Apropos Sitecore blog: T4 Text Template

  • TDS code generation source code on GitHub

    I have added updated my code generation PoC files on GitHub. I have also created a repository with TDS v.4 code generation T4 templates if anyone is interested in those. Read more ►

  • Sitecore item paths with IntelliSense (auto-generated)

    A while ago I presented my Sitecore model auto-generation concept to Sitecore’s UK User Group. One of the perspectives I mentioned in my presentation was using the technique to generate item paths. The idea was that this would eliminate a lot of the magic strings representing paths and IDs. My initial thought was to generate a list of constants that could be used in conjunction with the item factory. Before I ever got started on this… Read more ►

  • Auto-generating a Glass model with TDS and T4

    I just read a great blog post by Mike Edwards on using the T4/TDS auto-generation framework to generate a Glass model for Sitecore. This example really shows how versatile the concept is and how it can be used to generate any model for Sitecore: http://www.glass.lu/?page_id=590 Also: Hedgehog recently announced that TDS v4 will have support for T4 code generation - so hopefully we can soon say bye bye to the clunky post… Read more ►

  • TDS to get T4 code generation in upcoming version

    Great news today. The guys at Hedgehog Development has just announced that the upcoming version of TDS will have T4 code generation built in. Here is a sneak peak from Hedgehogs YouTube channel: If you have read my blog post on Automatic Sitecore Model Generation you see that it's a very similar workflow to the one described in the video. I'm very excited about trying out the code generation feature of TDS. It looks like TDS will give a better… Read more ►

  • SUG notes: Automatic Sitecore Model Generation

    I presented my model generation concept at this months Sitecore User Group in London and Bristol. For the benefit of everyone who attended I have put together a couple of links: My slides (if you saw the presentation in London - checkout slide no 8, it deals with the issue raised by Jason Bert of not getting compile errors from .aspx/.ascx files). You can get the source code from Sitecore's Github page. (if you are not into Git you… Read more ►

  • Automatic Sitecore Model Generation

    There are several model frameworks available for Sitecore. They all have their strengths and weaknesses – but common for all of them are that they represent Sitecore items as strongly typed objects in code. My motivation for creating what one guy at Sitecore User Group London described as “yet another model generation framework” was not to invent a new way of composing strongly typed objects. It was an attempt to introduce an alternative… Read more ►

  • Sitecore + TDS + T4 Text Template

    Inspired by the Compiled Domain Model and other code generation tools for Sitecore, I came up with a different approach to generating classes and eliminating magic strings. In most cases the code generator uses the Sitecore API to traverse items in a Sitecore database to generate classes that represent templates and items. I cannot help feeling that basing the generated code on data from a database is a little detached from the codebase that… Read more ►