Content Management in AC7

[keats76]

What sort of non-storefront related content management exists in AC7? Do you have a WYSIWYG editor for role-based page updates (a la Dot Net Nuke etc)?

For example: Could an Administrator create a new page (or edit an existing page) called "About XYZ Company"? If not, how hard would it be to leveradge the AC7 user authentication and roles to implement a 3rd party solution to do the same?

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

[500lbdev]

I've noticed that the AC 7 category management system only allows for category items to have sub items like pages and links. Is there a way around this to allow for items like pages to have subitems? I'd like to be able to set up pages to have subpages.

Thanks!

[AbleMods]

Since the site is written in .Net, you could create role-based content by making sub-folders with the appropriate permissions set in the forms authentication of that folders web.config file.

Managing the role membership would of course need to be handled by the site admin or through code.

My site is almost exclusively outside-AC7 content. I created a forum post several weeks ago that details the steps involved in making an outside-AC7 page. Searching the AC7 forums for "Creating a page" should get you the post I made.

Everything I do is through .Net user controls. I lose some of the WYSIWYG functionality because I don't have my development environment fully set up for it. But that's not an issue for me...I just run dual monitors and keep the site on one screen while I design on the other.

As long as you don't run into any overlapping DLL files, you can pretty much extend AC7 with any enhancements you want. I'm using a few modules from Xigla to enhance my site functionality. With a little bit of tweaking, the end result appears quite seemless. I'm also using an external Google Map custom control.

The biggest trouble you'll run into with outside modules is the site web.config. AC7 has a pretty intense file for a web site, so you might have to do some tweaking to make everything get along. I did some testing with BlogEngine.Net and had to spend a sizeable portion of time merging the two IIS apps web.config files into a single, happy chunk of website happiness. Then I decided I didn't like it