Archive for January, 2011

Along with all the greatness that comes with the latest version of SilverStripe 2.4, there are a few (sometimes several) Modules you should install along with your base SS installation. A few tips I would like to make before we begin is to First: always install ONE module at a time. Read it’s readme file and/or _config file to know what is required for installation. Sometimes you will need to copy some stuff from the module _config to your project _config. It might also tell you the order of installation needed if it depends on another module to work. Second: is to ALWAYS run yoursite.com/dev/build?flush=1 after each Module you install. This will make it much easier to debug if you find problems with an installation. THIRD: is once you get to a point where you are pretty comfortable with SS, I always install everything I can before I modify or create my Custom Templates/Themes. Most modules are developed by their maker on top of the default BlackCandy theme and probably look the best there too…so if you install some modules after you have already implemented a new Theme…you might have some debugging and layout fixing to do.

1. The very first Module you should upload is the DataObjectManager by UncleCheese. This module has always been great and it has only one [optional] requirement, and that’s to install the SWFUploadField Module. You didn’t need the SWFUpload, but it made uploading things so much better. Up until UncleCheese came out with Uploadify which in my mind makes SWFUpload obsolete. The good thing here is that if you have them all installed, the latest versions will check for Uploadify first, and if not installed, it will fall back on SWFUpload, and if that’s not installed, no worries…still works.

   Install Order:
   SWFUploadFile (I keep installed just in case)
   DataObjectManager
   Uploadify

2. The next Module is also from UncleCheese, and just about every website I go to and/or build has some sort of Photo Gallery. He has also come out with ImageGallery which also works wonderfully and seamlessly with the modules I listed above. In fact, since they are all by UncleCheese, you can guarantee he makes sure they all work and compliment each other. This newest version is very very feature rich…so much so you don’t want to fiddle around with using some jQuery plugin…because they are already there… you can pick and chose your settings!
3. Everyone that builds and/or runs a website should have some kind of stat tracking. The most robust and FREE is Google Analytics. I use to use one or the other that is listed in the Modules pages of the website. That was until Ty Barho posted an article on SSBits that gives a very good tutorial on how to: Quick & Easy Google Analytics with SiteConfig…and he’s right. This is a good tutorial to also get you started in creating your own Modules. Because you follow this…you can use it and extend it on any website you build.

I will be adding more to this as SilverStripe matures more and more. I am becoming a huge supporter of this framework and CMS. So much so that I have pretty much used only this for my clients since last year (moved away from WordPress or rolling my own in CakePHP or CodeIgniter).

Also, please let me know if you have other modules you use in pretty much every one of your SS installations. I’d like to try them out. I know there are several out there…especially on github that a lot of people don’t know about. Most notable is Andrew J Short’s module: MemberProfiles. I’ll get back to this module later on though…

One last thing I would like any and all SS developers to be aware of, is A _config.php Cheatsheet by Aram Balakjian. I highly advise you to read this and use as much of it as you can in your early stages of development. The dev portion of it is great!!!