1. The Inside Scoop Damian Jewett
“A must have plugin if you want to keep your Tridion environment clean…”
- Robert Curlette
The Inside Scoop
Damian Jewett
----- Meeting Notes (5/6/17 19:14) -----
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“Good lord, Alchemy is flipping amazing!”
- Someone

2. Introduction

3. Agenda Quick introduction to myself Introduction/Refresher on Alchemy
Demo
Tips
What’s new with Alchemy
Resources

4. What is Alchemy?
Alchemy (aka Alchemy4Tridion, A4T) is a set of tools and resources for enhancing the CMS user experience. It is made of the following components:
Alchemy Software (msi installer)
GUI Extension plugins
Open-source Alchemy framework (NuGet package)
Webstore (
Alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination (i.e. to transform matter, such as converting metal to gold).
With respect to SDL Web, this can be thought of as transmuting the CMS into a new and enhanced “substance”.

5. What is Alchemy?

6. Alchemy Development Team System Administrators
Roles
Alchemy Development Team
(Content Bloom)
Plugin Developers
(Community)
System Administrators
Plugin User
(Authors, Editors, etc.)

7. Roles: Alchemy Dev Team
Alchemy Development Team
Plugin Developers
System Administrators
Plugin Users

8. Roles: Alchemy Dev Team
Single-page application:
Angular JS
Mongo DB
Microsoft .Net
Development workflow:
Daily builds by the CB Alchemy team
Jenkins to build / deploy
Automated testing with Cucumber
All automations integrate into the CB Alchemy Team’s Slack

9. Roles: Plugin Developers
Alchemy Development Team
Plugin Developers
System Administrators
Plugin Users

10. Roles: Plugin Developers
NuGet package provides:
Sample and starter projects
.Net framework to make plugin creation easier
Number of libraries available such as Jquery, doT.js, WebAPI
Webstore Documentation

11. Roles: System Administrators
Alchemy Development Team
Plugin Developers
System Administrators
Plugin Users

12. Roles: System Administrators

13. Alchemy Development Team System Administrators
Roles: Plugin Users
Alchemy Development Team
Plugin Developers
System Administrators
Plugin Users

14. What’s new with Alchemy
Beta complete, version released!
Uploaded plugin status
Hotfix tab
Offline mode
Full Web 8 support, including all new Web 8 core service functionality
Greater interoperability between Web 8 and Tridion 2013 DLLs
Audit logs to track who's installed / uninstalled plugins
Terms of service for the Webstore, submitting plugins
Privacy policy
Cleaning up issues and stabilizing
Enterprise support plans available

15. Current Status
Software downloads: 843
Plugin downloads: 2206

16. Demo

17. Tips
SDL’s own Anguilla code is useful to see how certain functionality is built
Alchemy Framework has loads of useful constants:
InsertBefore = Constants.ContextMenuIds.MainContextMenu.Publishing;
A lot of Alchemy Plugin .Net projects are open source and available online
Peter Kjaer’s script for speeding up plugin drag and drop
Our team is here to help you:

18. The Future of Alchemy
Now we’re officially released, the CB team is building some killer plugins
Adding new features coming soon:
Custom Page Extensions
Custom Schema Field Popup Extensions
Event System plugins
Advanced security controls for Content Management Administrators:
Allowed plugin install and usage
Control users ability to use specific plugins

19. Resources Official Alchemy Documentation
John Winter’s Alchemy Code Dojo (TDS 2016)
Damian’s blog on creating an Alchemy plugin
Powershell script for speeding up plugin installation:

20. Questions? Comments? alchemy@contentbloom.com