Using Xigla for content/Info pages

[dadkind]

Hello All,
We're looking at integrating Xigla as a content management solution for our AbleCommerce based store/site.
We need a way to display content pages, such as our "Education", "About Us" and other text/info only pages.

Has anyone successfully done this? Integrated Xigla and AC7 ?

I need an overview on what needs to happen.

Do the apps run side-by-side? Is one app beneath the other? Are they merged?

One of the requirements that I have is that we can not write any code for this to happen. We want to leave AC7 in an out-of-the-box condition, with all the changes coming through themes and CSS.

So, will this solution work for us?

Thanks,
-tomas

[jmestep]

Why can't you use Able webpages for your content pages?

[dadkind]

Why can't you use Able webpages for your content pages?

Perhaps we can.

My client wants to be able to create pages that respond to urls such as
"http://mysite.com/education"

From what I can see (so far, still learning) is that AC7 doesn't have a neat "redirector" to point these "hanging" URLs to actual pages.

So it seems that we'd have to put an actual page at (~/education/default.aspx) to handle this request or to incorporate a solution that can make use of such requests. Xigla was recommended.

Does AC7 offer a solution that will meet my "no code changes" requirement? (as I mentioned, I'm still learning!).

Thanks,
-tomas

[jmestep]

They wouldn't be able to respond to a page name with no file extension. But by keeping your content within the Able system pages would be included in your sitemap.xml automatically and if Able adds some of the search capabilities that were in Able 5, webpages would show up in site search results.

[AbleMods]

Xigla isn't going to work for what you are trying to accomplish. Xigla has great content management components, but they are still dependent on your existing site URL structure. Xigla can't "manufacture" URLs within another .Net web application.

If you want non-extension URLs as you've described, use sub-folders.

For example, if a site wants "www.mysite.com/education" to work, they first create a subfolder off the root of the site called "education". Then drop a default.aspx or index.html file in that subfolder with the content you want.

Works on the same principle that drives the home page in root of the site.

I use Xigla News Manager 6 and Xigla Live Support. While it is possible to use an outside application to deploy content within your site, you will still have to create .html pages to hold this content. Otherwise you are faced with making programming changes and implementing HTTP handlers which wasn't a route you wanted to go.

Xigla makes extensive use of Javascript and ASP which can cause some development issues in a .Net site, especially with forms/postbacks. However it is pretty easy to implement when you're just showing content and don't require user input/postbacks. The new v6 of News Manager does some nice .Net stuff.

Most of the time, Xigla software is installed a separate IIS app beneath your AC7 store however with some effort you can get both to work in the same IIS app. Rarely there's a benefit to this since most of the time you can accomplish the same goals with deployment as a separate app and cross-connect the Xigla content using javascript.