After installation Restart the machine, this should enable the Hyper-V feature
This should also have Docker running and should see the same in system tray
Switch to Windows containers
Right click on Docker icon and switch to Windows Container. See this link for more details as per guide
Download and Prepare for installation
Download and extract the Sitecore Container Deployment Package from the Sitecore Developer Portal and store it on your local workstation or check releases here
Copy and extract SitecoreContainerDeployment.10.1.0.005207.309.zip for e.g:- C:/sc101_install
Navigate to C:\sc101_install\compose\ltsc2019\xp0
Open .env file, we need to fill in this parameters before starting installation. You can find more details in guide for each option.
Download PowerShell script to initialize (init.ps1) the parameters from docker-examples. Parameter values in .env can be populated manually by individually executing the commands for required for each parameter in guide(see Appendices) but I would recommend to use init.ps1 as this is provided by Sitecore and hence tried and tested.
Folder structure should look like this-
Change parameter values in init.ps1 file.
Change the SitecoreAdminPassword, SqlSaPassword and host entries as per requirement. If you are changing host entries also ensure the same is updated in .env file for CM_HOST and ID_HOST parameters. Lets keep the default values.
Populate .env file using init command
Open PowerShell as a Administrator, navigate to the folder having init.ps1 file.
Execute init.ps1 script. You may have to set the execution rights to current user to execute the script-
1. Switch to e.g.- sc101_install folder. Open Solr-SingleDeveloper.json file
2. Change the Install Root for SOLR – DefaultValue
"SolrInstallRoot": {
"Type": "String",
"Description": "The file path to install Solr. This config will add the prefix and solr version e.g C:\Solr becomes C:\Solr\[SolrServicePrefix]Solr-8.4.0",
"DefaultValue": "C:\SOLR"
},
Hope the installation completes without any issues
Post Installation activities
Rebuild the search indexes and the Link database After you install Sitecore Experience Platform, you must rebuild the search indexes and rebuild the Link databases.
To rebuild all the indexes:
On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Indexing manager.
In the Indexing Manager dialog box, click Select all, and then click Rebuild.
To rebuild the Link databases for the Master and Core databases:
On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Database section, click Rebuild Link Databases.
Select the Master and Core databases and then click Rebuild
Uninstall Sitecore Instance
To uninstall Sitecore instance uncomment the Uninstall command in XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1 file. Comment the install command-
Once a tenant and site are created and/or a theme is manually created you may want to assign a theme to a site. A theme is automatically assigned when during a site creation but what if you want to assign a theme to already created site.
Select any Partial design and open experience editor select Experience Accelerator option.
Select Theme option. Change the theme.
This will also the change the theme in the selected site – /sitecore/content/<<tenant folder>>/<<tenant>>/<<site folder>>/<<site>>/Presentation/Page Designs
Content Editor
To change the theme for a specific site. Navigate to the site/Presentation/Page Designs
for e.g.:- /sitecore/content/<<tenant folder>>/<<tenant>>/<<site folder>>/<<site>>/Presentation/Page Designs
Themes define the look and feel of a site and makes it flexible to change the layout and design of the website.
Themes help to customize the appearance of the site which includes layout, typography, color and other design elements.
SXA come with two types of themes- Site and Base themes. To add own/custom classes and assets, such as styles, scripts, images and fonts use Site theme.
There are multiple ways site theme cane be created-
In this blog lets see what does the installation script adds to the SXA site.
Following is the site content structure-
1. Site
SXA site is a container to the content that will be used as a output of the site. Site contains the settings to select the Site Media Library, Theme Folder and Modules.
2. Home Page
This is the home page of the site. All other pages in the site must be stored under the Home item.
3. Media Folder
Media Folder helps scope the part of media library is available to content editors on the images selection dialog.
You can change the scope by adding or removing the folder in “Virtual” section “Additional Children” field.
Media Folder “Additional Children” fieldScoped item in media folder from Media LibraryScoped to the selected folders configured in “Additional Children” field
Best Practice – Do not put media items directly under the Media folder. Form SXA 1.7 and higher uploading items to media folder in the Site is not allowed.
4. Data Folder
Data Folder is the repository for storing all the data sources. These data sources can be reused across many pages scoped inside the Site. Data folder had component type folder and can be created manually or when the module is installed.
Data for each component can be created manually from the content tree or from experience editor by using the “Associated Content” option. Data folder is used as a source configured in rendering’s Data Source field in a form of query or directly mapped to the component folder.
Best Practice – Clean up unused data sources
Best Practice – Give Site data sources meaningful names
Best Practice – Organize site data sources in folders
Best Practice –Run source field reports to help set the data source context
5. Presentation
The presentation folder contains all the presentation related details and settings for the components selected while creating the site.
Presentation folder has list of components based on the modules selected while creating the site.
Presentation folder contains Page and Partial Designs, Layout Service , Available Renderings, Rendering Variants and Styles.
Rendering variant contains list of components on the site and can be customized using Variant Definition and Variant Fields. Also can use template based Variant like Scriban and Template
6. Settings
Settings folder contains site specific configuration. Site Grouping contains the Site Settings like site name, host name, database etc.
Settings also contains the Redirects, HTML snippets and Item Queries. Settings Folder contains options to select the Fav icon, error handling and other SEO related settings.
Sitecore supports multitenancy, which means you can have multiple sites running on a single Sitecore instance.
Tenant folder is just a container to hold multiple tenants you may have as a part of site structure. Inherited from _Base Tenant Folder. You may create a tenant folder to hold the multiple tenants of a Company.
A folder with provide tenant folder name is create here – /sitecore/templates/Project/<Tenant Folder Name>
Tenant is a top-level container for the Sites underneath. Site in same tenant are related, that means they are able to share data and layouts. Creation of tenants comes with optional modules.
Voluntarily contributing your time, energy and skills to the community and help customers succeed and be a part of their growth is all that matters. I believe going above and beyond to achieve expertise in whatever you are doing and giving back to community however small it may be is the key to grow together and when these efforts are recognized it inspires the community to continue their good work.
Happy to share that I have been recognized as 2021 Sitecore MVP.
Sitecore recognizes professionals who deliver outstanding customer experiences through shared expertise on Sitecore’s products, the 2021 MVP program draws from a community of 12,000 certified developers and over 20,000 active participants. This year’s 284 MVPs contributed invaluable knowledge to the community in 2020 and demonstrated true mastery of the Sitecore platform to support partners, customers and prospects.
Sitecore Commerce supports integration to the third-part system and customization and extension to the OOTB entities. This can be achieved by custom plugins.
If you are migrating your code from XC 9.x version to XC 10 you will have to update the code to newest API’s provided with XC. Following is the list of breaking changes if migrating from older versions or good to know if you are starting with the new XC 10 solution.
Wrappers to PipelineBlock
Commerce Engine uses pipeline framework to support extensibility. Pipelines act as a containers for business logic. Commerce pipeline consists of a block which has a detailed business logic.
With Sitecore 10 PipelineBlock are now wrapped with AsyncPipeline and SyncPipeline. So if you have your code using PipelineBlock it should be using Run method to execute the block you may have injected to pipeline.
AsyncPipelineBlock
If block needs to be executed Asynchronously use AsyncPipelineBlock. Also the method name changes to RunAsync()
SyncPipelineBlock
If block needs to be executed Synchronously use SyncPipelineBlock. The method name used to execute block is Run()
ConfigureServiceApiBlock also now uses SyncPipelineBlock
2. IPipeline RunAsync() method
IPipeline interface method is changed from Run to RunAsync() which now makes sense as the method is asynchronous operation.
So where are the changes you might need to make, some of the pipelines that is used frequently and need change are listed below-
IFindEntityPipeline
IFindEntitiesInListPipeline
IFindEntitiesPipeline
IPersistEntityPipeline
Any custom pipeline and list goes on…
These are few of the breaking changes. There are more and I shall keep updating.
Recent Comments