Temporary files, again....

So about a month and a half after blogging about this very issue, here we go again. This time I wasn't thinking very deeply about things, so when I tried to install Update 8 and got hit by a File Exists error I contacted Sitecore Support.

Luckily these guys are not without humour, and referred me back to my own blog post for a fix LOL ;-) 1 : 0 to Sitecore Support.

As can be seen, apparently all of these files were created 14/1. Now I have NO idea what I was doing that particular day, but I was wondering.... anyone else having this problem or is it just something really messed up on my development box here?

Gonna get to the bottom of this, one day... :P

typesThatShouldNotBeExpanded

After having ran into this myself a few times, and for the 5th time being asked by one of my Sitecore friends; I though I would bring this one up. Ever had trouble getting your ASP.NET ListView controls to retain ViewState or do standard Paging? As many of you will know, Sitecore's web.config is a source of endless configuration fun. Sitecore's modular nature is basically founded on this configuration - want to switch something around or change how Sitecore works (at your own risk, usually, but that's ok)? Web.config is the place to go. Many of the settings are self explanatory and well commented, so working out what they do is fairly straight forward. In some cases, they are not, however. If you look through, you will find an element named " typesThatShouldNotBeExpanded". In it you will find two entries:

• System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater
• System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataList

And while I don't have enough insight into exactly HOW Sitecore ties in to the ASP.NET lifecycle to determine exactly WHY this setting is needed, I can however tell you what happens if you don't fully control it.

Say you have a control, where you drop in an ASP.NET ListView Control. Or a GridView control. They'll appear to work fine at first, but you'll quickly notice that paging and viewstate is acting up a bit on your controls.

The fix for this is easy, and as far as I know this is well known by Sitecore Support. Add your controls to this - almost black magic like - web.config setting, and you're set :-)

So

Add System.Web.UI.WebControls.ListView, and System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridView to this collection if you find paging, viewstate or other things "that normally works" doesn't.

I don't know when this setting was introduced, or even IF there is a reason Sitecore doesn't include these common controls in the list. Maybe there's a negative effect on performance or otherwise.

Searching on the web only produces this one link (searching on SDN, two results but similarly without explanation), and that doesn't tell us anything else than the config setting was apparently introduced in Sitecore 5.3.2 071220.

Sitecore MVPs announced

While those of us nominated have known this for a while, Sitecore today officially announced the Sitecore MVPs for 2008. A select list of 13 Sitecore professionals, of which I am proud to be named as one. Reportedly I am the first (and so far the only) UK based Sitecore MVP - and given I make my living here in London as an independent Sitecore consultant, I can only hope this award helps open up a few doors down the road. Up until the nomination came through on email, I didn't actually really know if the MVP programme was "alive" or if it was just something that would be "nice to have" inside Sitecore circles. I know Alex De Groot used the title for a while (and considering he probably wrote 10 blog posts for every one of the rest of the community put together, probably rightly so :P), but other than that the title didn't come up very often. Obviously Alex works for Sitecore now, and so probably no longer qualifies as such - not that his community contributions are less noticed for that reason. Cheers Alex, for being the one nominating me for this. This brings about a point that I consider to be important. The MVP programme nominates people outside Sitecore itself. Which, with some reason, should make the MVPs a reliable source for real impressions and opinions on Sitecore as a product, Sitecore as a company and Sitecore as a business partner (well maybe less so). Without restrictions being imposed, mind you, as Alex himself commented on earlier in 2008. While personally I certainly have a vested interest in Sitecore (as I make my living from implementing it), I'd also like to think that I keep an open mind and share my thoughts on it all - be it positive or negative. No doubt this has been the source of some controversy from time to time ;-) For that reason, here is the official list of Sitecore MVPs for 2008, with links to their blogs. I may not have been able to locate you all, so if you're on this list and have a blog I have not included - drop a comment. Sitecore will eventually make a similar list available on their site but until then, this should help the interested reader. Australia · Alistair Deneys (Next Digital Group) Canada · Eric Briand (Ergonet) · Glen McInnis (Non-linear Creations) Germany · Christopher Wojciech (Netzkern GmbH) · Julius Ganns (Netzkern GmbH) Denmark · Klaus Petersen (Alpha Solutions A/S) · Thomas Eldblom (Pentia A/S) The Netherlands · Justin Sjouw (Caesar Optimit) · Marc van Aalst (Evident) The United Kingdom · Mark Cassidy (CorePoint IT Limited) (btw, please don't click the company link... yet... :P) USA · Andy Uzick (FMC Technologies, Inc.) · Sasha Pfandt (Digitaria Interactive, Inc.) · Ben Golden (Aware Web Solutions) (must be cold in the Twin Cities this time of year :P) Congrats everyone, and happy new year :-)