TutorialsAdding a CMS action

1 September 2009 | Aram Balakjian | CMS, Forms, Decorators | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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If like me you cannot figure out how on earth to use the updateCMSActions() function in a decorator and you also can't get the getCMSActions() function to find your custom method inside the controller then here is a way to make it work, which will allow you to create custom actions and buttons to trigger those actions within the CMS.

Blog5 Tips for working with a (SilverStripe) Project Manager

29 March 2011 | Kulsoom Kausher | CMS, SilverStripe

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Here's something a little different, experienced SilverStripe project manager Kulsoom Kausher of digital agency Wandering Bear, tells us her top 5 tips for the SilverStripe developer to make their project managers life a little easier.

TutorialsAdding Custom Filterable Reports to ReportAdmin

7 October 2011 | Craig Ballantyne | CMS, Reports | Supports v2.4

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With only the standard Broken Links Report, the report admin area in Silverstripe's CMS can feel a bit underused.  In this tutorial I'm going to take a look at how you can add a custom report into the report admin section of the CMS which can make keeping track of a variety of statistics a little more straightforward.

To keep this simple I am going to give users the ability to assign a colour to each page on the site and then generate a report of any pages on the site that have been assigned a particular colour.

SnippetsHighlighting Query Text in Search Results

12 July 2011 | Pete Bacon Darwin | Forms, Search | Supports v2.4

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Most search results I have seen with Silverstripe just return the Summary of the page or the FirstSentence.  I have knocked up a quick way to show a sentence from the page that contains the search term and even highlights it for you.

TutorialsDynamically Generating Dropdown Lists

13 October 2010 | Aram Balakjian | CMS, DataObjects, Forms | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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This post title may look familiar, but it has in fact been completely re-written with lots of new code! When using dropdown menus, you will often want to dynamically generate the options, usually to a list of DataObjects or Pages for the user to choose from. This tutorial explores the options at your disposal when it comes to creating dynamic dropdowns in the SilverStripe.

TutorialsUsing jQuery for form validation

13 November 2009 | Aram Balakjian | Templates, Forms, JavaScript

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As you may have noticed, SilverStripes built in form validation is based on Prototype and is pretty limited. It also means that even though you might be using jQuery for other things on your site, you will still need to load prototype.js and all the associated files that SilverStripe requires for it's built in JavaScript form validation.

NewbiesScreencast: Installing SilverStripe on a cPanel Host

7 November 2010 | Aram Balakjian | Screencast, Installing, cPanel | Supports v2.4

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In this, the first SSbits Screencast I will take you though the process of Installing SilverStripe on your CPanel hosting enviroment. It's actually very simple once you know how and can be completed in a matter of minutes! 

SnippetsAn alternative to _ss_environment Files for easy 'Per Environment' Configuration

9 June 2011 | Pete Bacon Darwin | SiteConfig, Database, Installing | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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Although Silverstripe has a mechanism for alternative configuration per environment, using the ConfigureFromEnv() method in your mysite/_config.php file, it has its limitations and I have often read people complaining about it. Here is a simple yet powerful alternative to using SilverStripe environment files.

BlogA Simples Theme

21 February 2012 | Aram Balakjian | Themes

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Although it was not destined to win the SilverStripe theme contest, I thought it would be a shame if this theme was forgotten, so here it is in all it's glory and fully compatible with SS 2.x for everyone to use as they please!

SnippetsAdding a Thumbnail to a DataObjectManager

21 May 2009 | Aram Balakjian | CMS, Images | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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This snippet lets you add a thumbnail to items in UncleCheese's Data Object Manager module or a regular Complex Table field. All you need to do is create a function that returns a thumbnail and refer to this function in your DOM or CTF definition.

TutorialsWorking with banners

13 July 2009 | Nick Jacobs | Images, Templates | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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Most of the sites I work on are for corporate/business clients and there is not typically a lot of fancy motion graphics going on. I do like to ensure there is some dynamic element going on, just to provide a bit of interest and one of the simplest ways to achieve this is by some variation of the random/rotating banners scenario. Of course this could equally apply to other parts of the page, not just banner graphics.

TutorialsCreating Previous and Next Buttons on a page

28 June 2009 | Aram Balakjian | DataObjects, Templates | Supports v2.4, v2.3

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When you have a number of pages which follow on from one another you may find that asking a user to return to an index or select the next item from a side menu each time they want to progress is cumbersome. In this situation having previous and next buttons at the bottom of a page becomes very useful. In this snippet we'll add these buttons and also a counter to show the current page we are on and the total number of pages.

BlogBook Review: SilverStripe 2.4 - Module Extension, Themes and Widgets

6 June 2011 | Aram Balakjian | SilverStripe, Review | Supports v2.4

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For a while now the only printed documentation available for SilverStripe has been the official book which, although excellent if you are willing to put the time into completing it, is now slightly outdated having been written for SilverStripe v2.3. Enter a new book written by Phillip Krenn and published by Packt; SilverStripe 2.4 - Module Extension, Themes and Widgets. Despite the slightly misleading title, the book takes you through the entire process of building a relatively complex site for a local bar by extending the core functionality as well as using various Modules and Widgets along the way.

BlogSite of the Month: The Winner!

21 October 2010 | Aram Balakjian | Site of the Month

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The Votes are in! And the winner of October's SSbits Site Of The Month is.....