Umbraco packages and settings for your ease

When setting up a new Umbraco site there are some document types and configuration settings that you should include to make your clients happier. Here are some key items that I always include when setting up a new Umbraco site. They are mainly there as key items that clients need to have control over and items that you as the developer need access to without having to rebuild and re-deploy.

 

Settings Nodes

Create a new Document Type that contains all your key configuration items that need to managed in your site that are outside of normal content. I usually include configurations for: Site Name, Default Meta Data, Social Media Links such as Facebook, Google+, Pintrest and so on. It is also good to include some values for Javascript Header and Javascript Footer code. This is valuable when clients need to add in tracking codes such as Analytics to their site. By having these values in your CMS you can render them on the front of the site using the Umbraco Node properties. Set them up once and when clients need to change them they can be done so via the CMS without having to change your web.config file or redeploy.

 

Email Templates

I've touched upon this in a previous blog on how Email Templates allows alot of control and customisation when sending out emails from your site. Setting up some Email Templates in Umbraco allows the client to configure what information they want sent out in their site emails. This is useful for feedback requests, tax invoices and notifications of changes to the site. Once the developer sets up replacement strings the client is then free to maintain information sent from the website in emails.

 

Umbraco Packages

There are always a good series of Umbraco Packages that make development and management of the CMS easier. Below I have put in some of the main ones that I always include with new installations. Having these in your install of Umbraco helps to cut out some of the later work could come up from clients. All of these can be found in the Umbraco Packages Repository.

 

Robots.txt Editor

A simple Robots.txt editor that allows CMS control of your search engine exclusions/inclusions file. You may not have to change the Robots.txt file that often but having the ability to manage it in the CMS is much better than re-deploys.

 

Blackpoint MemberAdmin

This package offers you great tools for searching your members database. It accomodates for all the unique fields you have added to Umbraco that are all searchable. You can event export the content to CSV files for reporting purposes.

 

Digibiz Advanced Media Picker

The default media picker for including images and files in your documents does not really have enough capability for modern sites. This package provides a better interface that allows you to not only pick content from the Media repository but to also crop and resize items on the fly for your site. You can even pick multiple images for you documents. A great package for any site that has imagery.

 

301 Url Tracker

This is good for setting up your 301 redirects. Chances are you could be creating a site that is a re-skin or rebuild of an older version. This package is a great tool to manage the 301 redirects that will come up as Google search links to older content. The package can be self managed and configured manually as your needs dictate.