/ Sitecore

Sitecore 9: Restrict Access to the Client

Locking down your Content Delivery servers so external users can’t access your content management capabilities and Admin pages is one of the top security steps you need to undertake when deploying a new Sitecore environment. The first step is to implement IP-based security restrictions: Instructions for IIS 7 and greater are as follows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/configuration/system.webServer/security/ipSecurity/ The …

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/ Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Feature: xConnect Configuration Environment (XConnectEnvironment SIF Parameter)

If you deploy xConnect using the SIF Framework, you will notice a JSON Parameter named “XConnectEnvrionment” with a description of “The configuration environment for this instance” containing a default value of “Development”.         “XConnectEnvironment”: {             “Type”: “string”,             “DefaultValue”: “Development”,             “Description”: “The configuration environment for this instance.”         }, So, what is the purpose of …

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/ Sitecore

Sitecore 9 SIF Version 1.2.0 Released

Sitecore has updated the Sitecore 9 SIF to Version 1.2.0. New features include Tasks for allowing “enabling, disabling and deleting configurations by reading an IO xml file (*.ioxml)” and transforming “XML documents by applying XML Document Transformation (xdt) files”. Resolved bugs includes resolution of the “certificate private key path on Windows 8.1/2012” and corrections to input hash tables.

Full details can be viewed at: https://sitecore.myget.org/feed/sc-powershell/package/nuget/SitecoreInstallFramework/1.2.0

If you don’t want to declare the required version using PowerShellGet as stated in the Sitecore package instructions, the following PowerShell snippet will allow you to get the latest version via the Update-Module command:

# Trust PSGallery
Set-PSRepository -Name PSGallery -InstallationPolicy Trusted
# Install SIF from GET and Check for Updates
Register-PSRepository -Name SitecoreGallery -SourceLocation https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-powershell/api/v2
Install-Module SitecoreInstallFramework -Force
Update-Module SitecoreInstallFramework -Force

 

/ JavaScript

Microsoft removes MicrosoftAjax.js from SharePoint/Tells No One (Yet)

If you are one of the multitude of users/developers who depend on MicrosoftAjax.js via accessing it in the _layouts/15 or _layouts/ directory and found that it is now gone from your SharePoint Online tenant or local SharePoint instance, you are not alone. Microsoft deemed this unnecessary as they believed it was not in use except for legacy Excel needs. In reality, many of us depend on it for client side operations.

After conversations with Microsoft this week, they stated that a KB Article and solution will be posted in the near future but that using the CDN for MicrosoftAjax.js is acceptable. I would recommend downloading the script from the CDN and referencing it locally in case of CDN issues. The CDN is located here: https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/4.0/1/MicrosoftAjax.js  

UPDATE: After Microsoft worked internally and realized the impact, they have begun rolling back this change and restored MicrosoftAjax.js to tenants. Check to ensure yours is restored. If not, use the method above.

/ CSS3

Edit HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Files in the Cloud using OneDrive with IntelliSense

As I was swapping in some Web design files to OneDrive, I clicked and opened a file to find that it went straight into an edit mode. Curious to see if I could truly edit the file, I found that not only could I edit it, but it included IntelliSense! This replaced the need to have Visual Studio installed on my machine for some of my code needs.

While I couldn’t preview the changes from OneDrive, it is easy enough to download the directory to a desktop or other preferred location and click on the “Index” or home file to start browsing through the Web site.

See an example of the edit view below:

OneDriveWebEditing

/ CSS3

The Budget Calculator: Responsive Web Design Example

While The Budget Calculator offers a “Free Budget Calculator to get control of your spending and start planning for the future today”, it gave me an excuse to play with Bootstrap 3 with a focus on aligning inputs responsively. Specifically the Grid System employed by Bootstrap provides greater stability/flexibility versus traditional percentage based responsive site design. As far as dealing with inputs, there are a lot of styling options which I encourage others to evaluate first before pursuing your own customizations. Per the core Bootstrap CSS, I kept it intact and used a second file for non-Bootstrap customizations.

Bootstrap can be found at: http://getbootstrap.com

The Budget Calculator can be found at: http://www.thebudgetcalculator.com