architecture of Umbraco application

Question

I m new to Umbraco, I have watched Umbraco.tv videos and want to use Umbraco in a project as a cms for managing and editing content. I am highly thankful for your guidance, time and for your thoughts on 3 questions:

1. How a Umbraco based data driven proejct should be architecutured ? For custom database tables do you use a separate database or same Umbraco database ?

2. How you work with custom data (non content) ? Do you make everything a document type, even if it is data which you are not going to create content of, for example a simple form submitted data ?

3. For DAL what technology or ORM you use ? Does Umbraco provide any API for saving simple data which is not a content or document type ?

Thank you so much once again.

Answer 1

1. Anything custom I put in the same database as my Umbraco installation, but everything in custom tables. I don't touch the Umbraco tabes, I would not want to affect my future version updates.
2. Form submitted data I store in my own custom tables, I avoid creating content nodes with those, it's often tricky and doesn't give me the flexebility I often need. What I do instead is create an "Admin" document type, that is behind login (hard coded access, but easy to hook up to Umbraco users / members if wanted) and use my own custom UI to display my stored custom data.
3. I use PetaPoto (http://www.toptensoftware.com/petapoco/), it's a micro ORM that is added through a single file (installation is so easy then), using the same db connection string. Then I create custom models as I need and with with parts of the MVC. I normally stay away from route hijacking and rather use Surface Controllers and ajax calls for almost everything.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

1 The architecture question is important but it also has be considered against how complex the project needs to be.

I would usually recommend a separate database for non-Umbraco data since this keeps everything nicely independent and manageable especially as projects grow. It also means that CMS-specific data (i.e. content) can be kept separately from none-CMS data, e.g. user registrations.

However, if the project is small and isn't likely to grow, keep it simple. Use the same database and piggy back off Umbraco's implementation of the Petapoco ORM. For example:

ApplicationContext.DatabaseContext.Database.Save(new Thing());

Or

var item = ApplicationContext.DatabaseContext.Database.Single(thingId);

2 For custom data, again it's a matter of need, maintainability and simplicity. Only use document types for what needs to be and can be stored in the CMS. My personal rule is that if it isn't content or organises content then it doesn't belong in the CMS. For example news and news categories obviously belong in the CMS. However, the comments made on an article have no reason to in the CMS.

3 With regards to DAL, as I have said, Umbraco has an implementation of Petapoco that can be used out of the box. If the project is basic enough, just use that. There is little point in using anything else unless you need some separation and/or some additional grunt in which case I would recommend using NHibernate or EF.

In addition to the points above,

• Use NuGet;
• Use the MVC mode of Umbraco, as it will provide you with substantially more flexibility. Check out the Hybrid Framework as it provides a very good start point for a robust and flexible project architecture;

Answer 3

1. You can use the database containing the Umbraco tables for tables not used in Umbraco. If there are no hosting problems for you using multiple databases then you can simply link to a second database in the web.config - this would be safer than using the default Umbraco database as Umbraco packages often add database tables & there could be naming conflicts.

2. Viewing non-Umbraco data (eg from a database) is best done by adding macros that access the data using standard .Net patterns (eg razor scripts, .Net User Controls) & then in Umbraco you add in a reference to the macro in the template (view). You can use multiple templates (views) for any document type; so if you have a document type called 'forms' that contains no data you can use the 'allowed templates' checkboxes to say which view(s) are valid for this document type. When you add a content item you must specify a doc type at the start, but the template (view) can be changed at any time.

3. If you are storing data any .Net ORM will work with Umbraco (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_object-relational_mapping_software#.NET) I've used Linq to Sql, Subsonic & Dapper before now - but there are lots of options.

Answer 4

1. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PtzyrEFG7I.
2. • You always need a doctype in Umbraco, even if a page doesn't offer any WYSIWYG type editability
3. • I would recommend using a Service Oriented Architecture, and the .dlls you drop into Umbraco can call the service. You can then deploy this service and have full control over how you do data access. Choose whatever method you want. Most modern sites use an ORM and it doesn't matter which, although nHIbernate and Entity Framework are the favourites. Don't be frightened to mix and match a more direct form of data access though as it can give you more control, especially in situations where performance optimisation of large queries is important.

If you're not familiar with adding custom .NET functionality into Umbraco, Trying out adding .NET user controls into Umbraco will give you a good start, and to help you to understand how you can utilise your own .dlls in Umbraco:

http://umbraco.com/help-and-support/video-tutorials/introduction-to-umbraco/developer-introduction/using-net-user-controls.aspx