The book starts out strong with 3 chapters fully devoted to
creating a sample application using the Publishing API. While the code
examples are copious, they are (necessarily) somewhat redundant. The authors
chose to create an administration tool as the most effective means of
illustrating the Publishing API's capability. This was an effective technique
in that it exposed the core of the API very quickly to the reader, as well as
having the added benefit of communicating the purpose of the MCMS Server. If
you are uncertain, as I was, on what problems Microsoft Content Management
Server may or may not be the right solution for, this book will take you a long
way towards understanding the product and its role in the platform.
After finishing the baseline administration tool, the book
takes a refreshing detour on the topic of search engines. Rather than going
into detail, I will summarize this chapter by saying this, if you need a primer
on the basics of Search Engine Optimization give this chapter a shot. I think
you will like it.
Next, the authors spend three chapters on SharePoint
integration and configuration. If you are using SharePoint as a foundation for
your product or the enabling technology for your internal portal, you should consider
the benefits of integrating with MCMS or possibly using MCMS in lieu of
SharePoint. My experiences with SharePoint have always reminded me of the end
of a brewery tour -fraught with bloat. While SharePoint is remarkably
feature-rich, it always seems that the average user either is not interested in
the features or is intimidated by them. The appealing aspect of MCMS, from my perspective,
is that the Publishing API is designed to allow you to write your
applications/sites your way (with some caveats) and still have the added
benefit of a tool that handles the administrative duties (transactional
document management). I quickly got the feeling that if my singular goal was
to manage web content across any number of channels then MCMS was a nice
lightweight alternative to SharePoint. In fact, I kept thinking about website
design firms and wondering how a product like this could impact the efficiency
of their business.
The refreshing thing to learn, for me at least, was that
while MCMS can and does integrate with SharePoint, SharePoint is not required.
In fact, the book does a fine job of illustrating how to avoid using SharePoint
altogether.
With SharePoint fully dealt with, the book moves on from
that point to discuss the intricacies of the aforementioned caveats of
implementing dynamic content, validating dynamic content and staging static
content as well. Also of note are chapters devoted to integrating InfoPath as
an editing tool and integrating RSS feeds into yours site, all with full code
samples.
All in all, this book was enjoyable. With the exception of
the unavoidable SharePoint section, the book was devoted to MCMS development
and as such had a lot of example code to sift through. As a testament to this
book, I think you could read the code examples alone and get an introduction to
the Publishing API. One disclaimer though, the example applications in this
book are intentionally straight forward. All the sample code is procedural in
nature. Take it for what it is, a readable set of examples. This book is not
intended to address issues of application design, so if you expect that you
will be sorely disappointed.
About the Book
Title: Advanced Microsoft Content Management Server
Development
Authors: Lim Mei Ying, Stefan Gosner, Andrew Connell, Angus
Logan
ISBN: 1904811531 (512 Pages)
Publisher: Packt Publishing