integration of ASP .net web application with CS 2.0

I have purchased licensed version of CS 2.0 . I would like to integrate its blog ,forums and gallery feature with my.net web application. Are there any APIs to do so? Or any examples Or any other way out to do so!

Kindly advice!

Yes, sure

You can integrate CS with your own needs and applications easily. This depends on your background in ASP.NET and CS coding.

CS has rich APIs to help you in this way. There are several documentations about CS APIs on CS folks blogs and "Docs" section.

I have a set of posts about CS development on my blog and named it "CS Dev Guide" you can check it out as well.

But generally I can say we haven't finished the documentation . 

thanks keyvan.

i am also looking to integrate the authentication from cs into another application. i am just looking to simply check whether the user has logged into cs  from my app and if not, redirect them back to the cs sign in page.

is there a code snipplet that describes how to do this?

 Thank you for the reply,

But I cant find any doucument regarding the integration problem,

 kindly explain me how can i make use of these dlls provided by CS2.0   ?

Thanks in advance,

Gourav

 

What type of authentication are you needing?  Here is information about the Security Module Add-ons that support Single Sign-On and shared authentication.

http://docs.communityserver.org/Additional_Features_And_Add-Ons/AddOnsTopics.htm

Here is where they can be downloaded (Security Modules for CS 2.0.ZIP.)  You'll need to purchase a license for using them. 

http://communityserver.org/files/folders/add-ons/category1032.aspx


Let us know if you have further questions!

Dave

I thought there was an api that we could call to do some simple things like displaying the already authenticated CS user and so on. I do not need any complicated shared authentication model.

I would think that this functionality would be available with the paid versions of the software.

Yoshita, 

You can do exactly what you want to with the core CS product if you are willing to make a few minor concessions with your application. The easiest way to get where you want to go is to treat the core CS web project as your application (so you must get the source code for CS from the download area) and then add the pages of your .Net application to the CS web project. This will allow you to take advantage of the full Community Server feature set (blogs, forums, galleries, membership / authentication, etc.) as well as the wonderful controls provided with CS. In addition you will have access to all of the information stored in the CSContext object at runtime including the currently logged in user. Once you have done this and have it up and running you can choose to tightly integrate your pages with the CS navigation and skin or completely abandon them in lieu of your own custom navigation. An example of a site that uses Community Server in this fashion is Spout.

You can also choose to start from scratch with your current application and add the appropriate references to the CS dlls, appropriately modify the web.config file to include the required CS entries, and then add a SiteUrls.config file to your application. The CS web project already has all of this information configured correctly and that is why I suggest using it as a starting point. However, you can attempt to use it as a reference to transform your current application into a "custom" CS implementation.

Brian, 

If you are only interested in leveraging Community Server's authentication feature in another application on the same site, you can modify the forms authentication cookie entry in the web.config file of your application and the Community Server application to use the same cookie name and specify that the cookie applies to the entire domain (not just the CS site). I have an example of this somewhere that I'll dig out and post here.

Nick McCollum
Principal Consultant
NuSoft Solutions, Inc.

Nick, Great reply! Thank you for the info. I am glad people like you particpate in the forums!

Hi everyone,

I see a couple of my favorite forum posters (Keyvan and Dave) on this topic - not surprised.  In my previous searches I've found many of your posts very helpful.  I see that I am in the same boat as many others who feel challenged by making the Community Server into their existing sites.

Is there any way to do any Development in a wysiwyg approach?  Unfortunately since context is unavailable while developing I cannot get a visual representation of the site.  I started to dig into how you populate the context object but I haven't pieced that together.  I gather its contents change from page to page but how that happens is still voodoo to me.  Purely aspx with events coded in mark-up is not my favorite way to see the code either but I can't fault you for your preference.

I must get a handle on how all the pieces ( such as 'CS:MPContainer', 'CS:MPContent', 'CS:AdPart' ) go together.  I've spend many hours and read many posts trying to start a fresh web solution adding bit-by-bit to gain understanding.  This is so I can only put very specific elements of the site into the master pages of my site.  Or at least 'fake it' by making the CS site look like the navigation my master pages provide.  Unfortunately I'm making ground brutally slowly.

If you guys could help in any way I will make a point of it to do post-mortem documentation of everything involved with the integration of a web solution with the components of CS 2.0.  I'd consider it karmic payback.  *smile*  I'd like to help with the lack of documentation around this.

What I am *truly* looking for is a way that I can click the 'forums' and 'blogs' links from my "main" site and have it direct to a copy of CS that...

*** looks and feels exactly like my site ***

I already got the forms authentication integrated although I don't yet know how to change the e-mail addresses in both Microsoft's ASPNET2.0 membership database as well as the CS database.

Thanks in advance, Dylan

Hey Dyl...

I have only revisited CS again, after completely giving up on skinning and integrating it about a year ago (version 1 it was an impossible task).  You're a little ahead of me in working out how it all fits together, but I have found some resources that might help you work it out.

The skinning faq in the forum:
http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/535380.aspx

How master.ascx gets used:
http://www.seanwinstead.com/blogs/archive/2006/04/02/CS2MasterPage.aspx

hope this helps... and hoping to see some documentation from you.  It is all quite a mystery, one that i'm keen to get my head around soon.

cheers
greg

Hi Greg,

The master.ascx documentation by Sean Winstead was the key I needed to at least get me in the right direction.  I'm a little surprised you were the only one who posted to my question but I'm really glad you did.

I have invested many hours now since reading Sean's blog deciphering how the Telligent folks were combining the .NET user controls and the ASPX markup to create the final layout that was ultimately used.  I have seen a few people allude to my conclusions but nobody has really done a good job documenting them.

As promised I have started to document my findings.  I've named it "Project Hansel" since like Hansel I had to use html comments as 'breadcrumbs' to track down how all these pages, controls and code were coming together to form the rendered html.  I can't promise how soon they will be done but I will be sure to provide them to you.

Are you a .NET developer or more of a web designer that does not code?  I am more of a developer that does web design than the other way around.  I think that is one advantage I have over many of the non-developers who want to change the templates used by Community Server.

Just so you know I anticipate there being one important concern to consider if one templates/themes/skins their site.  I saw discussions from over 2 years ago saying how Telligent wants to release a 2.2 version of CS.  This version is supposed to make some element of customization easier.  Having looked quite close at the architecture now I anticipate an overhaul or serious redux of certain areas to make some features available.  If they have to do this it means that migrating a customized site will not likely be a 'install overtop' kind of deal.  One would likely have to take careful consideration when upgrading to retain and re-implement their customizations.

At the rate I'm going I expect to be an "MVP" user (in spirit if not literally) on this site.  Hah!

Cheers, Dylan

Hey Dylan...

glad those documents helped you... good luck with your investigations.

I am a developer, but a little rusty  as i haven't done any serious development work for about 18 months now, but slowly getting back into it.  I code in VB.Net, so navigating through all that C# code should be a challenge (i probably understand about 70% of it so its not too bad, as long as i dont have to write C#).

I've got this little dillema at the moment... my first major project i have is to convert my portal site (www.doofcentral.com) to a .NET platform so i can extend it myself, as my php coding skills suck, and its not what i'm doing at work so keeping up wtih 2 different languages at the same time seems futile.  I really need a full CMS for that site, but can probably get away with building my requirements on top of CS if necessary.

My other projects are freelance projects for clients, and having tried various CMS sytems before, I really want to standardise all my future work on a single CMS (currently seriously considering Umbraco - www.umbraco.org)... my absolute perfect situation would be to integrate CS into Umbraco, so i can migrate my portal site to Umbraco/CS, while learning both systems in the process... then later one I have the toolkit to develop client sites in Umbraco, and add gallery/forums/etc from CS if required.

Problem is i need to do the integration myself, and knowing very little about both products, this could be a long long way away.  Which is unfortunate as i have big plans for my portal site, but being held back by the decision on which framework to use.

arrrrrgh the dillemmas!

btw, i've found over the years that waiting for new features is a guaranteed recipe for frustration.  I originally found CS when it was version 1, and trying to skin it back then was like trying to kiss a raging bull - futile!  Everybody kept saying 'wait for version 1.5 ( i think thats what it was).. it'll make skinning much much easier.  not sure what happened since then, as i waited, and waited, and eventually gave up waiting and used another system.  which is a pity cos the system i used sucks. :(

Anyway, sorry for the ramble... hope you're going well with your documenting etc.  

cheers
greg

Can you please elaborate , on how can we get code base of community server . I am trying to integrate community server in my website , www.playgroundonline.com , for doing this I need to change the community server to match the look and feel of my website . So , can you please help or indicate resources  where I can do so .

Regards,

Shantanu