About the book - EPiServer 7 CMS Development (2014)

EPiServer 7 CMS Development (2014)

About the book

I started writing this book because I think it’s needed. There are many learning resources for EPiServer CMS - documentation at EPiServer World, a wealth of blog posts and class room based training arranged by EPiServer

All of those are great, but I find few things are as valuable as a book when learning a technology. For someone that is completely new to the topic a book can provide a structured way of approaching the technology, at a custom pace, and for someone that already knows the topic a book is often a great way of discovering hidden gems in the technology and seeing someone else’s, the authors, perspective on how to develop with it.

At least that’s what I think. I’m also writing this book as it’s fun to do and I hope to enrich my own knowledge about EPiServer CMS development based on reader feedback. If you have an idea on how to make the book better or about a topic that you’d like it to cover don’t hesitate to comment on the site or e-mail me at mail@joelabrahamsson.com.

How to read this book

The book mixes theory with practical hands-on tutorial. As such you will get most out of the book by reading it close to a computer and performing exercises/instructions on it. However, my intention is also that it should be possible to only read the book, coming back later to practical guides.

Lean publishing, Leanpub and DRM

I’m publishing this book on Leanpub. Leanpub is a great way to write books and reach readers early, thereby making the book better thanks to feedback. Leanpub also has a very modern way of selling and distributing books. Readers can pay however much they think the book is worth as long as it’s above a minimum price set by the author and the books have no DRM protection.

I think that’s awesome! DRM protection is a hassle for readers. However, Leanpub’s model is based on trust. So, if you are reading this book and you haven’t paid for it please know that I have, an plan to, put a lot of time and effort into it. And, while I’m not writing this book to make a pile of money, something that is very rare to do writing technical books, every sale encourages me to make the book even better. Please don’t steal it :-)

Version status - version 5

What you are currently reading is the fifth version of the book. This version adds chapter 8, an extensive look at properties in EPiServer CMS.

Version history

Version 1 - 2013-08-20

Chapters 2-5 “done” and chapter 6 in progress.

Version 2 - 2013-08-25

· Wording changes and spelling corrections.

· Changed to using Bootstrap version 3 in chapter 6.

· Added section about building sub navigations to chapter 6.

· Added discussion about HTML helper methods that write directly to the response and those that return a MvcHtmlString to chapter 6.

Version 3 - 2013-08-30

· Using col-md-* CSS classes from Bootstrap 3 in examples in chapter 6 in some code examples where that hadn’t been updated in the previous version.

· Added section about building a breadcrumb to chapter 6.

· Added section about EPiServer’s Quick Navigator to chapter 6.

Version 4 - 2013-09-16

· Chapter 1

· Updated a few of the Web Forms notes in chapter 6

· Chapter 7

· Added link to the source code on GitHub.

Version 5 - 2014-02-16

· Chapter 8

· Wording changes and spelling corrections (thanks Yoel!)

Source code

The source code for the site that we build throughout the book is available for browsing, forking and downloading on GitHub at http://github.com/joelabrahamsson/episerver_book_code_examples. Note that each chapter that has source code associated with it has it’s own branch in the repository.

Questions and feedback

If you’ve got feedback on the book, anything from spelling errors to requests for a chapter, don’t hesitate to let me know! Either on the book’s site or through e-mail, mail@joelabrahamsson.com.

If you have a question related to EPiServer development please use the forum at EPiServer World. If it’s related to something specific in the book you may also post it on the books site. However, please don’t e-mail me development related questions. While I enjoy helping others e-mail is a one-to-one form of communication and posting a question on EPiServer World’s forum means that there are more people who can answer it and offer different perspectives. It also means that others with a similar question can read the answers. Therefore I generally don’t reply to technical questions sent via e-mail. Not because I don’t want to, but because time is precious and there are better forums for questions.