1. Adxstudio Portals Training
Portal Structure and Developer Best Practices

2. Portal Structure
All of the starter portals share a single code base, the Master Portal web project
Differences between portals are driven solely by data in the CRM, which lights up different features from the code base
Best suggestion for starting out is to take one of the starter portals and configure and customize it to suit your needs

3. Common Components Master Pages Page Templates Partial Views
User Controls
Inherited by all page templates. Most use ASP.NET web forms, but MVC (formless) master pages used as well
.aspx pages used as Templates by Portal applications. Can use ASP.NET web forms and/or MVC
Can be inserted into a page template or MVC view. Used for the default header and footer
User controls providing specific functionality used by portal applications

4. Default.master
Default.master is the Default master page and is an MVC master page
All Page templates should inherit from this
Does all the Plumbing and contains boiler plate code. This is where the Front-side editing and Webfile-based styling all kick in
Includes Header and Footer, but there is never a need to modify the Default.master because header and footer can be changed using site settings or Liquid Templates

5. WebForms.master
WebForms.master simply adds a form, to make it suitable for ASP.NET Web Forms page templates:

6. WebFormsContent.master
WebFormsContent.master adds a side bar Containing Ad, Poll, and Rating functionality as well as navigation
Other master pages can be used as well

7. ASP.NET Web Forms Page Templates
Page Templates are used by the portals to determine layout
Page
FullPage
ProfileChildPage
Hard-coded ASP.NET Page templates for Web Pages are included in the ~/Pages folder
Listing
Others

8. Liquid Templates
When a Web Page uses Liquid Template, the Physical .aspx page that is used is the WebTemplate.aspx page, which simply renders the Liquid Web Template specified by the page

9. Rendering Partial Views
Can use Html.RenderPartialFromSetting to render a partial view based on a site setting.
Allows different configuration options for templating out- of-the-box

10. Partial Views
Breadcrumbs
Footer
Header
Pagination
SignInLink

11. Site Header and Footer
Several Options for the Header and the Footer are available using partial views (based on site settings).
Liquid can also be used to set the Site Header and Footer
Header: Header/Template
“HeaderNavbar”: Default header with primary navigation below site title and log in
“HeaderCopy”: Header with an additional content block and the default controls placed together on top
“HeaderTabs”: The Primary Navigation rendered as tabs
Footer: Footer/Template
“FooterMenuWithCopy”: Default footer with supplementary nav links and a content block
“FooterMenu”: Links only
“FooterCopy”: Content block only

12. User Controls
Can be edited/modified/copied and changed to suit your needs
Included with Master portal:
Breadcrumbs.ascx
ChildNavigation.ascx
MultiRatingControl
Uses Rating.ascx and Vote.ascx
Comments
Uses CommentCreator.ascx

13. Individual features are contained within the “Areas” folder
Common Components
Each of the Adxstudio Features is isolated within it’s own MVC area
This Includes Events, Forums, Blogs, Ideas, Commerce, and many more
Although these are MVC areas, many do not use an MVC structure
Promotes Code Isolation
Individual features are contained within the “Areas” folder

14. Adding features
Turning on one of our OOB features is as simple as adding the relevant data in the CRM
Ex. Adding Forums to the Government Portal
Documentation on community portal
No Code changes required

15. Custom Development
It’s unlikely every bit of functionality you want is going to come out of the box
Now it’s time for custom development
Best practice is not to touch any portal code or markup outside of the “Areas” folder unless absolutely necessary
This will make for easy upgrades during future releases of Adxstudio
Anything you modify becomes “frozen in time” as it were

16. Custom Development So how do you add custom code? Make an Area!
Anything can be put into an area, including master pages, code helpers, and configuration file transforms
Segment your project into “features”
Isolate functionality and put the functionality into Areas

17. Setting up your Portal
Choose an out of the box portal that most closely matches what you will need
Add Out-of-the-Box features to it from our feature catalog
Roll a custom theme, add logos and skins
Add custom content
Develop custom layouts and page templates as needed
Identify the gaps in functionality
Develop new features as Areas