EPiServer Module Technical Overview

NetworkedPlanet

TMCore EPiServer Module

Technical Overview

Agenda

• Problem Statement• What Are Topic Maps?• Topic Maps & EPiServer

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Problem Statement• Navigation Issues

– Where am I?– Where can I go?

• Absent and Broken Links– Taking old pages down– Putting new pages up

• Content Change Rippling– The effect of changing content

• Seamless Editing Environments– Getting classification done

Navigation• Users have a mental model of the information architecture.

– The model will differ from user to user.

• Need to avoid strict hierarchy navigation

• Provide links to related content via useful semantics

• Group related content

• Simplify the authoring process– No more hand crafting thousands of manual links

• Improving link management– No more broken links– Relevant content automatically added to pages

Content Integration

• Topic Maps act as a knowledge hub that integrate heterogeneous content to present a unified view.

• Address specific use-cases:– How do I show content from two EPiServer instances?– How do I provide links to content from one server to that

in another?

• How can I integrate stock quotes, or content from the archive system in to my site?

Augmented Search

• Semantic search by topic and not by full text

• Group search results by their topic classification

• Provide Google Suggest-like topic search

• Perform facet classification and search

WHAT ARE TOPIC MAPS?

From Tags…

La Dolce VitaFedericoFellini

Rome

Carmen

Piccini The Magic of Fellini

…to Topics

Directed /Directed By

Subject Of/Is About

Directed /Directed By

Setting Of/Set In

Is In /Contains

Born In /Birthplace Of

La Dolce VitaFederico

Fellini

Rome

Italy

The Magic of FelliniCarmen Piccini

Associations Between Topics

• Associations between topics have rich semantics.

Skilled Person SkillPerson Possessed Skill

Person has Skill

Roles

Association Type

Role Playing TypeRole Defining Type

Topic Map Schemas

• Topic Types

• Inheritance

Document

Release Notes

EPiServer 5 Release Notes

Technical Article

Topic Map Schemas

• Association Constraints are inherited

Skilled Person SkillPerson Possessed Skill

Person has Skill

Technical Skill

TOPIC MAPS AND EPISERVER

For every page in EPiServer there can exist a topic…

Page: Graham Moore Topic: Graham Moore

Pages & Topics

Topic Type: PersonPage Type : Person

Associating Pages• Topics are connected together to form a graph of interrelated concepts

• All connections are two way and typed

Graham MooreC#

Has skill Has skill

Java

Graham MooreC#

Has skill Has skill

Scoping Associations

• Associations are scoped so that associations are only visible after publication

Java

Editor View User View

C#Java

C#

UNPUBLISHED

CLASSIFYING EPISERVER CONTENT

Editor Support

• There are many ways to achieve topic map integration but those that are successful attend to the process and user needs as much as the technology.

• As well as the controls themselves there is the opportunity to build additional editorial controls that use topic maps as a way for editors to better organise the content they work with.

Classification of Content• Seamless integration with

EPiServer Edit Mode

• Dynamically generated UI from topic map schema.

• AJAX driven responsive and performant.

• Intuitive and clear.

Classification of Content• Schema-driven editor provides

the editor only with valid choices.

• Information about linked, or potentially linked topics on screen.

BUILDING SITES WITH TOPICS

Development Aids - Overview• Simple to use API

– Usable from all CLR languages– Web Services based– Many examples (demo site is open source)

• ASP.NET Compatibility– Data bound controls (Repeater, DataList and DataSet)– Faceted Search & Tag Cloud Web Parts

• Provides hooks for pre- and post- processing of editorial options.– Apply extra filters or bespoke queries.

Development Aids – Documentation

Development Aids – Simple API

• Set up a simple ASP.NET Repeater control:<asp:repeater runat="server" id="OrgUnitLedRepeater"> <separatortemplate>, </separatortemplate> <itemtemplate> <a href='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "pageLinkURL") %>'> <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "pageName") %></a> </itemtemplate></asp:repeater>

BindOneHopToRepeater(this.OrgUnitLedRepeater,"http://example.org/association/personLeadsUnit","http://example.org/role/leader");

• Use the API to bind all the related topics to the control:– According to association type and role played