Posts tagged with 'gem'

Introducing CMSprinkle: A Micro CMS for C# Advent

December 25, 2023 mgroves 0 Comments
Tags: cms content content management system asp.net core c# Couchbase

Today, I’m presenting my C# Advent entry for December 25th, a project that emerged from the C# Advent series: CMSprinkle. (By the way, C# Advent merch is still on sale, but not for much longer).

What is CMSprinkle?

CMSprinkle is a micro content management system I developed specifically for the C# Advent website. Its creation was driven by the need for a straightforward and efficient way to manage small bits of content without the overhead of a full-blown CMS or even a headless CMS.

Features and Functionality

CMSprinkle is now available on NuGet and GitHub. It’s designed for ASP.NET Core web applications, particularly MVC projects. (It may also be adaptable to other ASP.NET Core projects, though this remains untested).

Here’s a quick walkthrough of setting up a new project with CMSprinkle:

Creating a New Project: Start with a new ASP.NET Core web application, targeting .NET 8. (Alternatively, you should be able to add CMSprinkle to any existing ASP.NET Core web project that you already have available).
Installing CMSprinkle: Add CMSprinkle from NuGet to your project. (dotnet add package CMSprinkle)
Choosing a Data Provider: Select from available data providers like Couchbase (used by the C# Advent site) or SQL Server. The system is designed to be extensible, so feel free to contribute or request additional database support.
Setting Up: After adding CMSprinkle, you’ll configure it in the views and program files: set up a tag helpers, and add services in your startup.

builder.Services.AddCouchbase(options =>
{
    options.ConnectionString = "couchbase://localhost";
    options.UserName = "Administrator";
    options.Password = "password";
});

// this adds auth to CMSprinkle
// if don't do this, it will be local only
// ExampleAuthClass enables anonymous public access, so don't use it as-is!
// builder.Services.AddTransient<ICMSprinkleAuth, ExampleAuthClass>();

// this adds CMSprinkle to your project
builder.Services.AddCMSprinkle(options =>
{
    // changes URL for cmsprinkle pages
    // if not specified, default is "cmsprinkle"
    // then URLs would be /cmsprinkle/home, etc
    options.RoutePrefix = "managecontent";

    // what message you want to show up when the
    // content hasn't been created yet
    // there is a default message if you don't specify this
    options.ContentNotFoundMessage = (contentKey) => $"ERROR: Can't find {contentKey}, did you add it yet?";
});

// this adds a Couchbase connection to CMSprinkle
builder.Services.AddCMSprinkleCouchbase("Example","_default","_default", createCollectionIfNecessary: true);

// or here's the SQLServer provider
// builder.Services.AddCMSprinkleSqlServer("Server=localhost;Database=Example;User Id=sa;Password=yourStrong(!)Password;TrustServerCertificate=True;", "SprinkleContent", "dbo",  createTableIfNecessary: true);

Managing Content

CMSprinkle aims to reduce friction in adding a CMS to your site. You define content keys directly in tag helpers and configure options like custom error messages for unfound content.

<div class="text-center">
    <h1 class="display-4">Welcome</h1>
    <p>Learn about <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/aspnet/core">building Web apps with ASP.NET Core</a>.</p>

    @* this is how you sprinkle managed content into your pages *@
    @* make sure you add CMSPrinkle in _ViewImports.cshtml first *@
    @* this will say "ERROR: Content Not Found (HelloWorld)" until you actually create the content.*@
    <CMSprinkle contentKey="HelloWorld" />
</div>

The system also includes a management console for easy content addition and editing.

A Focus on Minimalism

The guiding principle of CM Sprinkle is minimalism. It’s ideal for existing ASP.NET Core websites that require very modest content management capabilities without the complexity of a full CMS. If you have specific features in mind that would make CMSprinkle more suitable for your project, feel free to submit an issue to the GitHub repository.

Video Introduction

You can watch a video introduction to CMSprinkle here, showing a demo in action:

Join the C# Advent Celebration

I invite you to dive into the rich collection of C# Advent entries for 2023. With 50 total entries on https://csadvent.christmas, there’s something for everyone.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for participating in the C# Advent, and I hope to see you again next year.

Podcast 042 - Arthur Doler on Retrospectives

May 22, 2017 mgroves 0 Comments
Tags: podcast agile software management project management

Download Podcast 042 - Arthur Doler on Retrospectives

Subscribe:

Arthur Doler talks about retrospectives and how to make them better.

Note that this was recording at the Indy.Code() conference in a hallway, so the audio may be a bit noisier than usual.

Also, SPECIAL THANKS to the great David Giard (who has been on the show before: Episode 6 and Episode 15, and he's also the host of the excellent Techology and Friends show, of which my podcast is a pale imitation) who gave me some new podcasting equipment that I used in this episode. I am extremely grateful, but I'm still trying to figure out how best to use this equipment (which may be obvious in this episode).

Show Notes:

Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam
- Hidden Brain podcast on NPR
- Hidden Brain book
Book: You Are No So Smart by David McRaney
Arthur was kind enough to give his email address in the podcast if you want to contact him.

Arthur Doler is on Twitter.

Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Theme music is "Crosscutting Concerns" by The Dirty Truckers, check out their music on Amazon or iTunes.

Adventures in Yak Shaving: AsciiDoc with Visual Studio Code, Ruby, and Gem

February 02, 2017 mgroves 0 Comments
Tags: asciidoc asciidocfx visual studio code ruby gem

I blogged last year about my switch from Markdown to AsciiDoc, and that I was using AsciiDocFX.

I still like AsciiDoc, but AsciiDocFX has been getting on my nerves:

It doesn't have a very good update system. It checks for new versions, but it seems like I have to a) uninstall the old version, b) reinstall the new version, otherwise I get problems. I may be doing it wrong, but this made me want to update less.
The UI is a little wonky. The live preview sometimes seem to keep its update a few keystrokes behind, meaning that the preview and the document are out of sync. It also tends to get locked up, until I click the Restore button and then Maximize button.

Still, I used it.

But, I built a new computer this week. And I've been setting up my softwares on it. I thought it might be worthwhile to see if there's an AsciiDoc plugin for Visual Studio Code. And, of course there was, because apparently the Code extension ecosystem is booming!

So, I installed AsciiDoc by Joao Pinto, since it came with a live preview. But, it requires me to actually install the asciidoc command line tool.

See?

So, I thought, that should be easy enough. I went to the AsciiDoc site and started following the directions for Windows installation.

Install Ruby

Okay, well now I need to install Ruby. Should be easy enough. I already have Chocolatey NuGet, so I'll just run choco install ruby. No problem. I know that ruby comes with gem, so I should be all set.

Install AsciiDoc

According to AsciiDoc... docs... I just use gem install asciidoctor and that should do the trick.

But, no. It's not that easy. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog. I got an error message:

SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server certificate B: certificate verify failed

I'm sure all you Ruby people or Mac people or whatever already know where this is going, but I had no clue. So I googled it. I found a whole bunch of suggestions on StackOverflow. Some solutions made sense but weren't for Windows, and vice versa. I eventually hit upon some random guy's Gist and SSL upgrades on rubygems.org which lead to me this page on rubygems.org about SSL updates.

Fixing RubyGems Certificate Thingy

So, following that literally:

gem install --local C:\rubygems-update-2.6.7.gem

and then

update_rubygems --no-ri --no-rdoc

and finally

gem uninstall rubygems-update -x

So, I guess that fixed... something? It's described in the gist I linked above. But I don't really understand why it's still a problem for a brand new install of ruby. Not complaining! It worked!

Okay, now Install AsciiDoc

So now gem install asciidoctor works. And now I get a live preview of AsciiDoc in Visual Studio Code.

I'll report back after some more time blogging to see if I like this, or if I eventually go back to AsciiDocFx.

UPDATE: As of early April 2017, I've been blogging this way and I'm extremely happy with it. Visual Studio Code keeps getting better, the preview plugin keeps getting better. I've had to introduce a few tweaks in my process, but I've got the whole pipeline semi-automated. It's easy to bring in code samples (thanks to AsciiDoc), easy to post to both the Couchbase blog and this blog, easy to run Yoast on it, and so on. Some day I'll write a blog post explaining the whole process (and hopefully get some good suggestions for streamlining!)