Zodiac for Sitecore 9.1+

A starter kit for Sitecore implementation projects.

Sponsored by Verndale

What's in the Box

A "complete" Visual Studio 2017 solution that you can fork/clone and use as the basis of your net-new Sitecore implementation project.

Features include:

• ASP.NET MVC implementation
• No external build frameworks required, just Visual Studio 2017
• Helix-compatible
• IIS Url Rewrite 2.1 compatible with "Sitecore safe" default rules
• "Must Have" overrides for Sitecore configuration defaults that provide improved performance during development and production.
• Drop-in Rules for organizing Content Tree Items alphabetically or by date
• A framework for creating navigation within the Content Tree and retrieving it on the presentation layer
• Drop-in solution for managing analytics scripts within the CMS
• Drop-in solution for page meta tags including basic support for social network tagging
• Drop-in solution for managing 301/302 redirects within the CMS
• Drop-in Rules for managing the URLs of Page Items
• A framework for accessing the Sitecore Cache
• Drop-in semantics and supporting framework for organizing page and page-fragment Items
• Drop-in solution for managing link options on a site-by-site basis
• Lightweight Item to ViewModel mapping framework
• Base MVC components to enforce Item-Repository-Controller-ViewModel-View design pattern
• Drop-in solution for ensuring a Sitecore Package.Zip file is installed in a given instance
• A framework for creating dynamic robots.txt and sitemap.xml responses for each site in the installation

Installation

There are several options, depending upon what you want to do. In all cases, you need a target Sitecore 9.1 installation! so...

Step 1: Compatibility Check!

Workstation Assumptions:

• You are running Windows 10, 64-bit.
• IIS 10 is installed.
• IIS Url Rewrite 2.1 https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite is installed.
• Your Windows instance meets Sitecore's minimum requirements of 4 cores and > 12 GB of RAM
• If you're running SOLR and SQL Server locally as well, we recommend having even more cores & RAM available. (at least 8 threads)

If your machine does not meet these minimums, you will likely experience resource-related problems that are virtually impossible to troubleshoot.

Development Enviornment Assumptions:

• For Sitecore 9.1, you must have the .NET Framework SDK version 4.7.1 installed.
• This solution was tested on Visual Studio 2017 v15.9.9.
• You must run Visual Studio in "as Administrator" mode to ensure you have sufficient local privileges.
• Your NuGet feeds should include the Sitecore package feeds. You can get the feed links here: https://sitecore.myget.org/gallery/sc-packages
• If you are using Team Development for Sitecore (TDS) this solution was tested with TDS version 5.8.0.6.
• Although not required, we use the SlowCheetah Visual Studio extension. If you are not going to use SlowCheetah, you may have to adjust a NuGet package.

Sitecore Installation Prerequisites:

• Solr 7.2+
• SQL Server 2016 Update 2+
• Your Sitecore license file

Step 2: Install Sitecore 9.1+

Since these instructions are intended for developers expecting to use Zodiac for development, we assume you are installing a "Standalone" local instance of Sitecore on your personal development machine.

• Follow the instructions on https://dev.sitecore.net/
• Note the hostname and the installation folder of your new install, you'll need these facts later.

Step 3: Verify Sitecore 9.1 is Installed Correctly

It is essential that you have a "stock" copy of Sitecore running before proceeding.

• If you load your supplied hostname, do you get the default Sitecore web page?
• Can you log into Sitecore?
• Can you load the Content Editor and browse the Content Tree?
• Can you see & rebuild all of the SOLR indexes?
• Rebuild all the SOLR indexes.
• Can you run a "site publish?"
• Can you create users?
• Can you load the default web page in Experience Editor?
• Can you edit the content in Experience Editor?
• Have you resolved all errors in your log file?

If the answer to anything above is "no", stop now and address these problems.

Continuing will not fix those issues and will make validating Zodiac's install impossible.

Step 4: Choose the Repository you want to Fork/Clone:

Currently there are 3 options:

• https://github.com/sitecorerick/zodiac-sitecore9 Just the solution with no examples, no site, no Items. Use this if you know what you're doing, or you want to deviate from some Zodiac conventions.
• https://github.com/sitecorerick/zodiac-sitecore9-example The above solution, adds rendering code and Sitecore packages to populate the install with a fully working example site.
• https://github.com/sitecorerick/zodiac-sitecore9-example-tds Includes all of the above, and also TDS projects for populating/maintaining the Items associated with the example site.

Go ahead & set up a Working Copy on your local machine. We recommend creating a new Branch based on the "master" branch of whichever repository you choose.

Step 5: Load the Solution in Visual Studio

The three repositories mentioned above are linked to each other. In your working copy, you will find up to three *.sln files. Make sure you load the Solution file that matches your Repository name. You can delete the others. For completeness, you should be loading one of the following:

• Zodiac-Sitecore9.sln
• Zodiac-Sitecore9-Example.sln
• Zodiac-Sitecore9-Example-TDS.sln

Assuming Visual Studio fires up and everything looks OK, click on the Solution in Solution Explorer and choose "Restore NuGet Packages". After NuGet Packages have been restored, run a Solution Build. Verify that the solution does build. Building will not deploy, and you should not deploy at this stage.

Step 6: AppSettings.Config

In the "Website" project there is an AppSettings.Config file located at /App_Config/AppSettings.config. You must manually copy this file into your local installation. It contains essential pre-Sitecore config patch settings that must be set to parse the config files correctly.

    Example = C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\examplesite\App_Config\AppSettings.config

After Deployment, your install will not start without this file.

Step 7: Configure Visual Studio Publishing

• In the Solution Explorer select the "Website" project.

• If it's not already visible, add the "Web One-Click Publish" toolbar by right-clicking outside any existing Toolbars in Visual Studio, and selecting it from the menu.

• In the (now visible) "Publish" toolbar, there should be a "Debug" target selected. Click the cog/gear icon to edit the publishing profile.

• Within the "Publish" panel that is now exposed, ensure the "Target Location" matches the location of your IIS Web App's root. (Use the Configure link to change it.)

    Example Target Location = "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\examplesite.verndale-local.com"
  

Step 8: Deploy!

With the "Website" project selected in Solution Explorer, hit the "publish" button in the One-Click Publish toolbar.

Step 9: Log into Sitecore

Important! After Visual Studio deploys your solution for the first time, you must run Sitecore immediately. This will install a number of prerequisite Items that allow you to start development.

Step 10.A (for Example Site builds using TDS) Install TDS and Sync

• In Visual Studio, open the _TDS/TdsGlobal.config file for editing.

• Modify the following elements to match your local installation:

    <SitecoreWebUrl>http://examplesite.verndale-local.com</SitecoreWebUrl>
    <SitecoreDeployFolder>C:\inetpub\wwwroot\examplesite.verndale-local.com</SitecoreDeployFolder>
  

• Save and close the config file.

• In Visual Studio, select the "Feature.Labels.TDS.Templates" project.

• Right-click and choose "Install Sitecore Connector" from the menu.

• Use your preferred method to push all TDS projects into your Sitecore installation. Note you may have to push Templates first.

Step 10.B (For Example Site builds not using TDS) Install Packages!

• Log into the Sitecore Desktop.
• Open the Package Installer
• When you deployed the solution, the necessary Example Site packages were placed in the /packages folder. You simply need to select each and install.
• Install the packages in the following order:
  • "1_ExampleSite-MediaLibrary.zip"
  • "2_ExampleSite-Templates.zip"
  • "3_ExampleSite-System.zip"
  • "4_ExampleSite-Layout.zip"
  • "5_ExampleSite-Content.zip"

Step 11: (for Example Site builds only) Configure Sitecore to load the Example Site

If you are using one of the solutions that includes the Example Site, you need to adjust the configuration files so that Sitecore will resolve the site properly.

Assuming you want the example site to be the "default" site for your install, you need to add the hostname you supplied in the install to your site config.

In the "Website" project in Visual Studio:

• Open the following file: Website/App_Config/Include/Project/ExampleSite/_SiteDefinition.local.config
• Adjust the "hostName" and "targetHostName" attribute values to match your install's hostname.

Note that if you want the example site, but you don't want it to be the "primary" site on your install, you can always add another hostname to your IIS website bindings. The above instructions still apply.

Step 12: (for Example Site builds only) Deploy and Publish!

• With the "Website" project selected in Solution Explorer, hit the "publish" button in the One-Click Publish toolbar.
• Log into Sitecore Desktop.
• Run a Full Publish (Smart or Republish)
• Using your selected hostname, visit the front end. You should see the Example Site home page.

Step 13: Season to Taste

At this point you should have a running installation using Zodiac (with Constellation) as the backbone. You can now start development of your solution!

For details on how to use various features of this installation, visit https://constellation4sitecore.com/ the official documentation site for Constellation and Zodiac.

Credits

A big thank you to Verndale for providing the time to assemble this kit.

Sponsors/Developers/Testers

(in no particular order)

• Hetal Dave
• Davan Etelamaki
• Sandy Foley
• Joe Fusco
• Deepthi Katta
• Richard Levia
• Santiago Morla
• Mike Reynolds
• Liz Spranzani
• Steve Striga