: This tab is used for administering Basic or Manual Workflows. Criteria: This tab deals with Automatic or Criteria Workflows—the type we will be using most often. Templates: This is the place where you can pre-assemble Workflow Templates—reusable pieces that you can use to create new basic workflows. Let's create a simple automatic workflow. I call it automatic because content enters the workflow automatically when it is modified or created. If you will be using e-mail notifications then be sure to check your Internet Configuration screen in Admin Server. I'll walk you through the steps in using automatic workflows. Lab 7: Using automatic workflows Here's the process for creating a criteria workflow: Creating a criteria workflow Follow these steps: Go to the Criteria tab and click on Add. The New Criteria Workflow dialog comes up (as shown in the following screenshot): Fill in Workflow Name and Description. Pick the Security Group. Only items with the same security group as the workflow can enter it. Let's use the security group we've created. Select accounting. We're creating a Criteria Workflow, so let's check the Has Criteria Definition box. Now you can specify criteria that content must match to enter the workflow.For the sake of this lab, let's pick Account for the Field, and accounting/payable/current for the Value. Please note that a content item must match at least two conditions to enter the workflow: it must belong to the same security group as the workflow, and it must match the criteria of the workflow. As soon as a new content item is created with Security Group of accounting and Content Account value is set to accounting/payable/current, it will enter our workflow. It will not enter the workflow if its metadata is simply updated to these values. It takes a new check-in for an item to enter a criteria workflow. If you need it to enter a workflow after a metadata update then consider custom components available from the Fishbowl Solutions (www.fishbowlsolutions.com). You can use any metadata field and value pair as criteria for entering the workflow. But you can only have one condition. What if that's not enough? If you need to perform additional checks before you can accept the item in a workflow then keep your criteria really open, and do your checks in the workflow itself. I'll show you how, later in this article. The diagram next illustrates how a content item flows through a criteria workflow. You may find it useful to refer back to it as you follow the steps in this lab. OK. We have a workflow created but there're two problems with it: it has no steps in it and it is disabled. Let's begin by seeing how to add workflow steps. Adding workflow steps Here's how you add workflow steps: Click on the Add button in the Steps section on the right (as shown in the following screenshot): The Add New Step dialog opens. Fill in the step name and description (as shown in the following screenshot): Click on the Add User button on the right and select approvers for this step. Also add yourself to the list of approvers so you can test the workflow. Switch to the Exit Conditions tab (as shown in the following screenshot): You can change the number of approvers required to move the item to the next step. You can make all approvers required to advance a step or just any one as shown on the screenshot. And if you put zero in the text box, no approvers will be required at all. They will still receive notification, but the item will go immediately to the next step. And when the current step is the last the workflow will end and the new revision will be released into the system. What do I mean by that? Until workflow is complete, revisions that are currently in a workflow will not come up in searchers and will not show on the Web. You will still see them in the content info screen but that's it. OK the dialog. You now have a workflow with one step. Let's test it. But first, you need to enable the workflow.

(For more resources on Wordpress, see here.) Building a consumer review website will allow you to supply consumers with the information that they seek and then, once they've decided to make a purchase, your site can direct them to a source for the product or service. This process can ultimately allow you to earn some nice commission checks because it's only logical that you would affiliate yourself with a number of the sites to which you will be directing consumers. The great thing about using the WP Review Site plugin to build your consumer review website is that you can provide people with an unbiased source of public opinions on any product or service that you can imagine. You will never have to resort to the hard sell in order to drive traffic to the companies that you've affiliated yourself with. Instead, consumers can research the reviews posted on your website and,ultimately, make a purchase feeling confident that they're making the right decision. In this article, you will learn about the following: Present reviews in the most convenient way possible for visitors browsing your site Specify the ratings criteria that site visitors will use when reviewing the products or services included on your website Display informational comparison tables on your site's index and category pages Provide visitors with the location of local businesses using Google Maps Perform the additional steps required when writing a post now that the WP Review Site plugin has been introduced into the process Perform either automatic and manual integration so that you can use a theme of your own rather than either of the ones provided with this plugin Once this project is complete, you will have succeeded in creating a site that's similar to the one shown in the following screenshot:   Introducing WP Review Site With the WP Review Site plugin you will be able to build a consumer review site where visitors can share their opinions about the products or services of your choosing. The plugin, which can be found at WP Review Site, can be used to build a dedicated review site or, if you would like consumer reviews to make up only a subsection of your website, then you can specify certain categories where they should appear. This plugin gives you complete control over where ratings appear and where they don't since you can choose to include or exclude them on any category, page, or post. The WP Review Site plugin seamlessly integrates with WordPress by, among other things, altering the normal appearance and functionality of the comments submission form. This plugin provides visitors with a way to write a review and assign stars to the ratings categories that you previously defined. They can also write a review and opt to provide no stars without harming the overall rating presented on your site, since no stars is interpreted as though no rating was given. WP Review Site plugin makes it easy for you to present your visitors with concise information. Using the features available with this plugin, you can build comparison tables based upon your posts and user reviews. In order to accomplish this, you will need to configure a few settings and then the plugin will take care of the rest. Typically, WordPress displays posts in chronological order, but that doesn't make much sense on a consumer review site where visitors want to view posts based upon other factors such as the number of positive reviews that a particular product or service has received. The developer behind WP Site Review took that into consideration and has included two alternative sorting methods for your site's posts. The developer has even included a Bayesian weighting feature so that reviews are ordered in the most logical way possible. Right about now, you're probably wondering what Bayesian weighting is and how it works. What it does is provide a way to mathematically calculate the rating of products and/or services based upon the credibility of the votes that have been cast. If an item receives only a few votes, then it can't be said with any certainty that that's how the general public feels. If an item receives several votes, then it can be safely assumed that many others hold the same opinion. So, with Bayesian weighting, a product that has received only one five star review won't outrank another that has received fifteen four star reviews. As the product that received one five star review garners more ratings, its reviews will grow in credibility and, if it continues to receive high ratings, it will eventually become credible enough to outrank the other reviews. If you're planning to create a website where visitors can come and review local businesses, then you might consider this plugins ability to automatically embed Google Maps quite handy. After configuring the settings on the plugin's Google Maps screen you will be able to type the address for a business into a custom field when writing a post and then the plugin will take care of the rest. The WP Review Site plugin also includes two sidebar widgets that can used with any widget-ready theme. These widgets will allow you to display a list of top rated items and a list of recent reviews. Lastly, the themes provided with this plugin include built-in support for the hReview microformat. This means that Google will easily be able to extract and highlight reviews from your website. That feature will prove to be very beneficial for driving search engine traffic to your site. Installing WP Review Site Once you've installed WordPress you can then concentrate on the installation of the WP Review Site plugin and its accompanying themes. First, extract the wpreviewsite.zip archive. Inside you will find a plugins folder and a themes folder. Within the plugins folder is another folder named review-site. Since none of these folders are zipped, you will need to upload them using either an FTP program or the file manager provided by your web host. So, upload the review-site folder to the wp-content/plugins directory on your server. If you plan to use one of the themes provided with this plugin, then you will next need to upload the contents of the themes folder to the wp-content/themes directory. Setting up and configuring WP Review Site With the installation process complete, you will now need to activate the WP Review Site plugin. Once that's finished, a Review Site menu will appear on the left side of your screen. This menu contains links to the settings screens for this plugin. Before you delve into the configuration process you must first activate the theme that you plan to use on your consumer review website. Using one of the provided themes is a bit easier. That's because using any other theme will mean that you must integrate the functionality of WP Review Site into it. Now that you know the benefits offered by the themes that are bundled with this plugin, click on Appearance | Themes. Once there, activate either Award Winning Hosts, Bonus Black, or a theme of your choice. General Settings Navigate to Review Site | General Settings to be taken to the first of the WP Review Site settings screens. On this screen, Sort Posts By is the first setting that you will encounter. Rather than displaying reviews in the normal chronological order used by WordPress you should, instead, select either the Average User Rating (Weighted) or the Number of Reviews/Comments option. Either of these settings will provide a much more user-friendly experience for your visitors. If you want to make it impossible for site visitors to submit a comment without also choosing a rating, tick the checkbox next to Require Ratings with All Comments. If you don't want to make this a requirement, then you can leave this setting as is. This setting will, of course, only apply to posts that you would like your visitors to rate. On normal posts, that don't include rating stars in the comment form area, it will still be possible for your visitors to submit a comment. When using one of the themes provided with the plugin, none of the other settings on this screen need to be configured. If you would like to integrate this plugin into a different theme, then, depending upon the method that you choose, you may need to revisit this screen later on. No matter how you're handling the theme issue, you can, for now, just click Save Settings before proceeding to the next screen. Rating Categories To access the next settings screen, click on Review Site | Rating Categories. Here you can add categories for people to rate when submitting reviews. These categories shouldn't be confused with the categories used in WordPress for organizational purposes. These WP Review Site categories are more like ratings criteria. By default, WP Review Site includes a category called Overall Rating, but you can click the remove link to delete it if you like. To add your first rating category, simply enter its title into the Add a Category textbox and then click Save Settings. The screen will then refresh and your newly created rating category will now appear under the Edit Rating Categories section of the screen. To add additional rating categories, simply repeat the process that you previously completed. Once you've finished adding rating categories, you will next need to turn your attention to the Bulk Apply Rating Categories section of the screen. In the Edit Rating Categories area you will see all of the rating categories that you just finished adding to your site. If you want to simplify matters, and apply these rating categories to all of the posts on your site, tick the checkbox next to each of the available rating categories. Then, from the Apply to Posts in Category drop-down menu, select All Categories. This is most likely the configuration that you will use if you're building a website entirely dedicated to providing consumer reviews. Once you've finished, click Save Settings. If you, instead, want your newly added rating categories to only appear on certain categories, then bypass the Edit Rating Categories area for now and first look to the Apply to Posts in Category settings area. Currently this will only show All Categories and Uncategorized. The lack of categories in this menu is being caused by two things. First, you haven't added any WordPress categories to your site yet. Secondly, categories won't be included in this menu until they contain at least one post. To solve part of this problem, open a new browser window and then, navigate to Posts | Categories. Then, add the categories that you would like to include on your website. Now, click on Posts | Edit to visit the Edit Posts screen. At the moment, the Hello world! post is the only one published on your site and you can use it to force your site's categories to appear in the Apply to Posts in Category drop-down menu. So, hover over the title of this post and then, from the now visible set of links, click Quick Edit. In the Categories section of the Quick Edit configuration area, tick the checkbox next to each of the categories found on your site. Then, click Update Post. After content has been added to each of your site's categories, you can delete the Hello world! post, since you will no longer need to use it to force the categories to appear in the Apply to Posts in Category drop-down menu. Now, return to the Rating Categories screen and then select the first category that you want to configure from the Apply to Posts in Category drop-down menu. With that selected, in the Edit Rating Categories area, tick the checkbox next to each rating category that you want to appear within that WordPress category. Then, click Save Settings. Repeat this process for each of the WordPress categories to which you would like rating categories to be added. Comparison Tables If you wish, you can add a comparison table to either the home page or the category pages on your site. To do this, you need to visit the Comparison Tables screen, so click on Review Site | Comparison Tables. If you want to display a comparison table on your home page, then tick the checkbox next to Display a Comparison Table on Home Page. If you would like to include all of your site's categories in the comparison table that will be displayed on the home page, then leave the Categories To Display On Home Page textbox as is. However, if you would prefer to include only certain categories, then enter their category IDs, separated by commas, into the textbox instead. You can learn the ID numbers that have been assigned to each of your site's categories by opening a new browser window and then navigating to Posts | Categories. Once there, hover over the title of each of the categories found on the right hand side of your screen. As you do, look at the URL that appears in your browser's status bar and make a note of the number that appears directly after tag_ID=. That's the number that you will need to enter in the Comparison Table screen. If you want to display a comparison table in one or more categories, then tick the checkbox next to Display a Comparison Table on Category Page(s). Now, return to the Comparison Table screen. If you want a comparison table to be displayed on each of your category pages, leave the Categories To Display Comparison Table On textbox at its default. Otherwise, enter a list of comma separated category IDs into the textbox for the categories where you want to display comparison tables. The Number of Posts in the Table setting is currently set to 5, but you can enter another value if you would like a different number of posts to be included in each comparison table. When writing posts, you might use custom fields to include additional information. If you would like that information to be displayed in your comparison tables you will need to enter the names of those fields, separated by commas, into the Custom Fields to Display textbox. Lastly, you can change the text that appears in the Text for the Visit Site link in the Table if you wish or you may leave it at its default. With these configurations complete, click Save Settings. In this screenshot, you can see what a populated comparison table will look like on your website: Google Maps If you plan on featuring reviews centered around local businesses, then you might want to consider adding Google Maps to your site. This will make it easy for visitors to see exactly where each business is located. You can access this settings screen by clicking on Review Site | Google Maps. To activate this feature, tick the checkbox next to Display a Google Map on Posts/Pages with mapaddress Custom Field. Next, you need to use the Map Position setting to specify where these Google Maps will appear in relation to the content. You can choose to use either the Top of Post or Bottom of Post position. The Your Google Maps API Key textbox is next. Here you will need to enter a Google Maps API key. If you don't have a Google Maps API key for this domain, then you will need to visit Google to generate one. To do this, right-click on the link provided on the Google Maps screen and then open that link in a new browser window. You will then be taken to the Google Maps API sign up screen, which can be found at Google Maps API sign up. If you've ever signed up to use any of Google's services, then you can use that username and password to log in. If you don't have an account with Google, create one now. Take a moment to read the information and terms presented on the Google Maps API sign up page. After you've finished reviewing this text, if it's acceptable to you, enter the URL for your website into the My web site URL textbox and then click Generate API Key. You will then be taken to a thank you screen where your API key will be displayed. Copy the API key and then return to the Google Maps screen on your website. Once there, paste your API key into the textbox for Your Google Maps API Key. The Map Width and Map Height settings are next. By default, these are configured to 400px and 300px. If you would prefer that the maps be displayed at a different size, then enter new values into each of these textboxes. The last setting is Map Zoom Level (1-5), which is currently set to 3. This setting should be fine, but you may change it if you wish. Finally, click Save Settings. When you publish a post that includes the mappadress custom field, this is what the Google Map will look like on your site.

(For more resources on Telephony, see here.) Some smaller businesses might be able to get away with just using Skype. As a software client, Skype can be easily installed on individual computers. Since most workstations these days have a microphone built in to the monitor, a simple headset should suffice in getting up and running with Skype, along with a nominal fee per month to set up an account with privileges to call regular telephones. One problem with this method, however, is the way that Skype can hog your bandwidth. Skype is a peer-to-peer application that not only uses your system’s bandwidth in order to make phone calls; it also acts as a node for other phone calls across its own distributed network. Essentially, Skype also has the capability in its peer-to-peer system that can cause it to inadvertently hog bandwidth, which could cause your office to experience traffic problems. There are a series of useful Active Directory group policies you can enact to try to such as using ListenPortPolicy to try to lock down ports as well as using DisableApiPolicy to block bandwidth-eating third party APIs, but having to manage this system may be a bit too tumultuous, especially if you have a large amount of machines on your system. In a network that has larger scale, using Skype is probably not feasible. Technology titans such as Cisco and HP have systems complete with phones and special switches that can be easily implemented into a network; although this option requires a lot more upfront expense and time, if your system is at such a scale for such a service the long-term cost savings will be immense. Because IP phones are just like devices that use Organizational Units in Active Directory, you’ll be able to better place policies on them. You’ll inevitably have bandwidth issues using VoIP, but the difference between an application like Skype and IP telephone hardware is that you’re dealing with separate devices that disparately use bandwidth instead of trying to use group policies to manage software that is on a workstation. That means using your network performance management system to be able to control things like jitter and packet loss by placing a priority on your VoIP traffic. Bottom line: depending on the size of your network, you have options on leveraging VoIP and Active Directory for your infrastructure. Either way you look at it, you’ll be able to save cash on phone calls by switching to an IP-based solution. Further resources on this subject: Setting Up OpenVPN with X509 Certificates [Article] Installing OpenVPN on Linux and Unix Systems [Article] Networking with OpenVPN [Article] Installation of OpenSIPS 1.6 [Article] Configuring sipXecs Server Features [Article]

IVR engine overview Unlike many applications within FreeSWITCH which are built as modules, IVR is considered the core functionality of FreeSWITCH. It is used anytime a prompt is played and digits are collected. Even if you are not using the IVR application itself from your Dialplan, you will see IVR-related functions being utilized from various other applications. As an example, the voicemail application makes heavy use of IVR functionality when playing messages, while awaiting digits to control deleting, saving, and otherwise managing voicemails. In this section, we will only be reviewing the IVR functionality that is exposed from within the ivr Dialplan application. This functionality is typically used to build an auto-attendant menu, although other functions are possible as well. IVR XML configuration file FreeSWITCH ships with a sample IVR menu are typically invoked by dialing 5000 from the sample Dialplan. When you dial 500, you will hear a greeting welcoming you to FreeSWITCH, and presenting your menu options. The menu options consist of calling the FreeSWITCH conference, calling the echo extension, hearing music on hold, going to a sub menu, or listening to screaming monkeys. We will start off reviewing the XML that powers this example. Open conf/autoload_configs/ivr.xml which contains the following XML: <configuration name="ivr.conf" description="IVR menus"> <menus> <!-- demo IVR, Main Menu --> <menu name="demo_ivr" greet-long="phrase:demo_ivr_main_menu" greet-short="phrase:demo_ivr_main_menu_short" invalid-sound="ivr/ivr-that_was_an_invalid_entry.wav" exit-sound="voicemail/vm-goodbye.wav" timeout="10000" inter-digit-timeout="2000" max-failures="3" max-timeouts="3" digit-len="4"> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="1" param="bridge sofia/$${domain}/[email protected]"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="2" param="transfer 9196 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="3" param="transfer 9664 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="4" param="transfer 9191 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="5" param="transfer 1234*256 enum"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="/^(10[01][0-9])$/" param="transfer $1 XML features"/> <entry action="menu-sub" digits="6" param="demo_ivr_submenu"/> <entry action="menu-top" digits="9"/> </menu> <!-- Demo IVR, Sub Menu --> <menu name="demo_ivr_submenu" greet-long="phrase:demo_ivr_sub_menu" greet-short="phrase:demo_ivr_sub_menu_short" invalid-sound="ivr/ivr-that_was_an_invalid_entry.wav" exit-sound="voicemail/vm-goodbye.wav" timeout="15000" max-failures="3" max-timeouts="3"> <entry action="menu-top" digits="*"/> </menu> </menus> </configuration> In the preceding example, there are two IVR menus defined. Let's break apart the first one and examine it, starting with the IVR menu definition itself. IVR menu definitions The following XML defines an IVR menu named "demo_ivr". <menu name="demo_ivr" greet-long="phrase:demo_ivr_main_menu" greet-short="phrase:demo_ivr_main_menu_short" invalid-sound="ivr/ivr-that_was_an_invalid_entry.wav" exit-sound="voicemail/vm-goodbye.wav" timeout="10000" inter-digit-timeout="2000" max-failures="3" max-timeouts="3" digit-len="4"> We'll use this menu's name later when we route calls to the IVR from the Dialplan. Following the name, various XML attributes specify how the IVR will behave. The following options are available when defining an IVR's options: greet-long The greet-long attribute specifies the initial greeting that is played when a caller reaches the IVR. This is different from the greet-short sound file which allows for introductions to be played, such as "Thank you for calling XYZ Company". In the sample IVR, the greet-long attribute is a Phrase Macro that plays an introductory message to the caller ("Welcome to FreeSWITCH...") followed by the menu options the caller may choose from. Argument syntax: Sound file name (or path + name), TTS, or Phrase Macro Examples: greet-long="my_greeting" greet-long="phrase:my_greeting_phrase" greet-long="say:Welcome to our company. Press 1 for sales, 2 for support." greet-short The greet-short attribute specifies the greeting that is re-played if the caller enters invalid information, or no information at all. This is typically the same sound file as greet-long without the introduction. In the sample IVR, the greet-short attribute is a Phrase Macro that simply plays the menu options to the caller, and does not play the lengthy introduction found in greet-long. Argument syntax: Sound file name (or path + name), TTS, or Phrase Macro Examples: greet-short="my_greeting_retry" greet-long="phrase:my_greeting_retry_phrase" greet-long="say:Press 1 for sales, 2 for support." invalid-sound The invalid-sound attribute specifies the sound that is played when a caller makes an invalid entry. Argument syntax: Sound file name (or path + name), TTS, or Phrase Macro Examples invalid-sound="invalid_entry.wav" invalid-sound="phrase:my_invalid_entry_phrase" invalid-sound="say:That was not a valid entry" exit-sound The exit-sound attribute specifies the sound, which is played when a caller makes too many invalid entries or too many timeouts occur. This file is played before disconnecting the caller. Argument syntax: Any number, in milliseconds Examples: exit-sound="too_many_bad_entries.wav" exit-sound="phrase:my_too_many_bad_entries_phrase" exit-sound="say:Hasta la vista, baby." timeout The timeout attribute specifies the maximum amount of time to wait for the user to begin entering digits after the greeting has played. If this time limit is exceeded, the menu is repeated until the value in the max-timeouts attribute has been reached. Argument syntax: Any number, in milliseconds Examples: timeout="10000" timeout="20000" inter-digit-timeout The inter-digit-timeout attribute specifies the maximum amount of time to wait in-between each digit the caller presses. This is different from the overall timeout.It is useful to allow enough time to enter as many digits as necessary, without frustrating the caller by pausing too long after they are done making their entry. For example, if both 1000 and 1 are valid IVR entries, the system will continue waiting for the inter-digit-timeout length of time after 1 is entered, before determining that it is the final entry. Argument syntax: Any number, in milliseconds Examples: inter-digit-timeout="2000" max-failures The max-failures attribute specifies how many failures, due to invalid entries, to tolerate before disconnecting. Argument syntax: Any number Examples: xx-xx="too_many_bad_entries.wav" xx-xx="phrase:my_too_many_bad_entries_phrase" max-timeouts The max-timeouts attribute specifes how many timeouts to tolerate before disconnecting. Argument syntax: Any number Examples: max-timeouts="3" digit-len The digit-len attribute specifes the maximum number of digits that the user can enter before determining the entry is complete. Argument syntax: Any number greater than 1. Examples: digit-len="4" tts-voice The tts-voice attribute specifes the specifc text-to-speech voice that should be used. Argument syntax: Any valid text-to-speech engine. Examples: tts-voice="Mary" tts-engine The tts-engine attribute specifies the specific text-to-speech engine that should be used. Argument syntax: Any valid text-to-speech engine. Examples: tts-engine="flite" confirm-key The confirm-key attribute specifes the key which the user can press to signify that they are done entering information. Argument syntax: Any valid DTMF digit. Examples: confirm-key="#" These attributes dictate the general behavior of the IVR. IVR menu destinations After defining the global attributes of the IVR, you need to specify what specific destinations (or options) are available for the caller to press. You do this with <entry > XML elements. Let's review the first five XML options used by this IVR: <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="1" param="bridge sofia/$${domain}/[email protected]"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="2" param="transfer 9196 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="3" param="transfer 9664 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="4" param="transfer 9191 XML default"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="5" param="transfer 1234*256 enum"/> <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="/^(10[01][0-9])$/" param="transfer $1 XML features"/> Each preceding entry defines three parameters—an action to be taken, the digits the caller must press to activate that action, and the parameters that are passed to the action. In most cases you will probably use the menu-exec-app action, which simply allows you to specify an action and parameters to call just as you would from the regular Dialplan (bridge, transfer, hangup, and so on.). These options are all pretty simple—they define a single digit which, when pressed, either bridges a call or transfers the call to an extension. There is one entry that is a bit different from the rest, which is the fnal IVR entry. It deserves a closer look.   <entry action="menu-exec-app" digits="/^(10[01][0-9])$/" param="transfer $1 XML features"/> This entry definition specifes a regular expression for the digits feld. This regular expression feld is identical to the expressions you would use in the Dialplan. In this example, the IVR is looking for any four-digit extension number from 1000 through 1019 (which is the default extension number range for the predefined users in the directory). As the regular expression is wrapped in parenthesis, the result of the entry will be passed to the transfer application as the $1 channel variable. This effectively allows the IVR to accept 1000-1019 as entries, and transfer the caller directly to those extensions when they are entered into the IVR. The remaining IVR entry actions are a bit different. They introduce menu-sub as an action, which transfers the caller to an IVR sub-menu, and menu-top, which restarts the current IVR and replays the menu. <entry action="menu-sub" digits="6" param="demo_ivr_submenu"/> <entry action="menu-top" digits="9"/> Several other actions exist that can be used within an IVR. The complete list of actions you can use from within the IVR include the following: menu-exec-app The menu-exec-app action, combined with a param field, executes the specified application and passes the parameterslisted to that application. This is equivalent to using <action application="app" data="data"> in your Dialplan. The most common use of menu-exec-app is to transfer a caller to another extension in the Dialplan. Argument syntax: application <params> Examples: <entry digits="1" action="menu-exec-app" param="application param1 param2 param3 ..."> <entry digits="2" action="menu-exec-app" param="transfer 9664 XML default"> menu-exec-api The menu-exec-api action, combined with a param feld, executes the specifed API command and passes the parameters listed to that command. This is equivalent to entering API commands at the CLI or from the event socket. Argument syntax: api_command <params> Examples: <entry digits="1" action="menu-exec-api" param="eval Caller Pressed 1!"> menu-play-sound The menu-play-sound action, combined with a param field, plays a specified sound file. Argument syntax: valid sound file <entry digits="1" action="menu-play-sound" param="screaming_monkeys.wav"> menu-back The menu-back action returns to the previous IVR menu, if any. Argument syntax: none Examples: <entry digits="1" action="menu-back"> menu-top The menu-top action restarts this IVR's menu. Argument syntax: None. Examples: <entry digits="1" action="menu-top"> Take a look at the XML for the sample sub-menu IVR and see if you can fgure out what it does. Also note how it is called above, when clicking 6 from the main menu. <menu name="demo_ivr_submenu" greet-long="phrase:demo_ivr_sub_menu" greet-short="phrase:demo_ivr_sub_menu_short" invalid-sound="ivr/ivr-that_was_an_invalid_entry.wav" exit-sound="voicemail/vm-goodbye.wav" timeout="15000" max-failures="3" max-timeouts="3"> <entry action="menu-top" digits="*"/> </menu>

(For more resources on Agile, see here.) Introducing TrackStar TrackStar is a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) issue management application. Its main goal is to help keep track of all the many issues that arise throughout the course of building software applications. It is a user-based application that allows the creation of user accounts and grants access to the application features, once a user has been authenticated and authorized. It allows a user to add and manage projects. Projects can have users associated with them (typically the team members working on the project) as well as issues. The project issues will be things such as development tasks and application bugs. The issues can be assigned to members of the project and will have a status such as not yet started, started, and finished. This way, the tracking tool can give an accurate depiction of projects with regard to what has been accomplished, what is currently in progress, and what is yet to be started. Creating user stories Simple user stories are a great way to identify the required features of your application. User stories, in their simplest form, state what a user can do with a piece of software. They should start simple, and grow in complexity as you dive into more and more of the details around each feature. Our goal here is to begin with just enough complexity to allow us to get started. If needed, we'll add more detail and complexity later. We briefly touched on the three main entities that play a large role in this application: users, projects, and issues. These are our primary domain objects, and are extremely important items in this application. So, let's start with them. Users TrackStar is a user-based web application. There will be two high-level user types: Anonymous Authenticated An anonymous user is any user of the application that has not been authenticated through the login process. Anonymous users will only have access to register for a new account or to log in. All other functionality will be restricted to authenticated users. An authenticated user is any user that has provided valid authentication credentials through the login process. In other words, authenticated users are logged-in users. They will have access to the main features of the application such as creating and managing projects, and project issues. Projects Managing the project is the primary purpose of the TrackStar application. A project represents a general, high-level goal to be achieved by one or more users of the application. The project is typically broken down into more granular tasks (or issues) that represent the smaller steps that need to be taken to achieve the overall goal. As an example, let's take what we are going to be doing throughout this book, that is, building a project and issue tracking management application. Unfortunately, we can't use our yet-to-be-created application as a tool to help us track its own development. However, if we were using a similar tool to help track what we are building, we might create a project called Build The TrackStar Project/Issue Management Tool. This project would be broken down into more granular project issues such as 'Create the login screen' or 'Design database schema for issues', and so on. Authenticated users can create new projects. The creator of the project within an account has a special role within that project, called the project owner. Project owners have the ability to edit and delete these projects as well as add new members to the project. Other users associated with the project—besides the project owner—are referred to simply as project members. They have the ability to add new issues, as well as edit existing ones. Issues Project issues can be classified into one of the following three categories: Features: Items that represent real features to be added to the application. For example, 'Implement the login functionality' Tasks: Items that represent work that needs to be done, but is not an actual feature of the software. For example, 'Set up the build and integration server' Bugs: Items that represent application behaviors that are not working as expected. For example, 'The account registration form does not validate the format of input e-mail addresses' Issues can have one of the following three statuses: Not yet started Started Finished Project members can add new issues to a project, as well as edit and delete them. They can assign issues to themselves or other project members. For now, this is enough information on these three main entities. We could go into a lot more detail about what exactly account registration entails' and how exactly one adds a new task to a project', but we have outlined enough specifications to begin on these basic features. We'll nail down the more granular details as we proceed with the implementation. However, before we start, we should jot down some basic navigation and application workflow. This will help everyone to better understand the general layout and flow of the application we are building. Navigation and page flow It is always good to outline the main pages within an application, and how they fit together. This will help us quickly identify some needed Yii controllers, actions and views as well as help to set everyone's expectations as to what we'll be building towards at the onset of our development. The following figure shows the basic idea of the application flow from logging in, through the project details listing: When users first come to the application, they must log in to authenticate themselves before accessing any functionality. Once successfully logged-in, they will be presented with a list of his current projects along with the option to create a new project. Choosing a specific project will take them to the project details page. The project details page will present a list of the issues by type. There will also be the option to add a new issue as well as edit any of the listed issues. This is all pretty basic functionality, but the figure gives us a little more information on how the application is stitched together and allows us to better identify our needed models, views, and controllers. It also allows something visual to be shared with others so that everyone involved has the same 'picture' of what we are working towards. In my experience, almost everyone prefers pictures over written specifications when first thinking through a new application. Defining a data scheme We still need to think a little more about the data we will be working with as we begin to build toward these specifications. If we pick out all the main nouns from our system, we may end up with a pretty good list of domain objects and, by extension of using Active Record, the data we want to model. Our previously outlined user stories seem to dictate the following: A User A Project An Issue Based on this and the other details provided in the user stories and application workflow diagram, a first attempt at the needed data is shown in the following figure. This is a basic object model that outlines our primary data entities, their respective attributes, and some of the relationships between them. The 1..* on either side of the line between the Project and User objects represents a many-to-many relationship between them. A user can be associated with one or more projects, and a project has one or more users. Similarly we have represented the fact that a project can have zero or more issues associated with it, whereas an issue belongs to just one specific project. Also, a user can be the owner of (or requester of) many issues, but an issue has just one owner (and also just one requester). We have kept the attributes as simple as possible at this state. A User is going to need a username and a password in order to get past the login screen. The Project has only a name Issues have the most associated information based on what we currently know about them. As discussed briefly in the user stories above, they will have a type attribute to distinguish the general category (bug, feature, or task). They will also have a status attribute to indicate the progress of the issue being worked on. A user in the system will initially create the issue, this is the requester. Once a user in the system has been assigned to work on the issue, they will be the owner of the issue. We have also defined the description attribute to allow for some descriptive text of the issue to be entered. Notice that we have not explicitly talked about schemas or databases yet. The fact is, until we think through what is really needed from a data perspective, we won't know the right tool to use to house this data. Would flat files on the filesystem work just as well as a relational database? Do we need a persistent data at all?   The answers to these questions are not needed in this early planning state. It is better to focus more on the features that we want and the type of data needed to support these features. We can turn to the explicit technology implementation details after we have had a chance to discuss these ideas with other project stakeholders to ensure we are on the right track. Other project stakeholders include anyone and everyone involved in this development project. This can include the client, if building an application for someone else, as well as other development team members, product/project managers, and so on. It is always a good idea to get some feedback from "the team" to help validate the approach and any assumptions being made. However, before we dive right into building our application, we need to cover our development approach. We will be employing some specific development methodologies and principles, and it makes sense to go over these prior to getting started with coding. Defining our development methodology We will be employing an agile inspired process of iterative and incremental development as we build this application. 'Agile' is certainly a loaded term in modern software development and can have varied meanings among developers. Our process will focus on the aspects of an agile methodology that embrace transparent and open collaboration, constant feedback loops, and a strong ability to respond quickly to changing requirements. We will work incrementally in that we won't wait until every detail of the application has been specified before we start coding. Once the details of a particular feature have been finalized, we can begin work on implementing that feature, even though other features or application details are still in the design/planning stage. The process surrounding this feature implementation will follow an iterative model. We will do some initial iteration planning, engage in analysis and design, write the code to try out these ideas, test the code, and gather feedback. We then repeat this cycle of design->code->test->evaluation, until everyone is happy. Once everyone is happy, we can deploy the application with the new feature, and then start gathering the specifications on the next feature(s) to be implemented in the next iteration. Automated software testing Gathering feedback is of fundamental importance to agile development. Feedback from the users of the application and other project stakeholders, feedback from the development team members, and feedback directly from the software itself. Developing software in a manner that will allow it to tell you when something is broken can turn the fear associated with integrating and deploying applications into boredom. The method by which you empower your software with this feedback mechanism is writing unit and functional tests, and then executing them repeatedly and often. Unit and functional testing Unit tests are written to provide the developer with verification that the code is doing the right things. Functional tests are written to provide the developer, as well as other project stakeholders, that the application, as a whole, is doing things the right way. Unit tests Unit tests are tests that focus on the smallest units within a software application. In an object-oriented application, (such as a Yii web application) the smallest units are the public methods that make up the interfaces to classes. Unit tests should focus on one single class, and not require other classes or objects to run. Their purpose is to validate that a single unit of code is working as expected. Functional tests Functional tests focus on testing the end-to-end feature functionality of the application. These tests exist at a higher level than the unit tests and typically do require multiple classes or objects to run. Their purpose is to validate that a given feature of the application is working as expected. Benefits of testing There are many benefits to writing unit and functional tests. For one, they are a great way to provide documentation. Unit tests can quickly tell the exact story of why a block of code exists. Similarly, functional tests document what features are implemented within an application. If you stay diligent in writing these tests, then the documentation continues to evolve naturally as the application evolves. They are also invaluable as a feedback mechanism to constantly reassure the developer and other project stakeholders that the code and application is working as expected. You run your tests every time you make changes to the code and get immediate feedback on whether or not something you altered inadvertently changed the behavior of the system. You then address these issues immediately. This really increases the confidence that developers have in the application's behavior and translates to fewer bugs and more successful projects. This immediate feedback also helps to facilitate change and improving the design of the code base. A developer is more likely to make improvements to existing code if a suite of tests are in place to immediately provide feedback as to whether the changes made altered the application behavior. The confidence provided by a suite of unit and functional tests allows developers to write better software, release a more stable application, and ship quality products. Test-driven development Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development methodology that helps to create an environment of comfort and confidence by ensuring your test suite grows organically with your application, and is always up-to-date. It does this by stipulating that you begin your coding by first writing a test for the code you are about to write. The following steps sum up the process: Begin by writing a test that will quickly fail. Run the test to ensure it does, indeed, fail. Quickly add just enough code to the class you are testing to get the test to pass. Run the test again to ensure it does, indeed, pass. Refactor the code to remove any repetitive logic or improve any corners cut while you were just trying to get the test to pass. These steps are then repeated throughout the entire development process. Even with the best intentions, if you wait to write your tests until after the code is completed, you probably won't. Writing your tests first and injecting the test writing process directly into the coding process will ensure the best test coverage. This depth of coverage will help minimize the stress and fear that can accompany complex software applications and build confidence by constantly providing positive feedback as additions and changes are made. In order to embrace a TDD process, we need to understand how to test within a Yii application.

(For more resources on Telephony, see here.) Understanding the FreeSWITCH user directory The FreeSWITCH user directory is based on a centralized XML document, comprised of one or more <domain> elements. Each <domain> can contain either <user> elements or <groups> elements. A <groups> element contains one or more <groups> elements, each of which contains one or more <user> elements. A small, simple example would look like the following: <section name="directory"> <domain name="example.com"> <groups> <group name="default"> <user id="1001"> <params> <param name="password" value="1234"/> </params> </user> </group> </groups> </domain></section> Some more basic configurations may not have a need to organize the users in groups so it is possible to omit the <groups> element completely, and just insert several <user> elements into the top <domain> element. The important thing is that each user@domain derived from this directory is available to all components in the system—it's a single centralized directory for storing all of your user information. If you register as a user with a SIP phone or if you try to leave a voicemail message for a user, FreeSWITCH looks in the same place for user data. This is important because it limits duplication of data, and makes it more efficient than it would be if each component kept track of its users separately. This system should work well for a small system with a few users in it, but what about a large system with thousands of users? What if a user wants to connect his existing database to FreeSWITCH to provide the user directory? Well, using mod_xml_curl (download here-ch:1,ch:3), we can create a web service that gets the request for the entries in the user directory, in the same way a web page sends the results of a form submission. In turn, that web service can query an existing database of users formatted any way possible, and construct the XML records in the format that FreeSWITCH registry expects. mod_xml_curl returns the data to the module requesting the lookup. This means that instant, seamless integration with your existing setup is possible; your data is still kept in its original, central location. The user directory can be accessed by any subsystem within FreeSWITCH. This includes modules, scripts, and the FSAPI interface among others. In this article, we are going to learn how the Sofia SIP module employs the user directory to authenticate your softphone or hardware SIP phone. If you are a developer you may appreciate some nifty things you can do with your user directory, such as adding a <variables> element to either the <domain>, the <groups>, or the <user> element. In this element you can set many <variable> elements, allowing you to set channel variables that will apply to every call made by a particular authenticated user. This can come in very handy in the Dialplan because it allows you to make user-specific routing decisions. It is also possible to define IP address ranges using CIDR notation, which can be used to authenticate particular users based on what remote network address they connect from. This removes the need for a login and password, if your user always logs in from the same remote IP address. The directory is implemented in pure XML. This is advantageous for several reasons, not the least of which is the "X" in XML: Extensible. Since XML is, by definition, extensible, the directory structure is also extensible. If we need to add a new element into the directory, we can do so simply by adding to the existing XML structure. Authentication versus authorizationAuthentication is the process of identifying a user. Authorization is the process of determining the level of access of a user. Authentication answers the question, "Is this person really who he says he is?" Authorization answers the question, "What is this person allowed to do here?" When you see expressions such as "IP Auth" and "Digest Auth", remember that they are referring to the two primary ways of identifying (that is, authenticating) a user. IP authorization is based upon the user's IP address. Digest authentication is based upon the user supplying a username and password. SIP (and FreeSWITCH) can use either method. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digest_access_authentication for a discussion of how digest authentication works Working with the FreeSWITCH user directory The default configuration has one domain with a directory of 20 users. Users can be added or removed very easily. There is no set limit to how many users can be defined on the system. The list of users is collectively referred to as the directory. Users can belong to one or more groups. Finally, all the users belong to a single domain. By default, the domain is the IP address of the FreeSWITCH server. In the following sections we will discuss these topics: User features Adding a user Testing voicemail Groups of users User features Let's begin by looking at the XML file that defines a user. Locate the file conf/directory/default/1000.xml and open it in an editor. You should see a file like the following: <include> <user id="1000"> <params> <param name="password" value="$${default_password}"/> <param name="vm-password" value="1000"/> </params> <variables> <variable name="toll_allow" value="domestic,international,local"/> <variable name="accountcode" value="1000"/> <variable name="user_context" value="default"/> <variable name="effective_caller_id_name" value="Extension 1000"/> <variable name="effective_caller_id_number" value="1000"/> <variable name="outbound_caller_id_name" value="$${outbound_caller_name}"/> <variable name="outbound_caller_id_number" value="$${outbound_caller_id}"/> <variable name="callgroup" value="techsupport"/> </variables> </user></include> The XML structure of a user is simple. Within the <include> tags the user has the following: The user element with the id attribute The params element, wherein parameters are specified The variables element, wherein channel variables are defined Even before we know what much of the specifics mean, we can glean from this file that the user id is 1000 and that there is both a password and a vm-password. In this case, the password parameter refers to the SIP authorization password. The expression $${default_password} refers to the value contained in the global variable default_password which is defined in the conf/vars.xml file. If you surmised that vm-password means "voicemail password" then you are correct. This value refers to the digits that the user needs to dial when logging in to check his or her voicemail messages. The value of id is used both as the authorization username and the SIP username. Additionally, there are a number of channel variables that are defined for this user. Most of these are directly related to the default Dialplan. The following table lists each variable and what it is used for: Variable Purpose toll_allow Specifies which types of calls this user can make accountcode Arbitrary value that shows up in CDR data user_context The Dialplan context that is used when this person makes a phone call effective_caller_id_name Caller ID name displayed on called party's phone when calling another registered user effective_caller_id_number Caller ID number displayed on called party's phone when calling another registered user outbound_caller_id_name Caller ID name sent to provider on outbound calls outbound_caller_id_number Caller ID number sent to provider on outbound calls callgroup Arbitrary value that can be used in Dialplan or CDR In summary, a user in the default configuration has the following: A username for SIP and for authorization A voicemail password A means of allowing/restricting dialling A means of handling caller ID being sent out Several arbitrary variables that can be used or ignored as needed Let's now add a new user to our directory.

(For more resources on Agile, see here.) Building themes in Yii In Yii, each theme is represented as a folder consisting of view files, layout files, and relevant resource files such as images, CSS files, JavaScript files, and so on. The name of a theme is the same as its folder name. By default, all themes reside under the same folder WebRoot/themes. Of course, as is the case with all other application settings, this default folder can be configured to be a different one. To do so, simply alter the basePath and the baseUrl properties of the themeManager application component. Contents under a theme folder should be organized in the same way as those under the application base path. For example, all view files must be located under views/, layout view files under views/layouts/, and system view files under views/ system/. For example, if we have created a new theme, called custom, and we want to replace the update view of our ProjectController with a new view under this theme, we need to create a new update.php view file and save it in our application project as themes/custom/views/project/update.php. Creating a Yii theme Let's take this for a spin to give our TrackStar application a little facelift. We need to name our new theme and create a folder under the Webroot/themes folder with this same name. We'll exercise our extreme creativity and call our new theme, new. Create a new folder to hold this new theme located at Webroot/themes/new. Also under this newly created folder, create two other new folders called css/ and views/. The former is not required by the theming system, but helps us keep our CSS organized. The latter is required if we are going to make any alterations to our default view files, which we are. As we are going to change the main.php layout file just a little, we need yet another folder under this newly created views/ folder called layouts/ (remember the folder structure needs to mirror that in the default Webroot/protected/views/ folder). Now let's make some changes. As our view file markup is already referencing CSS class and ID names currently defined in the Webroot/css/main.css file, the fastest path to a new face on the application is to use this as a starting point, and make changes to it as needed to implement a new design. Of course, this is not a requirement, as we could re-create every single view file of our application in the new theme. However, to keep things simple, we'll create our new theme by making a few changes to the main.css file that was auto-generated for us when we created the application, as well as the primary layout file, main.php. To begin with, let's make a copy of these two files and place them in our new theme folder. Copy Webroot/css/main.css to Webroot/themes/new/css/main.css and also copy Webroot/protected/views/layouts/main.php to Webroot/themes/new/views/layouts/main.php. Now, open the newly copied version of the main.css file remove the contents and then add all of the following: body{ margin: 0; padding: 0; color: #555; font: normal 10pt Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; background: #d6d6d6 url(background.gif) repeat-y center top;}#page{ margin-bottom: 20px; background: white; border: 1px solid #898989; border-top:none; border-bottom:none;}#header{ margin: 0; padding: 0; height:100px; background:white url(header.jpg) no-repeat left top; border-bottom: 1px solid #898989;}#content{ padding: 20px;}#sidebar{ padding: 20px 20px 20px 0;}#footer{ padding: 10px; margin: 10px 20px; font-size: 0.8em; text-align: center; border-top: 1px solid #C9E0ED;}#logo{ padding: 10px 20px; font-size: 200%; /* HIDES LOGO TEXT */ text-indent:-5000px;}#mainmenu{ background:white url(bg2.gif) repeat-x left top; border-top:1px solid #CCC; border-bottom: 1px solid #7d7d7d;}#mainmenu ul{ padding:6px 20px 5px 20px; margin:0px;}#mainmenu ul li{ display: inline;}#mainmenu ul li a{ color:#333; background-color:transparent; font-size:12px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; padding:5px 8px;}#mainmenu ul li a:hover, #mainmenu ul li a.active{ color: #d11e1e; background-color:#ccc; text-decoration:none;}div.flash-error, div.flash-notice, div.flash-success{ padding:.8em; margin-bottom:1em; border:2px solid #ddd;}div.flash-error{ background:#FBE3E4; color:#8a1f11; border-color:#FBC2C4;}div.flash-notice{ background:#FFF6BF; color:#514721; border-color:#FFD324;}div.flash-success{ background:#E6EFC2; color:#264409; border-color:#C6D880;}div.flash-error a{ color:#8a1f11;}div.flash-notice a{ color:#514721;}div.flash-success a{ color:#264409;}div.form .rememberMe label{ display: inline;}div.view{ padding: 10px; margin: 10px 0; border: 1px solid #C9E0ED;}div.breadcrumbs{ font-size: 0.9em; padding: 10px 20px;}div.breadcrumbs span{ font-weight: bold;}div.search-form{ padding: 10px; margin: 10px 0; background: #eee;}.portlet{}.portlet-decoration{ padding: 3px 8px; background:white url(bg2.gif) repeat-x left top;}.portlet-title{ font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; padding: 0; margin: 0; color: #fff;}.portlet-content{ font-size:0.9em; margin: 0 0 15px 0; padding: 5px 8px; background:#ccc;}.operations li a{ font: bold 12px Arial; color: #d11e1e; display: block; padding: 2px 0 2px 8px; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;}.portlet-content ul{ list-style-image:none; list-style-position:outside; list-style-type:none; margin: 0; padding: 0;}.portlet-content li{ padding: 2px 0 4px 0px;}.operations{ list-style-type: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;}.operations li{ padding-bottom: 2px;}.operations li a{ font: bold 12px Arial; color: #0066A4; display: block; padding: 2px 0 2px 8px; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;}.operations li a:visited{ color: #d11e1e;}.operations li a:hover{ background: #fff;} You may have noticed that some of these changes are referencing image files that do not yet exist in our project. We have added a background.gif image reference in the body declaration, a new bg2.gif image referenced in the #mainmenu ID declaration and a new header.jpg image in the #header ID declaration. These can be viewed, downloaded and used by viewing the site online or accessing the images directly from http://www.yippyii.com/trackstar/themes/new/css/background.gif, http://www.yippyii.com/trackstar/themes/new/css/bg2.gif, and http://www.yippyii.com/trackstar/themes/new/css/header.jpg. We need to place these new images into the same CSS folder we are using for this theme, namely Webroot/themes/new/css/. After these changes are in place, we need to make a couple of small adjustments to our main.php layout file in this new theme. For one, we need to alter the markup in the <head> element to properly reference our new main.css file. Currently the main.css file is being pulled in via this line: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->request->baseUrl; ?>/css/main.css" /> This is referencing the application request baseUrl property to construct the relative path to the CSS file. However, we want to use our new main.css file located in our new theme. For this, we can lean on the theme manager application component, defined by default to use the Yii built-in CThemeManager.php class. We access the theme manager in the same way as we access other application components. So, rather than use the request base URL, we should use the one defined by the theme manager, which knows what theme the application is using at any given time. So, we need to alter the above line in /themes/new/views/layouts/main.php as follows: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->theme->baseUrl; ?>/css/main.css" /> Once we configure our application to use our new theme (something we have not yet done), this baseUrl will resolve to a relative path to where our theme folder resides. The other small change we need to make is to remove the display of the application title from the header. As we altered our CSS to use a new image file to provide our header and logo information, we don't need to display the application name in this section. So, again in /themes/new/views/layouts/main.php, we simply need to change this: <div id="header"><div id="logo"><?php echo CHtml::encode(Yii::app()->name); ?></div></div><!-- header --> To the following: <div id="header"></div><!-- header image is embeded into the #headerdeclaration in main.css --> We have put in a comment to remind us where our header image is defined. One final change we need to make is to the other two layout files used in the application that we are not copying over to our new theme folder, namely protected/views/layouts/column1.php and protected/views/layouts/column2.php. These two layout files also use the main layout file via explicit calls to the beginContent() and endContent(). These files were auto-generated by the Gii code generation tool, and are explicitly referencing the main layout file in protected/views/layouts/ folder. We need to change the input specified to the beginContent() method so that, if available, our new theme layout will be used. Open both the column1.php and column2.php files and change the following line of code: $this->beginContent('application.views.layouts.main'); To be the following: $this->beginContent('/layouts/main'); Now, once we configure the application to use our new theme, it will first look for a main.php layout in the themes folder and use that file.

(For more resources on Plone, see here.) Designing our intranet information architecture No one uses a knowledge system (such as our intranet) if the information stored in it is hard to find or consume. We will have to specially emphasize on thinking about not only a good navigation schema, but also a successful one for our intranet. The definition of success is different for every interested group, organization, enterprise, or any kind of entity our intranet will serve. There are a lot of navigation schemas we may want to implement, but it is our task to find out what will be more suitable for our organization. To achieve this, we will have to use both hierarchy and metadata taxonomy wisely. Obviously, the use of folders and collections will help achieve this endeavor. The first-level folders or sections are very important and we will have to keep an eye on them when designing our intranet. Also, we should not forget the next levels of folders, because they have a key role in a success navigation schema. The use of metadata, and specifically categorization of content, will also play an important role in our intranet. The continuous content cataloging is crucial to achieve a good content search and the users should be made aware of it. An intranet where the search of content is inefficient and difficult is an unsuccessful intranet, and with time, the users will abandon it. At this point, we should analyze the navigation needs of our intranet. Think about how the people will use it, how will they contribute contents to it, and how will they find things stored in it. In this analysis, it is very important to think about security. Navigation and security are closely related because most probably we define security by containers. There are some standard schemas: by organization structure, by process, by product, and so on. By organization is the most usual case. Everybody has a very clear idea of the organizational schema of an enterprise or organization, and this factor makes it easier to implement this type of schema. In this kind of schema, the first-level sections are divided into departments, teams, or main groups of interest. If our intranet is small and dedicated to one or few points of interest, then these must take precedence over the first level section folders. Keep the following things in mind: Our intranet will be more usable if we can keep our intranet sections clean and clear Fight against those people who believe that his (or her) department is more important than others and want to assault our intranet sections Let them know that maintaining a good intranet structure will be more useful and will help contribute to its success Second levels are also very important. They should be perdurable in time, interesting to users of all sections, and they should divide information and contents clearly. Two subsections shouldn't contain elements of the same subject or kind. For example, these might be a typical second level: Documentation Meetings Events News Forums, tracker, or some application specific to the current section All of these are very commonly seen in an intranet. It is a good practice to create these second-level sections in advance, so that people can adapt to them. Teach people to categorize content. This will help intranet searches incredibly and will help create collections and manage contents more effectively. If needed, make a well-known set of categories publicly available for people to use. This would prevent the repetition of categories and the rational use of them. Notice that there can be several types of categories: Subject: Terms that describe the subject of the content Process: Terms that identify the content with the organizational process Flags: Flags such as Strongly Recommended Products: Terms from the products, standards, and technology names that describe the subject matter of the resource Labels: Terms used to ensure that the resource is listed under the appropriate label Keywords: Terms used to describe the resource Events: Terms used to identify events which are recurrent with the content There are other metadata also which influence the improvement of the navigation and search abilities of the intranet such as: Title Description URL, the ID of each content Don't forget to teach your users about content contribution best practices before deploying the intranet. We and our intranet users will appreciate it a lot. Once we have settled down on some practices which are best for information architecture, we should know how to use some interesting Plone features that will help us build navigation and sort the information on our intranet.

Managing data in a Silverlight RIA included in a SharePoint solution So far, we have been able to create, deploy, and debug a Silverlight RIA that read data from a list in the SharePoint server. It is also possible to insert, update, and remove items from these lists. In fact, the typical LOB (Line-Of-Business) RIA performs CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations. Therefore, we can create a Silverlight RIA to perform some of the CRUD operations with the existing list of tasks, by using more features provided by the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client OM. We could improve our existing Silverlight RIA that displays data from the existing list in a grid. However, we are going to create a new Silverlight RIA and then, we will improve both applications to work together to offer a complex LOB solution. We will analyze diverse alternatives to simplify the deployment process and show how to debug a Silverlight RIA that queries data from a SharePoint server. Working with the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client Object Model to insert items Now, we are going to create a new solution in Visual Studio. It will include two new projects: A Silverlight application project, SLTasksCRUD An empty SharePoint 2010 project with a module, SPTasksCRUD Follow these steps to create the new Silverlight RIA that allows a user to insert a new item into the list in the SharePoint server: This example requires the ProjectsList2010 list created in SharePoint Start Visual Studio as a system administrator user. Select File New | Project...| or press Ctrl+Shift+N. Select Other Project Types Visual Studio Solutions under Installed Templates in the New Project dialog box. Then, select Blank Solution and enter TasksCRUD as the project's name and click OK. Visual Studio will create a blank solution with no projects. Right-click on the solution's name in Solution Explorer and select Add New Project from the context menu that appears. Select Visual C# Silverlight under Installed Templates in the New Project dialog box. Then, select Silverlight Application, enter SLTasksCRUD as the project's name and click OK. Deactivate the Host the Silverlight application in a new Web site checkbox in the New Silverlight Application dialog box and select Silverlight 4 in Silverlight Version. Then, click OK. Visual Studio will add the new Silverlight application project to the existing solution. Follow the necessary steps to add the following two references to access the new SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client OM: Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight.dll Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Silverlight.Runtime.dll Open App.xaml.cs and add the following using statement: using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client; Add the following code in the StartUp event handler to initialize the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ApplicationContext with the same initialization parameters and the synchronization context for the current thread (the UI thread). private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e){ this.RootVisual = new MainPage(); // Initialize the ApplicationContext ApplicationContext.Init(e.InitParams, System.Threading.SynchronizationContext.Current);} Open MainPage.xaml, define a new width and height for the Grid, 800 and 600, add the following controls, and align them as shown in the following screenshot: Six Label controls aligned at the left with the following values for their Content properties. They are Title, Priority, Status, % Complete, Start Date and Due Date. One Label control, located at the bottom, lblStatus. One TextBox control, txtTitle. One ComboBox control, cboPriority. One ComboBox control, cboStatus. One Slider control, sldPercentComplete. Set LargeChange to 10, Maximum to 100, and Minimum to 0. This slider will allow the user to set the percentage of the total work that has been completed. One DatePicker control, dtStartDate. One DatePicker control, dtDueDate. One Button control, butInsert. Set its Title property to Insert Select the Grid, LayoutRoot. Click on the Categorized button to arrange the properties by category. Then, click on Brushes Background| and a color palette with many buttons located at the top and the bottom will appear. Click on the Gradient Brush button, located at the top and then on the Vertical Gradient one, located at the bottom. Define both the start and the stop colors. The rectangle that defines the background Grid will display a nice linear gradient, as shown in the previous screenshot. Open MainPage.xaml.cs and add the following using statements to include the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace: using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;using SP = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;Add the following two private variablesprivate SP.ClientContext _context;private SP.List _projects; Add the following method to fill the drop-down lists that will display the different options for the priority and the status: private void FillComboBoxes(){ cboPriority.Items.Add("(1) High"); cboPriority.Items.Add("(2) Normal"); cboPriority.Items.Add("(3) Low"); cboStatus.Items.Add("Not Started"); cboStatus.Items.Add("In Progress"); cboStatus.Items.Add("Completed"); cboStatus.Items.Add("Deferred"); cboStatus.Items.Add("Waiting on someone else");} It is possible to retrieve the possible choices for both the Priority and Status fields.In this case, we add the possible values in this method and then we will learn how to retrieve the choices through queries to the SharePoint server. Add the following line to the page MainPage constructor: public MainPage(){ InitializeComponent(); FillComboBoxes();} Now, it is necessary to add code to execute the following tasks: Connect to the SharePoint server and load the current user that logged on the server, ConnectAndAddItemToList method. Add a new item to the ProjectsList2010 list, considering the values entered by the user in the controls, AddItemToList method. private void ConnectAndAddItemToList(){ // Runs in the UI Thread lblStatus.Content = "Started"; _context = new SP.ClientContext(SP.ApplicationContext.Current.Url); _context.Load(_context.Web); // Load the current user _context.Load(_context.Web.CurrentUser); _context.ExecuteQueryAsync(OnConnectSucceeded, null);}private void AddItemToList(){ // Runs in the UI Thread lblStatus.Content = "Web Connected. Adding new item to List..."; _projects = _context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("ProjectsList2010"); ListItem listItem = _projects.AddItem(new ListItemCreationInformation()); listItem["Title"] = txtTitle.Text; listItem["StartDate"] = Convert.ToString(dtStartDate.SelectedDate); listItem["DueDate"] = Convert.ToString(dtDueDate.SelectedDate); listItem["Status"] = "Not Started"; var fieldUserValue = new FieldUserValue(); // Assign the current user to the Id fieldUserValue.LookupId = _context.Web.CurrentUser.Id; listItem["AssignedTo"] = fieldUserValue; listItem["Priority"] = "(2) Normal"; listItem["PercentComplete"] = Convert.ToString(Math.Round(sldPercentComplete.Value, 0)/100); listItem.Update(); // Just load the list Title proprty _context.Load(_projects, list => list.Title); _context.ExecuteQueryAsync(OnAddItemToListSucceeded, OnAddItemToListFailed);} All the previously added methods are going to run in the UI thread. The following methods, which are going to be fired as asynchronous callbacks, schedule the execution of other methods to continue with the necessary program flow in the UI thread: When the connection to the SharePoint server, requested by the ConnectAndAddItemToList method, is successful, the OnConnectSucceeded method schedules the execution of the AddItemToList method in the UI thread. If the ConnectAndAddItemToList method fails, the OnConnectFailed method schedules the execution of the ShowErrorInformation method in the UI thread, sending the ClientRequestFailedEventArgs args instance as a parameter to the delegate. When the insert operation performed on the list available in the SharePoint server, requested by the AddItemToList method, is successful, the OnAddItemToListSucceeded method schedules the execution of the ShowInsertResult method in the UI thread. If the AddItemToList method fails, the OnAddItemToList method schedules the execution of the ShowErrorInformation method in the UI thread, sending the ClientRequestFailedEventArgs args instance as a parameter to the delegate. private void ShowErrorInformation(ClientRequestFailedEventArgsargs){ System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Window.Alert( "Request failed. " + args.Message + "n" + args.StackTrace + "n" + args.ErrorDetails + "n" + args.ErrorValue);}private void ShowInsertResult(){ lblStatus.Content = "New item added to " + _projects.Title;}private void OnConnectSucceeded(Object sender, SP.ClientRequestSucceededEventArgs args){ // This callback isn't called on the UI thread Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(AddItemToList);}private void OnConnectFailed(object sender,ClientRequestFailedEventArgs args){ // This callback isn't called on the UI thread // Invoke a delegate and send the args instance as a parameter Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => ShowErrorInformation(args));}private void OnAddItemToListSucceeded(Object sender, SP.ClientRequestSucceededEventArgs args){ // This callback isn't called on the UI thread //Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(GetListData); Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(ShowInsertResult);}private void OnAddItemToListFailed(object sender,ClientRequestFailedEventArgs args){ // This callback isn't called on the UI thread // Invoke a delegate and send the args instance as a parameter Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => ShowErrorInformation(args));} Add the following line to the Click event for the butInsert Button. This way, when the user clicks on this button, the application will connect to the SharePoint server and will insert the new item. private void butInsert_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e){ ConnectAndAddItemToList();} Now, follow these steps to create a new SharePoint module and link it to the previously created Silverlight RIA, SLTasksCRUD. Stay in Visual Studio as a system administrator user. Right-click on the solution's name in Solution Explorer and select Add | New Project… from the context menu that appears. Select Visual C# SharePoint | 2010| under Installed Templates in the New Project dialog box. Then, select Empty SharePoint Project, enter SPTasksCRUD as the project's name, and click OK. The SharePoint Customization Wizard dialog box will appear. Enter the URL for the SharePoint server and site in What local site do you want to use for debugging? Click on Deploy as a sandboxed solution. Then, click on Finish and the new SPTasksCRUD empty SharePoint 2010 project will be added to the solution. Add a new item to the project, that is a SharePoint 2010 module, Module1. Expand the new SharePoint 2010 module, Module1, in the Solution Explorer and delete the Sample.txt file. Now, right-click on Module1 and select Properties in the context menu that appears. In the Properties palette, click the ellipsis (...) button for the Project Output References property. The Project Output References dialog box will appear. Click on Add, below the Members list. The empty SharePoint 2010 project's name, SPTasksCRUD, will appear as a new member. Go to its properties, shown in the list, located at the right. Select the Silverlight application project's name, SLTasksCRUD, in the Project Name drop-down list. Select ElementFile in the Deployment Type drop-down list. The following value will appear in Deployment Location: {SharePointRoot}TemplateFeatures{FeatureName}Module1, as shown in the next screenshot: Click OK and the SharePoint project now includes the Silverlight application project, SLTasksCRUD. Now, right-click on the SharePoint 2010 project, SPTasksCRUD, and select Properties in the context menu that appears. Click on the SharePoint tab in the properties panel and different options for the SharePoint deployment configuration will be shown. Activate the Enable Silverlight debugging (instead of Script debugging) checkbox. Remember that this option will allow us to debug code in the Silverlight application that adds items to the list in the SharePoint server. Right-click on the solution's name in Solution Explorer and select Properties from the context menu that appears. Select Startup Project in the list on the left, activate Single startup project, and choose the SharePoint project's name in the drop-down list below it, SPTasksCRUD. Then, click OK. Build and deploy the solution. Now that the WSP package has been deployed to the SharePoint site, follow the necessary steps to create a new web page, add the Silverlight Web Part, and include the Silverlight RIA in it. Remember that in this case, it is not necessary to upload the .xap file because it was already deployed with the WSP package.

(For more resources on WordPress, see here.) With so many types of jobs out there, the possibilities for niche job boards are almost endless. Drawing in traffic shouldn't prove to be too difficult either because, after being populated with niche-specific job listings, your job board will be filled with a wide variety of targeted keywords. Once these job seekers arrive at your niche job board they should transition into repeat traffic since they will be able to easily peruse job listings that are appropriate to the skills that they posses. That will remove much of the hassle that job seekers suffer as they seek employment. FoxNews and Smashing Magazine are two users of the JobPress theme who have zeroed in on a niche for their job boards. FoxNews only covers positions available within their own company while Smashing Magazine provides job listings primarily targeted toward those seeking design and programming-related jobs. So, as you can see, opting to focus on a niche will put you and your job board in good company.         The previous screenshots of the FoxNews and Smashing Magazine job boards will give you some idea of just what you can do with this theme. As you can see, JobPress can be integrated into the design of an existing website so that the two blend together nicely. In this article, you will learn how to: Build a dedicated job board website Make the JobPress sidebar widget-ready Run JobPress alongside an existing web site Once this project is complete, you will have succeeded in creating a site that's similar to the one shown in the following screenshot: Introducing JobPress JobPress, which can be found at http://www.dailywp.com/jobpress-wordpresstheme/, took the inspiration for its features from several of the job boards already in existence on the Internet. As you would expect, the theme offers those building a job board site the ability to edit and customize various features using a theme-related settings screen. This one screen houses all of the settings specific to this theme, so the customization of JobPress and its features can be completed in record time. If you're looking to earn a profit from your job board, then you have two options. You can either include advertisements in their various forms or you can charge a fee in order to post a job listing. If you would like to go with the latter option, then you can simply enter your PayPal information into the appropriate settings area and JobPress and PayPal will take care of the rest. JobPress also includes a feature whereby payment is verified between PayPal and JobPress, so that you can always be sure that the job listings that appear on your website have, in fact, been paid for. JobPress makes the job hunt easier for your visitors by allowing them to use the FREELANCE, FULL TIME, and PART TIME tags to sort listings. These sort options are available on both the front page and within categories to make locating a suitable job as easy as possible. If job seekers want to search for a specific job, instead of browsing, then they can do that too by using the search box provided by JobPress. JobPress also includes a feature that will alert job seekers when a listing has been online for more than 30 days. That way they will be able to see which listings are fresh and which ones are likely to have already been filled by another applicant. Running a job board isn't just about pleasing the job seekers who come to your site looking for listings. It's also about catering to the desires of those who will be placing ads. After all, without them your job board won't contain any job listings which means that there will be nothing there to draw in visitors. The developer behind JobPress took that into consideration when designing this theme by making the job listing submission process virtually hassle-free. Setting up and configuring JobPress After uploading and activating the JobPress theme, a new JobPress Settings link will appear. From this screen, all of your JobPress settings can be configured. So, to begin customizing JobPress to your liking, click on JobPress Settings. The Publishing & Payment Settings area is the first section that you will need to concentrate on during this configuration process. The Auto Publish? setting allows you to publish job listings automatically or manually. This setting is currently set to On, but you may switch it to Off if you prefer to have more control over the ads that appear on your website. The Paid Submission? setting is currently enabled. If you would like to charge a fee for placing a job listing, then this setting shouldn't be changed. Otherwise, change it to Disable to offer job listing placements for free. If you've decided to offer job listing placements for free, then proceed to the Custom Information settings area. If, you've instead opted to charge for the placement of job listings, then you will need to configure the remaining settings found in the Publishing & Payment Settings area. First, enter the email address associated with your PayPal account into the PayPal Mail textbox. In the Submission Price textbox, enter the amount that you would like to charge for standard ad placements. The last setting in this area is the Currency drop-down menu. Here you need to choose the currency associated with your area of the world. The Custom Information section of this settings screen is next and Renew Jobs is the first option that you will see. This feature is currently set to Enabled which means that job posters will be able to renew their listings if they would like to do so. This setting can be left at its default or you can, instead, set it to Disable if you would rather not provide a renewal option. It's best, however, for ease of use, if this setting remains enabled. The Apply Online option is also set to Enabled and it's probably best if this is left as is so that your job board offers the highest level of convenience to job seekers. With this setting in place visitors to your job board will be able to apply online for the jobs that they're interested in. The Sociable setting is also currently enabled, which is ideal since this will provide your visitors with a way to share a job listing that they see on your site with someone who might be interested in applying. Featured Job is next and, like all of the proceeding settings, it's also enabled. If you want to provide job posters with the option of upgrading from a standard listing to one that's featured, then this setting should remain enabled. If, however, you would rather not offer featured job listings on your website, then change this setting to Disable. If you opted to leave this setting enabled, then enter the price that you plan to charge for featured job listings into the Submission Featured Job Price textbox. Now, in the Items Per Page textbox, enter the number of job listings that you would like to appear on a single page. In the Success Message text area you will find a pre-written message that's displayed on the confirmation page when a job listing is submitted. It's best if you rewrite this message to correct grammar issues and to add any additional information that you would like to provide. Success Mail is next and this setting contains a few different options that must be addressed. First, you must choose whether you would like to leave this feature set to Enabled or, instead, set it to Disable. If you would like to use this feature, then you will first need to heed the advice included below the drop-down menu which advises you to contact your web host before enabling this setting. When you contact your web host you will need to ask them to if the mail() function is activated because the Success Mail feature won't work if that function isn't enabled. If the mail() function isn't enabled, then you should next ask your web host to activate it on your account. If they're unable to do so, then you will have no choice other than to set Success Mail to Disable. If you would like to use this feature, then you will first need to heed the advice included below the drop-down menu which advises you to contact your web host before enabling this setting. When you contact your web host you will need to ask them to if the mail() function is activated because the Success Mail feature won't work if that function isn't enabled. If the mail() function isn't enabled, then you should next ask your web host to activate it on your account. If they're unable to do so, then you will have no choice other than to set Success Mail to Disable. If it was possible for your web host to enable the mail() function, and you set Success Mail to Enabled, you must next deal with the Subject textbox. The default text provided in this textbox is certainly sufficient, but you might want to add the name of your job board to the subject line. That way recipients will be able to easily identify that the message that they're receiving isn't spam. The message within the Content text area is fine as is, but you may certainly rewrite it if you like. If you do decide to create your own message, then be sure to include the tags provided by JobPress for usage in this area so that this unique information can be populated before the message is sent. The From textbox that follows should be left at its default. Now, click Save to finalize your changes. Companies submitting job listings to your site will have the ability to include their company logo along with their submission. This feature won't function properly, unless you change the permissions on the upload folder, which can be found inside the wp-content directory. So, navigate to the upload folder and then CHMOD it to 777.

(For more resources on WordPress, see here.) After installing and activating BuddyPress, an alert will appear at the top of your screen to tell you that the functionality offered by BuddyPress isn't available on your website just yet. For these features to be made available to your members, you will need to install a BuddyPress-compatible theme.   Activating this theme is a two step process. First, navigate to Appearance | Themes and then click Activate for the BuddyPress Default theme. Next, click on SuperAdmin | Themes. Tick the radio button labeled Yes for the BuddyPress Default theme and then click Apply Changes. Now the BuddyPress Default theme will be in use on your site and available for usage by your users. Setting up and configuring BuddyPress After activating the plugin, you might have noticed that a new BuddyPress menu appeared. Click on BuddyPress | General Settings to access the BuddyPress Settings screen. BuddyPress Settings There are only two settings on this screen that you need to concern yourself with; the rest can be left at their defaults settings. The first option that you need to alter is located at the top of the screen and is labeled Base profile group name. As you can see, this is currently set to Base. This text appears in a couple of places. First, when your users go to My Account | Profile | Edit Profile, they will see Editing 'Base' Profile Group.   The second place that this text can be found is on the BuddyPress Profile Field Setup screen where it's used as the name of the default field group.   In both instances, something less enigmatic would be beneficial. Think of a descriptive label that would be useful in both situations and then enter it into the Base profile group name textbox.   You will find the other setting that you need to configure located at the bottom of your screen, so scroll down until you see the Default User Avatar. In this area, select the type of avatar that you would like to display for users without a custom avatar and then click Save Settings. Component Setup Now, click on BuddyPress | Component Setup to be taken to the BuddyPress Component Setup screen. By default, all of the components found on this screen are enabled. How you choose to configure the majority of these settings will depend upon your preferences and the features that you would like to make available on your website. It should be noted, however, that both the bbPress Forums and Groups components should remain enabled if you plan on integrating bbPress into your community portal. Also, the Extended Profiles component should be left set to Enabled, so that your members can have more detailed profiles attached to their accounts. Profile Field Setup Skip the Forums Setup screen for now, and instead click on Profile Field Setup. On this screen, there are three actions that you can take. You can add additional field groups, add new fields, and then choose the location for each of these fields within their group. At present, your installation of BuddyPress has one default field placed within one default field group which now bears the name that it was given when you changed it from Base on the BuddyPress Settings screen. Any fields located in this default field group will appear on the signup screen under the heading of Profile Details.   This field group also appears on the screen that your users see when they go to edit their profile.   Any additional field groups that you add will only be visible to users when they wish to edit their profile. As things stand, your users will have a profile that consists of nothing more than their name. Since that doesn't make for much of a profile you need to add some additional field groups and fields. With the addition of these new groups and fields, it will be possible for your members to build a robust profile page.

(For more resources on Joomla!, see here.) But enough chat for now, work is awaiting us! Send the form using jQuery AJAX This is not going to be as hard as it may first seem, thanks to the powerful jQuery features. What steps do we need to take to achieve AJAX form sending? First, open our default_tmpl.phpfile. Here we are going to add an ID to our button, and change it a bit, from this: <input type="submit" name="send" value="Send" class="sc_button"/> to this: <input type="button" name="send" value="Send" class="sc_button"id="send_button"/> Apart from adding the ID, we change its type from submit to button. And with this our form is prepared. We need a new file, a js one this time, to keep things organized. So we are going to create a js folder, and place a littlecontact.js file in it, and we will have the following path: modules/mod_littlecontact/js/littlecontact.js As always, we will also include this file in the mod_littlecontact.xml file, like this: <filename>js/littlecontact.js</filename> Before adding our code to the littlecontact.js file, we are going to add it to the header section of our site. We will do this in the mod_littlecontact.php file, as follows: require_once(dirname(__FILE__).DS.'helper.php');$document =& JFactory::getDocument();$document->addScript(JURI::root(true).'modules'.DS.' mod_littlecontact'.DS.'js'.DS.'littlecontact.js');JHTML::stylesheet('styles.css','modules/mod_littlecontact/css/'); I've highlighted the changes we need to make; first we get an instance to the global document object. Then we use the addScript method to add our script file to the header section.   We use JURI::root(true) to create a correct path. So now in our header, if we check the source code, we will see:   <script type="text/javascript" src="/modules/mod_littlecontact/js/littlecontact.js"></script> If instead of using JURI::root(true), we would have used JURI::root() our source code would look like the following: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://wayofthewebninja.com/ modules/mod_littlecontact/js/littlecontact.js"></script> You can find more information about the JURI::root method at: http://docs.joomla.org/JURI/root We are now ready to start working on our littlecontact.js file: jQuery(document).ready(function($){ $('#send_button').click(function() { $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize()); });}); It is a little piece of code, let's take a look at it. First we use the ready function, so all of our code is executed when the DOM is ready: jQuery(document).ready(function($){ Then we add the click method to the #send_button button. This method will have a function inside with some more code. This time we are using the post method: $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize()); The post method will send a request to a page, defined in the first parameter, using the HTTP post request method. In the second parameter we can find the data we are sending to the page. We could pass an array with some data, but instead we are using the serialize method on our form, with ID sc_form. The serialize method will read our form, and prepare a string for sending the data. And that's all; our form will be sent, without our visitors even noticing. Go ahead and try it! Also, you could take a look to the following two pages: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.post/ http://api.jquery.com/serialize/ Here you can find some good information about these two functions. After you have taken a look at these pages, come back here, and we will continue. Well, sending the form without page reloading is OK, we will save our visitors some time. But we need our visitors to notice that something is happening and most important, that the message has been sent. We will now work on these two things. First of all we are going to place a message, so our readers will know that the form is being sent. This is going to be quite easy too. First we are going to add some markup to our default_tmpl.php, as follows: <?phpdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Direct Access to this location is not allowed.');?><div id="littlecontact"> . . . <div id="sending_message" class="hidden_div"> <br/><br/><br/> <h1>Your message is being sent, <br/>wait a bit.</h1> </div> <div id="message_sent" class="hidden_div"> <br/><br/><br/> <h1>Your message has been sent. <br/>Thanks for contacting us.</h1> <br/><br/><br/> <a href="index.php" class="message_link" id="message_back">Back to the form</a> </div></div> We have added two DIVs here: sending_message and message_sent. These two will help us show some messages to our visitors. With the messages prepared, we need some CSS styles, and we will define these in our module's styles.css file: #littlecontact{ position: relative;}#sending_message, #message_sent{ height: 235px; width: 284px; position: absolute; z-index: 100; background-color: #5B5751; top: 0; text-align: center;}.hidden_div{ visibility: hidden; display: none;}.show_div{ visibility: visible; display: block;}a.message_link:link, a.message_link:visited{ color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none;}a.message_link:hover{ text-decoration: underline;} Don't worry about writing all this code; you can find it in the code bundle, so copy it from there. Going back to the code, these are just simple CSS styles, and some of the most important ones are the hidden_div and show_div classes. These will be used to show or hide the messages. Ready to go to the JavaScript code? We will now return to our littlecontact.js file and modify it a bit: jQuery(document).ready(function($){ $('#send_button').click(function() { $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize(), show_ok()); $("#sending_message").removeClass("hidden_div"); }); $("#message_back").click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $("#message_sent").addClass("hidden_div"); $("#sending_message").addClass("hidden_div"); }); function show_ok(){ $("#sending_message").addClass("hidden_div"); $("#message_sent").removeClass("hidden_div"); $("input:text").val(''); $("textarea").val(''); }}); Seems a lot? Don't worry, we will take a step-by-step look at it. If we look at our previously added click function, we can see a new line, as follows: $("#sending_message").removeClass("hidden_div"); This will search for our sending_message DIV, and remove the hidden_div class. This way the DIV will be visible, and we will see a screen similar to the following screenshot: A nice message tells our visitors that the e-mail is being sent just at the moment. But we don't do only that. If we take a closer look at our previous post method, we will see some changes, as follows: $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize(), show_ok()); A new third parameter! This is a callback function, which will be executed when the request succeeds and our e-mail has been sent. But what is inside this show_ok function? Its contents are as follows: function show_ok(){ $("#sending_message").addClass("hidden_div"); $("#message_sent").removeClass("hidden_div"); $("input:text").val(''); $("textarea").val(''); } First we add the hidden_div class to the sending_message, so this sending message is not seen any more. But instead we remove the hidden_div class of our message_sent DIV, so our visitors will see this new message: But we are also emptying our inputs, text inputs, and textarea fields: $("input:text").val(''); $("textarea").val(''); So when visitors return to the form they are presented with a fresh one, just in case they have forgotten something and want to send a new e-mail. Hey who knows! Our last step is to enable a back link, so that the readers can return to the form: $("#message_back").click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); $("#message_sent").addClass("hidden_div"); $("#sending_message").addClass("hidden_div"); }); First we target the link using its ID, and then we bind a click function to it. The next step is to prevent the default event for the link. This is why the link won't behave as a link, and won't try to load a page. This is why we are not going to load or reload a page, instead we will continue with our code, hiding both DIVs, so the form is visible again. That's it! It has not been that hard, has it? Now, it would be a great moment to take a look at the code bundle, see the code, read it, and try it by yourself. Or alternatively, keep reading a bit more if you want! Tips and tricks Look at the site http://www.ajaxload.info/. There you will be able to generate some loader GIF images. These will act as the typical clock mouse, telling the users that something is happening. Maybe you would like to use that instead of only using text. Give it a try! Validating form fields using jQuery—why validate? Ah! validating forms, so entertaining. It's just the kind of task everyone always wants to do. Well, maybe a bit less than others. But it's something that needs to be done. Why? Just to ensure that we are receiving the proper data, or even that we are receiving data. Ideally we would use JavaScript validation on the client side, and PHP validation on the server side. Server-side validation is essential, so a user turning off JavaScript still gets his/her contents validated. JavaScript validation will save us the effort of having to send all the data to the server, and then come back with the errors. We are going to use a bit of JavaScript to try to validate our form. This process is going to be quite simple too, as our form is very small. We will be doing all of our work in our littlecontact.js file. Remember our $('#send_button').click function? It looked like this: $('#send_button').click(function() { $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize(), show_ok()); $("#sending_message").removeClass("hidden_div"); }); Now with some modifications, it will be more or less as follows: $('#send_button').click(function() { //First we do some validation, //just to know that we have some data alerts = ''; if($("input[name=your_name]").val() == ''){ alerts += "we need your namen"; } if($("textarea[name=your_question]").val().length < 5){ alerts += "We need a message of at least 5 characters lengthn"; } if(alerts != ''){ alert(alerts); }else{ $.post("index.php", $("#sc_form").serialize(), show_ok()); $("#sending_message").removeClass("hidden_div"); } }); First, we define a new variable, to put all the messages in: alerts = ''; Then we check our form fields (first the input text): if($("input[name=your_name]").val() == '') As you can see, with jQuery we can select the input with a name equal to your_name and check if its value is empty. The textarea check is very similar: if($("textarea[name=your_question]").val().length < 5 But we are also checking if the length of the value is greater than five. After each one of these validations, if failed, we add a message to the alerts variable. Later, we will check if that variable is not empty. If it's not empty, it would mean that some of the checks have failed, and then we show the alerts to our visitors: alert(alerts); This will raise a typical alert message, much like the following screenshot: Informative, but not really nice. But thinking about it, we already have the jQuery UI library available, thanks to our SC jQuery Joomla! plugin. Why not use that plugin to show a better message? Let's do it. First we need to make some changes in the default_tmpl.php file: <div id="alerts" title="Errors found in the form" style="display: none;"></div> We have added a new DIV, with an ID equal to alerts, and with an informative title. Now that our markup is ready, some changes are also necessary in our littlecontact.js JavaScript file. For example, we are going to change our alert messages from the following: alerts += "- We need your namen";...alerts += "- We need a message of at least 5 characters lengthn"; To the following: alerts += "- We need your name<br/>";...alerts += "- We need a message of at least 5 chapters length<br/>"; Why are we doing this? It is because we will show HTML in our dialog, instead of just text. How are we going to show the dialog? Quite easily, by changing the following line: alert(alerts); To this: $("#alerts").html(alerts).dialog(); What are we doing here? First, we select our newly created DIV, with ID alerts, and then we use the html method, passing the variable alerts as its parameter. This will fill our DIV with the content of the alerts variable. Nested in it we will find the dialog method. This is a jQuery UI method that will create a dialog box, as we can see in the following screenshot: Better than our previous alert message, isn't it? Also notice that this dialog is matching the style of all our jQuery UI elements, like the login dialog and the tabs module. If we were to change the style in the SC jQuery Joomla! plugin, the style of the dialog will also change. If you want to know more about the jQuery UI dialog method, check the following page: http://jqueryui.com/demos/dialog/ Summary In this article we saw how to make a better form using JavaScript, send the form using jQuery AJAX, validate form fields using jQuery, and learn why it is important to validate. Well that's it for now. This is just a small example; now don't you think it would be great to give it a try? Further resources on this subject: Removing Unnecessary jQuery Loads [article] The Basics of Joomla! Module Creation and Creating a "Send us a question" Module [article]

(For more resources on Joomla!, see here.) Building a basic Joomla! module is not that difficult. In fact it's quite easy. Just stay with me, and we will divide the task into some easy-to-follow steps. First of all, we need to create a folder for our module, for example, mod_littlecontact. This folder is where we will place all the files necessary for our module. For example, one of the files we are going to need is the mod_littlecontact.php file, which is named exactly the same as the folder, but with a .php extension. Let's see what we need to put in it: <?phpdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Direct Access to this location is notallowed.');?><h1>Just a simple contact form!</h1> We will look at just the basics. First, defined('_JEXEC') checks whether the file has been included by Joomla! instead of being called directly. If it has been included by Joomla!, the _JEXEC constant would have been defined. With this PHP file created we need to create another file, an XML one this time. We will call it mod_littlecontact.xml; notice that, again, the name is the same as the folder one. Just create the file, and after that we will place the following contents in it: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><install type="module" version="1.5.0"> <name>Little Contact Form</name> <author>Jose Argudo Blanco</author> <creationDate>2010</creationDate> <copyright>All rights reserved by Jose Argudo Blanco.</copyright> <license>GPL 2.0</license> <authorEmail>[email protected]</authorEmail> <authorUrl>www.joseargudo.com</authorUrl> <version>1.0.0</version> <description>A simple contact form</description> <files> <filename module="mod_littlecontact"> mod_littlecontact.php</filename> </files></install> Most of the contents of this XML file are quite easy to follow and very self-explanatory. In the files section, we have included all the files necessary for our module. Notice that we do not include the XML file itself. With these two files created, we can give a try to this simple module. Copying this folder into our Joomla! modules folder won't work, as Joomla! requires us to install the extension through the Extensions | Install/Uninstall menu. So, what do we need to do? Just compress these two files into a ZIP file by using any tool of your liking. At the end we will need to have a mod_littlecontact.zip file with the following two files inside: mod_littlecontact.php mod_littlecontact.xml Installing our module is done exactly as with any other modules. Go to the administrator screen of our site, then go to the Extensions | Install/Uninstall menu, search and select the file, and then click on Upload File & Install button. If all goes OK, and it really should, we will be able to find our module listed in Extensions | Module Manager, as seen in the following screenshot: We can click in the module name, just as we would do with any of the others. If we enter the administration panel of the module we will see a screen very much like the other modules, as Joomla! standardizes this screen. Just take a look at the Details zone, which will look like the next screenshot: He re we can select the parameters we want, and enable the module. This time we will place it in the module_7 position of our template. Also note that the description is the one that we place in the module XML file: <description>A simple contact form</description> After we have enabled the module, we will be able to see it in the frontend, in the module position we have selected: There's not too much for now, but it's working! Now we will enhance it and convert it into a contact form. Note that now that we have installed our module, a new folder will have been created into our Joomla! installation. We can find this folder in the modules folder, it will be called mod_littlecontact. So now we have this structure on our Joomla! Site: modules/ mod_littlecontact/ mod_littlecontact.php mod_littlecontact.xml As the module is already installed, we can modify these files, and we will be able to see the changes without needing to reinstall it. We have just accomplished our first step; the basics are there, and now we can concentrate on making our modifications. Creating a "Send us a question" module One of the first things we are going to create is an empty index.html file; this will be used so that no one can take a look at the folder structure for the module. For example, imagine that our site is installed in http://wayofthewebninja.com. If we go to http://wayofthewebninja.com/modules/mod_littlecontact/ we will see something like the next image: If we try to click on mod_littlecontact.php, we will see the following phrase: Direct Access to this location is not allowed. That's because the code we added to our file is as follows: <?phpdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Direct Access to this location is notallowed.');?> Of course, we don't want people to be able to see which files we are using for our module. For this place, we used the empty index.html file mentioned in the modules/mod_littlecontact folder. This way, if anyone tries to go to http://wayofthewebninja.com/modules/mod_ littlecontact/, they will see only an empty screen. Good, now note that when we add any file, we need to reflect it on the mod_littlecontact.xml file in the files section: <files> <filename module="mod_littlecontact">mod_littlecontact.php</filename> <filename>index.html</filename></files> This way, when we pack the file for install, the installation process will take this file into account, otherwise it will be left out. Once we have done this, we are going to create another file, a CSS one this time, so we can put our styles in it. For this we are going to first create a new folder, also called css. It will be placed in modules/mod_littlecontact/. Inside that folder we will create a file called styles.css; this file also needs to be declared in the XML: <filename>css/styles.css</filename> In this modules/mod_littlecontact/css/styles.css file we are going to place the following code: #littlecontact h1{ font-size: 18px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff;} But then, if we are to apply these styles, we need to load this CSS file. How are we going to do this? Open the modules/mod_littlecontact/mod_littlecontact.php file and modify it as follows: <?phpdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Direct Access to this location is notallowed.');JHTML::stylesheet('styles.css','modules/mod_littlecontact/css/');?><div id="littlecontact"> <h1>Just a simple contact form!</h1></div> There's not much change here; we have enveloped our previous content in a DIV, with the littlecontact ID, so that we can target our styles. This is the easy part, but there's also an important one, shown as follows: JHTML::stylesheet('styles.css','modules/mod_littlecontact/css/'); We are using the JHTML::stylesheet method to create a link, in our header section, to our CSS file. In fact, if we check the source code on our frontend, we will see: <link rel="stylesheet" href="/modules/mod_littlecontact/css/styles.css" type="text/css" /> This way our stylesheet will be loaded, and our module will look like the next screenshot: As we can see, our styles have been applied. The JHTML::stylesheet method is quite easy to use, the first parameter being the file and the second one being the path to the file. Now we are going to prepare our simple form. Again we will modify our mod_littlecontact.php file, and now it will look more like the following: <?phpdefined('_JEXEC') or die('Direct Access to this location is notallowed.');JHTML::stylesheet('styles.css','modules/mod_littlecontact/css/');?><div id="littlecontact"> <h1>Just a simple contact form!</h1> <form action="index.php" method="post" id="sc_form"> <label>Your name:</label><br/> <input type="text" name="your_name" value="" size="40" class="sc_input"/><br/><br/> <label>Your question:</label><br/> <textarea name="your_question" class="sc_input" rows="5" cols="30"></textarea><br/><br/> <input type="submit" name="send" value="Send" class="sc_button" /> </form></div> This is a common HTML form. We need some styling here, just to make it look good. Let's make the following minimal changes to our styles.css file: #littlecontact h1{ font-size: 18px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ffffff; margin-bottom: 15px;}.sc_input{ border: 1px solid #3A362F;}.sc_button{ background-color: #3A362F; border: 0; color: #ffffff; padding: 5px;} Most styles are new, and modifications to previous h1 styling have been marked. With this minimal change our module looks a bit better. You can see it in the following screenshot:

Understanding the benefits of integrating Silverlight with SharePoint The following list shows many benefits of integrating Silverlight with SharePoint 2010: Rich UX: Silverlight RIAs can offer a rich user experience. You can take full advantage of the rich visual capabilities offered by Silverlight and include them in a SharePoint site. The rich and interactive content offers an incredible new world of possibilities in SharePoint. For example, you can offer an interactive balanced scorecard with animated graphs, rich navigation capabilities, and context menus. Code runs on the client: You can take advantage of the power of the client computers accessing the SharePoint server. You can use threading and asynchronous calls to offer responsive user interfaces and to take advantage of modern multi-core microprocessors found in client computers. You can offer great response times without the need to wait for the server to load another page. You can take advantage of rich controls, animations, and exciting multimedia effects. The processing removes load from the server and enables you to use both the server and the client in your solutions. Additionally, Silverlight 4 is cross-browser capable and we can take advantage of the improved Out of Browser features to create applications that interact with the SharePoint 2010 server but run in the Windows desktop, out of the web browser. Efficient applications: As you can work with the power offered by the client, you can process data without the need to make requests to the server all the time. This way, you can create load-balanced solutions. Access to the Client OM (Client Object Model): When you have to access data and services offered by the SharePoint 2010 server, you don't need to create your own complex infrastructure. There is no need to add additional layers. You can take advantage of the new Client Object Model, also known as Client OM. As you can work with asynchronous calls to the Client OM, you can still offer great responsive applications when consuming services from the server. Users can interact with SharePoint data without requiring server calls as they would from traditional pages. Lots of the processing can be pushed down to the client. This way, as previously explained, you can remove load from the SharePoint server and create load-balanced solutions. Leverage your existing Silverlight knowledge, components, and applications: You can build new capabilities quickly from existing Silverlight components and applications, integrating them with SharePoint 2010.   Creating a SharePoint solution   Now, when we design a new SharePoint 2010 solution, we will be able to consider Silverlight RIAs as new components for the global solution. We have to consider the aforementioned benefits of integrating Silverlight with SharePoint and decide which parts would be convenient to create as Silverlight RIAs. This way, we can focus on preparing the SharePoint 2010 infrastructure and then we can access data and services offered by the server through Silverlight RIAs. For example, you can view the images found in an assets library defined in SharePoint through a Silverlight application. Once you start integrating Silverlight with SharePoint, you will find a new exciting way of enhancing SharePoint solutions. Preparing the development environment We want to take full advantage of modern technologies. First of all, we must install the latest tools and begin working on configurations. Later, we will be able to use our existing knowledge to create different kinds of RIAs for SharePoint 2010, using Silverlight 4—the newest kid-on-the-block from Microsoft. Silverlight 4 is backward-compatible with its previous version, Silverlight 3. Therefore, when an example uses a feature found only in Silverlight 4, you will find a note explaining this situation. Most of the examples work for both Silverlight versions. However, we will also take advantage of some of the new features found in Silverlight 4. The only requirements underpinning the development and integration of RIAs into SharePoint 2010 sites are understanding the basics of the C# programming language, ASP.NET, XAML code, and the Visual Studio IDE. We will cover any other requirements in our journey through the creation of many different kinds of RIAs to run in a SharePoint 2010 site. First, we must download and install various Silverlight development tools. We need Visual C# 2010 Professional, Premium, or Ultimate installed, in order to successfully complete the installations explained in the following section. Visual C# 2010 allows us to choose the desired Silverlight version (for example, version 3 or version 4). The following part will show Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate screenshots. If you use other versions, some elements that appear in the screenshots could be different but the steps are all valid for the aforementioned versions. Setting up the development environment Follow these steps to prepare the development environment: Download the following files: Application's name Download link File name Description Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eff8a0da-0a4d-48e8-8366-6ddf2ecad801&displaylang=en Silverlight4_Tools.exe We must install Silverlight 4 Tools in order to create Silverlight 4 applications in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, using XAML and C#. It will co-exist with previous Silverlight SDKs (Software Development Kits). This new version of Silverlight Tools also includes the WCF RIA Services package. Silverlight 4 Offline Documentation (in CHM format) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B6127B9B-968C-46C2-8CB6-D228E017AD74&displaylang=en Silverlight_Documentation.EXE We must download and run this file to decompress its content because, because we will need access to Silverlight 4 official documentation in due course. Expression Blend for .NET 4 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=88484825-1b3c-4e8c-8b14-b05d025e1541&displaylang=en Blend_Trial_en.exe This tool will enable us to create content that targets Silverlight 4 and to create rapid prototypes with the SketchFlow tool. Silverlight Toolkit (Updated for Silverlight 4 compatibility) http://codeplex.com/Silverlight Silverlight_4_Toolkit_April_2010.msi It is convenient to download the latest stable release. This toolkit provides a nice collection of Silverlight controls, components, and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It will be really helpful to use these controls to provide even more attractive user interfaces. Besides, it includes more Silverlight themes. Run the installers in the same order in which they appear in the above table and follow the steps to complete the installation wizards. Once the installations have successfully finished, run Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Web Developer 2010 (or later). Select File | New | Project... or press Ctrl+Shift+N. Select Visual C# | Silverlight under Installed Templates in the New Project dialog box. You will see many Silverlight templates, including Silverlight Business Application and WCF RIA Services Class Library, as shown in the following screenshot: Discovering the rich controls offered by the Silverlight Toolkit Silverlight Toolkit is a Microsoft project offering many rich controls, components, and utilities that can help us to enhance our Silverlight UI (User Interface). As we want to create a very attractive UI for SharePoint, it is convenient to get familiar with its features. Follows these steps to see the controls in action and to change the values for many of their properties. Select Start | All Programs | Microsoft Silverlight 4 Toolkit April 2010 | Toolkit Samples and your default web browser will display a web page with a Silverlight application displaying a list of the controls organized in ten categories as follows: Controls Data DataForm Data Input DataVisualization Input Layout Navigation Theming Toolkit By default, the default.htm web page is located at C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft SDKsSilverlightv4.0ToolkitApr10Samples in 64-bit Windows versions. Click on a control name under the desired category and the right panel will display the control with different values assigned for its properties, creating diverse instances of the control. For example, the following screenshot shows many instances of the Rating control under the Input category. Click on the buttons shown at the bottom of the web page and you will be able to see both the XAML and the C# code used to create the sample for the control. For example, the following screenshot shows the XAML code for the DataGrid control example, DataGridSample.xaml. You can also click on DataGridSample.xaml.cs and check the C# part. This control appears under the Data category.