ProWorks Web Design, Development, and Umbraco Blog

Catch Weak Content Before It Goes Live with ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:04:00 Z

In this day and age, its more important than ever to keep your website content clear, consistent, and on brand. AI infers what your organization does from what it reads on your website and, yes, it reads ALL of your content. Couple this with the rise of AI tools used to outline, write, and enhance marketing content, the risk of publishing AI slop (or even inaccurate information) is high. This is where the ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator shines.

What Is AI-Powered Page Evaluation?

AI-powered page evaluation uses a large language model (LLM) to analyze your page content and return structured feedback on key page indicators.

A landing page can be evaluated and scored for clarity, messaging strength, objection handling, message hierarchy, and the call to action.
A standard content page can be evaluated on SEO performance, AEO/GEO performance, and accessibility compliance.
All pages can be evaluated based on brand guidelines, brand voice, and how it supports the organization's marketing strategy.

What is ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator (AI Page Evaluator)?

Our AI Page Evaluator is an open-source add-on to the Umbraco.AI framework, which adds a back-office Evaluate Page button you can simply click on to send the page's content to an AI model and return a structured quality report directly inside the back-office, including scored checks, warnings, and actionable suggestions.

This AI Page Evaluator started because we had a need to evaluate our own Landing Pages and Blog Posts on a rubric to verify content was clear, structured well, and communicated our intent. We had been doing this QA outside of Umbraco and preferred something that lived inside the editorial workflow and was frictionless for content editors to use.

ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator works with Umbraco 17.x in combination with the Umbraco.AI official package.

How To Get Started

The install is super-fast, and if you already use Umbraco.AI on Umbraco 17, configuration is fast as well.

Requirements:

Umbraco 17.3+
Umbraco.AI
.Net 10+

Installation

Use NuGet to install AI Page Evaluator for your Umbraco project.

 > dotnet add package ProWorks.Umbraco.AI.PageEvaluator

Or search for ProWorks.Umbraco.AI.PageEvaluator in the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.

Package page: https://www.nuget.org/packages/ProWorks.Umbraco.AI.PageEvaluator

Then build the project, run the website, and login to the back-office.

Configuration

In the back-office, go to the "AI" section. Verify you have a Connection to an AI API and a Profile created that uses the Connection that you want to use.

Now go to the Page Evaluator area under Add-ons. Click the "Create New" button and follow the steps below:

Fill in the Name and Description
Select a Document Type to apply the Page Evaluator to. Simply start typing a DocType name and choose the item from the list.
Select the AI Profile to use for this Page Evaluator. Select the AI Context if desired.
Review the Properties to Evaluate and remove any properties that aren't important for the type of Page Evaluation you are setting up.
Paste in the prompt you would like to use or open the Prompt Builder to help guide you on building a prompt.
Be sure to Enable Scoring if there are scoring values that will be a part of the prompt.

Test it Out

Go to the Content section. Find a page that is of the document type that you specified in the configuration. Press the Evaluate Page button in the bottom right area of the back-office.

Page properties will be sent to AI with your evaluation criteria. An evaluation report will display with recommendations, a list of items to review, and scoring (if enabled).

The results are cached so that AI doesn't have to run each time you want to view the report (save those tokens!). It will re-run the report if the page has been saved since either the last run or if the evaluation criteria has been updated..

Key Takeaways

Content clarity is now a competitive factor and AI systems interpret your pages before many visitors do.
ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator brings structured, content quality feedback directly into the Umbraco editor.
It's open source, built by an Umbraco Platinum Partner, and available now on NuGet.
Better content evaluation upstream means fewer post-launch surprises.

Check it Out!

Try the plugin, open an issue, suggest a feature. It's open source and we want to know how teams are using it.

View on Github

Need Help?

If you'd like help implementing this as part of a broader content quality initiative, or if you're evaluating an Umbraco upgrade and want content quality to be part of that conversation, we'd love to talk.

Schedule a Consultation

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

It works with any AI provider configured in Umbraco.AI, including Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, and others. The plugin is provider-agnostic by design; you select the AI profile when setting up an evaluator configuration, so whichever model your team already has access to will work.

The current release requires Umbraco CMS 17.3.x+, Umbraco.AI 1.8.x+, and .NET 10. If your site is on an earlier version of Umbraco, the plugin is not compatible yet. Support for additional versions may come in future releases.

Yes, it sends page content to whichever AI provider you have configured in Umbraco.AI. Before sending, the plugin cleans the content: HTML tags are stripped and long property values are truncated to reduce token usage. If your organization has data sensitivity requirements, review your AI provider's data handling policies before deploying. You can also use the property filtering feature to exclude specific fields from the evaluation entirely.

Yes. When setting up an evaluator configuration, you can select exactly which document type properties to include in the evaluation. Any properties you do not select are excluded from the AI call. This is useful both for keeping sensitive fields private and for reducing token usage on pages with large amounts of irrelevant content.

Yes, this is one of the plugin's core design principles. Each evaluator configuration uses a custom prompt you write for that specific document type. The Prompt Builder UI can auto-generate a starting prompt from your document type's properties and a set of checklist categories, which you can then edit and refine. You can also attach a Context resource from Umbraco.AI to give the model additional background about your organization or brand.

The plugin itself is free and open source under the MIT license. In addition, your AI provider's API charges based on token usage. For most sites running on-demand evaluations, API costs are minimal.

The plugin evaluates individual pages on demand inside your Umbraco back office, using prompts you configure. It is a self-serve tool built for ongoing editorial quality control your team can run as part of a regular publishing workflow.

ProWorks' site-wide AI Content Evaluation service is a done-for-you engagement that analyzes how AI systems interpret your entire organization across all public content. It delivers an AI Perspective Report covering your inferred positioning, value propositions, audience signals, and content consistency. This plugin is a great starting point; the service is for teams who want the full picture across their whole site.

Upgrading from Umbraco 13 to 17 LTS: Lessons from the Trenches

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 10:20:17 Z

Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades! Upgrades are a hot topic in the Umbraco community ever since version 17 was released last November. There are a lot of great reasons to upgrade to this major version besides simply moving to the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) version. Our team here at ProWorks has a ton of Umbraco upgrade experience and are here to help you make your upgrade a success. This article will update as we learn about new challenges and find solutions. Ready? Let's do this!

See the changelog at the bottom if you're coming back to this after a while - Updated: January 22, 2026

Why Upgrade?

Let's look at why you would upgrade to the latest v17 version:

Timely Security Updates - As a LTS version, your site can stay up to date with security patches and easiest to keep up to date in the future. Umbraco 17 is supported through November 27, 2028.
Better Site Performance - The rebuilt HybridCache speeds up startups especially on large sites. This means less down time after deploys to live. The latest .NET version 10 framework also improves performance which helps with your page speeds.
Better Back-Office Performance - The rebuilt back-office is faster and allows for standards-based extensions and future-proofed architecture that no longer relies on Angular or other external large frameworks that could no longer be supported.
Deep AI Chat Integrations - The official Umbraco MCP Server only works on version 17 and allows AI to "talk" to your specific Umbraco back-office to report on, add, or modify content.
Better Automation and Integration Support - The new Management API allows for automation of everything that can be done by a content editor or developer in the back-office. This is important for deep integrations with external tools, marketing automations, and AI Agent connections.
Scalable Back-office - Version 17 supports load-balancing the back-office. This allows the back-office to scale out like the front-end for performance and simplifies hosting load-balanced Umbraco websites.
Read even more on the official v17 release article: Umbraco 17 LTS: Final Release

There is really a lot of truly great features available in version 17 and many more on the horizon in 18 and 19. It's a perfect time to get this upgrade done so those other upgrades are less painful later.

The sections below dive into the technical details of upgrading. If you'd rather have a conversation about what an upgrade means for your organization (timeline, budget, and business impact) we're happy to help.

Schedule a Consultation

Prepare for Your Upgrade

A good result always starts with a good plan, right?

Current Umbraco Version?

First, you should assess where your site currently is. Are you on version 13? Or something older?

Version 8-9: You will need to upgrade to v10, then v13, then v17 - in fact, in general it is recommended to upgrade to each LTS version on your path to the latest. There may need to be custom migrations if the site uses Grid or other unsupported editors. Content migration may be preferable is some cases. v8 has API changes that could mean major code refactoring.
Version 10-12: Upgrade to the latest v13, then to v17. Getting to v13 should be relatively straight-forward, but an assessment is always helpful for planning.
Version 13: Upgrade to the latest version of v13, currently 13.13.0.

Learn more about each version here: https://releases.umbraco.com/all-releases

(Please feel free to contact ProWorks and get our recommendations)

Using Outdated Property Editors?

If you are using any deprecated or legacy property editors, its best to update them to use the latest version in v13 before upgrading.

Property editors to migrate to in v13:

MediaPicker -> MediaPicker3
Nested Content -> Block List
Stacked Content -> Block List
Grid -> Block Grid
Macros -> Blocks (Or remove if unused)
XPath in pickers -> Plan for a change to use the new dynamic root setup

By addressing these structural elements first, the content will migrate much easier to v17.

v17 Package Support?

Do you have Umbraco Packages installed (it's likely)? Go to the Umbraco Marketplace (https://marketplace.umbraco.com/) or the package Repository and verify that each package supports v17. Many of the most used packages are ready for v17 now. Some are working on it and may have a beta version that likely works well. Some may not have any v17 support.

If you're unsure and its not clear from the repo, then asking on the Umbraco Forums (https://forum.umbraco.com/) would be a good way to see how others are dealing with this package. Is there a new version coming soon? Is there a new package that effectively replaces this one?

As always, we can help give you a recommendation to move forward on. We have been doing this a long time and would love to help! Connect with us below

Custom/Bespoke Back-Office Extensions?

If your site has custom Angular.js extensions, then those will need to be re-written in the new Typescript/Lit/Web Components extension model. For the initial upgrade you can simply disable or remove them and address them after the main upgrade is complete.

Using Smidge?

Smidge was removed in v17 and you will need to reinstall it if used by any custom code or by the site in general. It is straight-forward to re-add to your site and you can learn more on the Github repo: https://github.com/Shazwazza/Smidge.

There is also an Umbraco-specific package that you can install here: https://marketplace.umbraco.com/package/umbraco.community.smidge

TipTap or TinyMCE?

Umbraco has migrated to a new RTE component called TipTap. It will migrate all of your RTEs to this new editor by default unless you install a community package, TinyMCE.Umbraco. This package will prevent the migration and keep the TinyMCE editor installed and used as in previous versions. Read more about TinyMCE.Umbraco v17 in this post.

You will need to decide if you want to keep using TinyMCE or move to TipTap. If you have TinyMCE customizations or complex RTE setups, you may want to keep TinyMCE. The package also gives you the option of easily adding premium features like AI tools. TipTap is based on ProseMirror and is more lightweight so may be preferred in some use cases.

Use Umbraco Forms?

If you use Umbraco Forms, then you may need to migrate to the new licensing structure. It is now licensed annually instead of a one-time cost. Umbraco Forms is included with Umbraco Cloud so this is less of a concern if you are hosted on Umbraco Cloud. Your choice is to license Umbraco Forms going forward or remove it in favor of a different solution.

Review Official Documentation:

Take a look at the Version Specific Upgrades documentation guide in the Official Umbraco Documentation: Version Specific Upgrades

There may be other key breaking changes highlighted there that will be important for your site.

Also, the Upgrade Details document has information on some edge cases and older versions as well: Upgrade Details

Pre-Upgrade Process

I'll assume you have solutions for all the above issues and are ready to try out an upgrade! Great! Now, take a step to make sure you have all of this in place:

Backup Your Database / Media

Always backup your database before starting. You will miss something and may need to iterate a few times to get the migrations just right.

Also, now is a good time to get a backup of the latest media and pull it locally.

Side-by-Side Setup

Ideally, you have a v13 site for reference running locally and your future v17 site ready to upgrade. These should be using separate databases and be able to run completely side-by-side. This lets you quickly iterate with v13 changes and re-run the v17 upgrade as needed. In addition, this allows you to quickly verify that the site looks and works as expected.

If you're using Git, make sure you have each version on separate feature branches.

Verify Dev Setup

Get your development setup ready for .NET 10 and Umbraco v17:

Install .NET 10 SDK
Update Visual Studio (2022 v17.12+ or 2026)

Verify Latest v13

One last check to make sure you're on the latest Umbraco v13 release. If not, do this first.

Upgrade Time!

Let's do this.

1. Update Project Target Frameworks

This can be done directly in the .csproj files through the TargetFramework element:

    <!-- Change target framework -->
    <TargetFramework>net10.0</TargetFramework>

2. Update Nuget Packages

Update all Umbraco packages to version 17.latest:

Umbraco.Cms
Umbraco.Cms.Web.Website

If using Umbraco Cloud update these as well:

Umbraco.Cloud.Cms
Umbraco.Cloud.StorageProviders.AzureBlob
Umbraco.Deploy.Cloud
Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib

Remove these packages as they aren't needed for v17:

Umbraco.Cloud.Cms.PublicAccess
Umbraco.Cloud.Identity.Cms
Umbraco.Cms.Web.BackOffice

Update all other packages used including Umbraco Extensions like:

Umbraco.Community.Contentment
Umbraco.Forms
Any other packages used that support v17

3. Delete Build Artifacts

Delete all of the bin and obj directories in each of the projects of your solution. Umbraco has reported that Visual Studio's "Clean Solution" option is sometimes not enough.

4. Code Changes

There are a few code changes needed to get the Solution compiling.

Program.cs:

Remove UseInstallerEndpoints() as this is now automatically setup in v17
Consider comparing a fresh installed Umbraco v17 Program.cs with your current code and verify that you have the latest patterns in place. I have found other areas that were missing and easy to miss.

_ViewImports.cshtml:

Remove Smidge references:

@* REMOVE these lines: *@
@addTagHelper *, Smidge
@inject Smidge.SmidgeHelper SmidgeHelper

Generated Models

If you used strongly typed models and have Umbraco generate them to code files in your project/solution, then the solution likely won't compile.

You have two options:

Delete all generated models from the directory in your project and set the Umbraco.Cms.ModelsBuilder.ModelsMode to "InMemoryAuto" from "SourceCodeAuto" or "SourceCodeManual". This will allow you to run the upgrade then switch it back and regenerate them after the v17 back-office is working. If you do this, you will need to install the Umbraco.Cms.DevelopmentMode.Backoffice to allow the "InMemoryAuto" mode to work in v17.
Tweak the v13 generated models so they compile and regenerate them after the v17 back-office is working. This involves:

Changing IPublishedContent from:

global::Umbraco.Cms.Core.Models.PublishedContent.IPublishedContent Image { get; }

To MediaWithCrops:


global::Umbraco.Cms.Core.Models.MediaWithCrops Image { get; }

Watch for IEnumerable references as well as they need to be changed to use MediaWithCrops as well. Then fix any other build errors that you see.

Ultimately you want to run the back-office so you can regenerate them. So editing them manually is a temporary solution if you're having trouble compiling the solution.

5. Configure Razor Files for .NET v10

Verify Runtime Modes

.NET 10 deprecated runtime Razor compilation. Views are now compiled at build time by default.

Verify your .csproj has the following:

   <PropertyGroup>
      <CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>true</CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>
   </PropertyGroup>

I recommend compiling your Razor files to find any issues at build time instead of at runtime. Remove these lines from your .csproj:

      <RazorCompileOnBuild>false</RazorCompileOnBuild>
      <RazorCompileOnPublish>false</RazorCompileOnPublish>

More on Runtime modes from the Umbraco Documentation: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/fundamentals/setup/server-setup/runtime-modes

If you need to restore the runtime Razor view compilation or want to use InMemoryAuto model building, then you will need to install this package:

dotnet add package Umbraco.Cms.DevelopmentMode.Backoffice

Read more in the Version Specific Guide to determine if you need this package: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/fundamentals/setup/upgrading/version-specific#umbraco-17

6. Optional: Disable Custom Packages

If you are planning to migrate custom back-office packages after the initial upgrade is complete, then you could simply disable any custom code and exclude it from the project.

Rename folders in App_Plugins with custom extensions to have ".disabled" at the end of the folder name.
Update the App_Plugins content include entry in the .csproj to exclude any folders with ".disabled" at the end:

      <Content Include="App_Plugins\**" Exclude="App_Plugins\*.disabled\**">

If you have extensions added via Razor Class Library, you may need to remove the reference or delete the .dll from the bin folder.

7. Optional: Explicitly Set LocalTimeZone

The change to use UTC by default for System Dates may have implications for your site. Read more in the Version Specific Guide on whether you want to explicitly set a server time zone in appsettings.json.

https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/fundamentals/setup/upgrading/version-specific#umbraco-17

{
   "Umbraco": {
      "CMS": {
         "SystemDateMigration": {
            "LocalServerTimeZone": "Eastern Standard Time"
         }
      }
   }
}

8. Licensing Changes

If you are using Umbraco Deploy or Umbraco Forms, then you will need to migrate the licensing from the file-based .lic to the configuration settings in appsettings.json

Remove .lic Files

Remove the .lic files inside of the umbraco/Licenses folder for Umbraco Deploy and Umbraco Forms.

Add Licensing Configuration

For Umbraco Cloud sites, you can add these settings to your appsettings.json file. If you have a different hosting setup, you will need to replace "UMBRACO-CLOUD" with your license key.

{
  "Umbraco": {
    "Licenses": {
      "Products": {
        "Umbraco.Forms": "UMBRACO-CLOUD",
        "Umbraco.Deploy": "UMBRACO-CLOUD"
      }
    }
  }
}

Build, Run, and Test!

Is the site rendering as expected? Does the back-office load and you are able to login? If yes, you're on your way to v17.

Now its time to perform your detailed regression testing by verifying all the packages migrated as expected, all property editors are working as expected, and you can make changes as you would expect.

Here are some items you may want to focus on to verify the upgrade:

The site builds without errors
All pages render correctly
Backoffice login works
Content editing works
No console errors/warnings
Block List editors function
Rich text editors function
Media uploads work
Search returns results
Licenses show as valid
Forms submit and save entries

Migrating Custom Extensions to v17

Once the back-office and site appear to be working, it's time to migrate those custom extensions to v17. That process is out of scope for this article, but here are some resources to get you started:

Building Property Editors in v17
Umbraco UI Library
Migrating Extensions from v13 to v17 by Kenn Jacobsen
From AngularJS to Web Components by Jesper Mayntzhusen

Final Thoughts

Upgrading to v17 is worth the effort as it is the Umbraco version to take the community into the future. AI, modern web frameworks, enterprise features, and so much more make this an upgrade to prioritize. With v13 support ending December 14th, 2026 the time to start planning an upgrade is now.

Need help with your Umbraco upgrade?

Reach out to us for an initial consultation so we can help make your upgrade a success!

Schedule a Consultation

Change Log

2026-01-22: Initial Version

Umbraco Anti-Patterns Talk at uWestFest

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 15:40:41 Z

Mark and I had the privilege of speaking at uWestFest '17 this year! It was a fun time and the conference as a whole really stepped it up. With the "Bear the Load" workshop, it was 3 quality days for the ProWorks team! Thanks Scandia for all the efforts!

For those who are interested, here are our slides:

Umbraco Anti-Patterns Presentation Slides

Thanks to everyone who listened and added your own stories!

Must Have Umbraco Packages and Techniques - Our uWestFest '16 Presentation

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 14:47:43 Z

Last week Alan and I had the honor or presenting at the uWestFest '16 conference in San Diego, CA. uWestFest is an Umbraco CMS conference for those of us who use it in North America. Its part festival, part educational, and all relevant to those of us who use Umbraco on an every day basis.

This year's conference was a ton of fun and it was great to have a big ProWorks presence to meet new people, learn some new things, and bond as a team. ProWorks was a Silver sponsor and we are proud to make events like this happen.

On to the presentation!

We focused on the Content Editor experience and how we as Umbraco developers and designers could make their lives easier. Some of the things we presented were out of the box in Umbraco and some were packages that enhance the Content Editor experience.

Here are some links to the packages we presented:

Help Packages:

Bookshelf - Integrated help manuals
ProWorks Inline HTML Help Label - Inline help for your editors

Property Editors:

Nested Content - complex property content lists using Document Types as the model
nuPickers - a set of nice property editors and data sources with custom views on the data
Archetype - complex property content lists
u7 Grid DataType - Tabular data entry
Content Picker with Preview - Content picking with custom views of the content
Extended Media Picker - media picker with more data entry options
UrlPicker - internal, media, and external URLs baked into one editor
MultiUrlPicker - internal, media, and external URLs baked into one editor
Angular Maps - Location picker
Switcher - Pretty "switch" style boolean picker
Vorto - Multi-lingual on a property granularity

Packages to Help You (Umbraco Craftsmen):

Diplo Trace Log Viewer - View Umbraco Logs in the Back-office
Core Value Converters - Convert information to models in your controllers and views
uSync - All Umbraco configuration (DB items) written to disk and can be read in for modification
Hybrid Framework - Make a more MVC feel to your Umbraco builds
Ditto - Mapping Umbraco content into your strongly typed models
LINQ to Examine - Use Linq style queries to search Examine
UmbracoFileSystemProvider.Azure - Store your media in the Cloud
MemberListView for Umbraco 7 - Dashboard for editing members quickly
UnVersion - Remove un-needed old versions of content to reclaim space
TheDashboard - Visual data about what's happening in your Umbraco install

Grid Packages:

LeBlender - Create grid editors easily
DocType Grid Editor - Create grid editors easily with Document Types
LePainter - Skin the back-office grid to be representative of your front-end styles
Umbraco Grid Renderers - Swap out Bootstrap for your favorite CSS framework
AttackMonkey Grid Locker - Make specific grid elements Read-only

BONUS! Here are some other packages that didn't fit that we like:

Articulate - Blogging
Slimsy - Responsive Images
Courier - Content Deployment
CMS Import - Data Import (Content and Media)
Merchello - eCommerce
uCommerce - eCommerce

Simple and Cool Use for the nuPickers Umbraco Package for v7

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 22:23:12 Z

I just wanted to share a great experience I just had with nuPickers, and Umbraco v7 package, and how easy it was to make a simple U.S. State picker with no custom code and no pre-value heartache.

In 5 mins (less?) I had my U.S. picker drop down. Here's how:

1. Download the nuPickers package and install it: https://our.umbraco.org/projects/backoffice-extensions/nupickers

2. Google "json list of states" and find a list of US states in JSON form. I found this gist: US states in JSON form

3. Create a states.json file in a json folder in the Umbraco site (on disk).

4. Create a new DataType that is of type nuPickers.JsonDropDownPicker

5. Configure the pre-value fields to be:

Url: ~/json/states.json
JSONPath: $..*
Key JSONPath: abbreviation
Label JSONPath: name
Save Format: CSV (your choice)

6. Add the DataType to my doc type.

Done.

It's easy and for things that rarely change (like U.S. States), it was quick, easy, and still easily editable in my Git Repo.

New Umbraco v7 Package: Dialog Expander

Sat, 04 Apr 2015 17:12:33 Z

This package is a simple UI enhancement to the Umbraco v7 right-side dialog flyours to allow a content editor to make the dialog bigger or back to normal. It just gives a bit more room for dialog selections and views.

With the new Document Types as grid editors, it can help to have a little extra room when its available. It can also be used nicely with the new Inline HTML Help Package I released on Friday.

Download the package on Our Umbraco and give it a try!

https://our.umbraco.org/projects/backoffice-extensions/v7-dialog-expander

New Umbraco Package: Inline HTML Help Label

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 20:49:36 Z

On a few recent Umbraco builds we have had the need to add a small amount of inline help to the back-office interface to help content editors with content entry. To enable this behavior we created the Inline HTML Help Label package.

This package adds a new property editor that allows you to show HTML in your content pages as properties. It's HTML so it can display images or links to more information to content editors. It has also been used to provide a Help tab on a Document Type for specific help for that page type and what they need to know.

You can create several Data Types with this property editor each with their own HTML as prevalues.

In addition to the inline html as a property, you can specify more HTML to be displayed on a dialog flyout. This could be used to give in depth info about the page.

Download and try the package here: Inline HTML Help Label Package on Our Umbraco

More information and the source code is on Bitbucket: ProWorks Inline HTML Help Label Git Repository

Let me know if you have any problems or questions!

How to find if Umbraco 7 Debugging is Enabled in AngularJS or Javascript in the Backoffice

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 11:55:26 Z

When creating a new functionality in the Umbraco 7 backoffice such as a property editor or custom section, it is sometimes necessary to print out some debugging information to verify that the models are what you expect.

Rather than commenting out your {{myModel | json}} AngularJS bindings, why not simply only show them if Umbraco has debugging turned on?

Turns out, this is very easy as Umbraco already has a global ServerVariables collection that you can check:

Umbraco.Sys.ServerVariables.isDebuggingEnabled

If you want to show/hide information based on that in AngularJS, simply assign it to a property on the $scope of your controller:

$scope.showDebug = Umbraco.Sys.ServerVariables.isDebuggingEnabled;

Then check for it in your view:

<div data-ng-show="showDebug">{{myModel | json}}</div>

That's it!

How to Pass Data to the Umbraco 7 dialogService on open()

Tue, 25 Feb 2014 06:09:13 Z

If you're building a package for Umbraco 7 using AngularJS and you eventually find yourself needing to use the dialogService, there is an undocumented parameter that may be of some help.

I found myself in a situation where I needed an edit button on a list of items in an ngRepeat and the edit button needed to pass in its model to the dialogService. Well, according to the Umbraco 7 developer documentation, the only way seemed to be to tie it to the scope or create a new scope.

However, looking through the Umbraco 7 source it turns out there is an additional parameter called dialogData that allows the open() method to pass in additional data that the dialog controller can use.

You can see this in the defaults object in the dialog.service.js code:

           var defaults = {
              container: $("body"),
              animation: "fade",
              modalClass: "umb-modal",
              width: "100%",
              inline: false,
              iframe: false,
              show: true,
              template: "views/common/notfound.html",
              callback: undefined,
              closeCallback: undefined,
              element: undefined,
              //this allows us to pass in data to the dialog if required 
              //which can be used to configure the dialog
              //and re-use it for different purposes. It will set on to the 
              //$scope.dialogData if it is defined.
              dialogData: undefined
           };

It appears to be used internally as well so I assume its here to stay, but since its undocumented you should verify when new releases are published.

ProWorks is Proud to Sponsor the First North American Umbraco Festival

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 08:59:58 Z

ProWorks is proud to be a sponsor at the first ever Umbraco Festival in North America this coming March! UWestFest will commence at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 21, 2014 and will feature an opening keynote speech from the Chief Officer at Umbraco headquarters, Neils Hartvig, along with the closing keynote given by the North American Umbraco lead, Paul Sterling.

At uWestFest, speakers from around the country and beyond will be presenting about various aspects of the Umbraco interface and how to get the most out of your Umbraco experience. We are delighted to announce that our very own Loyan Roylance will be among the many knowledgeable presenters.

ProWorks – along with Mindfly, Fyin.com, and Imulus – will be sponsoring the event. We will be sending a crew of our best and brightest developers to join in on the fun. Presentation topics range from getting to know the new Umbraco 7 interface, frontend fundamentals, the future of the Umbraco community and many more.

We are very excited about this festival and are happy to play a part in bringing it to North America. For more information on uWestFest check out the website at http://www.uwestfest.com/ and register to join in at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/uwestfest-tickets-9777832761. We hope to see all of you there!

– The ProWorks Team

Disabling Request Validation in Umbraco CMS

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 20:25:00 Z

In a recent upgrade of a very old Umbraco CMS WebForms site to 6.x I found a trick with getting the request validation disabled on a template level instead of for the entire web site through the web.config.

I'm posting this blog because the original blog by Grant Thomas seems to have disappeared. The blog was referenced on Stack Overflow and luckily its still available as a cache on Google.

Generally, you will recieve an error in the Javascript Console such as:

A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client

Unfortunately, there is no way to disable request validation on a page level as pages are virtual things in Umbraco. Luckily, someone thought of this and they created a way to disable validation on a template level.

Add this to the template markup:

<umbraco:DisableRequestValidation runat="server" />

If you need something more custom, then refer to the cache of the blog post for more information.

How to Redirect the Umbraco Media Path to Another Location

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:49:34 Z

Today we have a guest post from my cousin, David Prothero, who is now implementing Umbraco for his company.

They recently figured out a solution to a problem that we hadn't had before so I asked him to write up something so he could share the knowledge with the rest of the community.

Enjoy!

Our company recently selected Umbraco as the CMS for a new product we are developing. Having developed products on a home-grown CMS for years, we’d learned one very important lesson when developing these systems:

Keep user managed content and developer managed code separate.

Developer managed code should be kept in a source control system (we use git) and user managed content should, ideally, be in the database or at least in a centrally managed location. As those who work with Umbraco probably know, the system stores most content in the database. However, it saves images, CSS, views, macros, and other media on the filesystem, in the directory where your Umbraco site lives.

This directory is where we have our git repository initialized from. For CSS, views, and macros, we found this acceptable. These things will be managed by the developers. There are even some static images that will be handled by the developers, so for this we just created a ~/static-images / folder and let git manage those files as well.

That left us with the ~/oldmedia/ folder…definitely user managed content. We needed a way to be able to redirect this to another location. Searching our.umbraco.com led us to the ~/Config/FileSystemProviders.config file, in which the stock version has something like:

<Provider alias="media" type="Umbraco.Core.IO.PhysicalFileSystem, Umbraco.Core">
  <Parameters>
    <add key="virtualRoot" value="~/media/" />
  </Parameters>
</Provider>

OK, simple, we just change the “virtualRoot” key to point to another folder, right? Yes and no…Umbraco requires that the path begin with “~/”. In other words, the path has to be within your Umbraco web site. It makes sense when you know how Umbraco works. It needs two things: 1) a path that it has control over to write uploaded files to, and 2) a path that is accessible via http URL so it can include the images in pages it serves to browsers.

We started thinking we were going to have to setup a virtual directory in IIS so that Umbraco would think that the path was part of the website, but we could then direct it to another location. This may yet work for people, but we decided against it in order to keep the IIS configuration as stock as possible and allow developers to run IISExpress on their local machines.

In almost desperation, we looked in the Umbraco source code, particularly at the Umbraco.Core.IO.PhysicalFileSystem class you can see mentioned in the config file above. What we found was that there were two other parameters, not discussed in the Umbraco documentation…”rootPath” and “rootUrl”. Our config now looks like this:

<Provider alias="media" type="Umbraco.Core.IO.PhysicalFileSystem, Umbraco.Core">
  <Parameters>
    <add key="rootPath" value="\\[ourdomain].net\dfstest\Media" />
    <add key="rootUrl" value="http://media.[ourdomain].net/media/" />
  </Parameters>
</Provider>

“rootPath” specifies a Windows filesystem path where Umbraco can save uploaded files. It’s a standard Windows file path (not a URL path). In our example, we are using a DFS path so the files will be highly available anywhere on our network.

“rootUrl” is the URL that Umbraco will prepend to the media filename when rendering pages to browsers. There needs to be some kind of web server listening to this URL and that URL needs to map to the physical Windows path specified in rootPath (or at least a replicated copy of it). In our case, we setup an IIS website, but it could even be Apache or something else. It doesn’t matter. In fact, we are considering having the rootUrl point to an Amazon S3 bucket with a background process that replicates from the DFS path on our network to the Amazon S3 bucket.

Since this was an undocumented configuration setting, we thought we would share our findings with the world. Hopefully this is something you can use.

- David Prothero, July 2013

Permanent 301 Redirect domain.com To www.domain.com in Umbraco

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:57:56 Z

Most SEO experts say that when you have two or more domains or URLs that have duplicate content, then Google will penalize you. Google and SEO experts recommend that you use 301 redirects to tell search engines that you have duplicate content and to forward to the correct domain or url.

This is something we generally do in IIS (see How to 301 Redirect example.com to www.example.com in IIS), but sometimes hosts don't give you access to IIS and you have to make do.

I found and tweaked this from an old forum post ( url rewrite for http://domain.com to http://www.domain.com - Thanks Bob!).

1. Go to your "Config" directory in your main Umbraco website directory.

2. Edit the "URLRewriting.config" file in your favorite text editor.

3. Add the following code between the <rewrites>(paste here)</rewrites> tags:

4. Save the file and test.

That's it!

This is clearly a very simple solution. If you want something more robust, then please check out this post from Mike Taylor: URL Rewriting and SEO. It has some great discussion and is Umbraco-centric despite the title. Thanks Stefan for the recommendation!

Notes and Experiences Upgrading Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.6.1 and 4.7.0

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:20:11 Z

This is a series of notes and what I could cobble together from various Umbraco upgrade articles and sources. I also found a few issues that weren't documented by anyone that gave me some grief. I'll likely add any 4.7 specific items as well when I get a chance to test this process with that version.

I've found that you may want to upgrade from 4.0.x to 4.5.2 then to 4.7 because the upgrade install script didn't seem to run in the 4.6.1 upgrade I performed. Basically, the database wasn't updated properly when I went straight to 4.6.1.

My Notes:

From http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/upgrading-an-umbraco-installation

Backup DB and Files of existing site
Create new web site and db for "upgrade" site
Manually merge web.config for new 4.0 changes to upgrade site (use Beyond Compare)
Manually merge /config files
- Remove /bin from xlstExtensions.config
- Remove /bin/ from restExtensions.config
Copy Merge these from the 4.6.1 base install on codeplex or 4.7 base codeto the new site
- I have found it better to copy using beyond compare so my packages don't disappear and any UI.xml or locale changes don't get lost. But if you prefer, copy away!
- /app_data
- /app_browsers
- /app_code
- /bin
- /data
- /install
- /umbraco
- /umbraco_client
- default.aspx

Republish the content
- From the Content section/folder in Umbraco
- Or: http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/publishing-and-republishing

Other upgrade notes:

Verify your /umbraco/config/create/UI.xml still has your custom items in it. It may have been over-written by the copy above.

http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/about/roadmap/umbraco-45/upgrading-to-umbraco-45

Delete App_global.asax.dll
Verify "UseLegacyXmlSchema" element in umbracoSettings.config is set properly (false if no XSLT conversion has been done)
Go to http://www.yourupgradesite.com/install/
- Go through the upgrade install script

http://www.littlewebempire.com/blog/2010/10/29/update-umbraco-from-4021-to-452

You may need to add the Media Recycle bin to the UmbracoAppTree and UmbracoNode tables in the DB

Verify the \App_Data\TEMP\ClientDependency folder has stuff in it. Delete anything in the folder and reload the website

Package Upgrades / Changes

Copy old /data/packages/ folder contents to /App_Data/Packages/

Then you need to test that your packages work and are compatible with this latest version. Here is a place to start: http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/packaging/umbraco-45-compatibility/umbraco-45-package-testing

Articles that may be helpful for package issue:

Fix 'Yet Another Media Picker 4′ For Upgrade From Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.5.2

Umbraco 4.7 Additions:

There are quite a few dlls to remove to keep your XSLT working. This forum article was VERY helpful in identifying the specific URLs to remove: XSLT macros not getting rendered after upgrading to 4.7 RC
- Remove:
  - Iron*.dll (all dlls in your /bin directory starting with "Iron", like IronPython.dll and IronRuby.dll)
  - Microsoft.Scripting*.dll
  - Microsoft.Dynamic.dll
  - umbraco.macroEngines.legacy.dll
  - RazorEngine.Core.dll
  - RazorEngine.Templates.dll
  - VistaDB*.dll
  - I'll add more if they are mentioned...
  - From comments:
  - umbraco.standardFormhandlers.dll

That's it so far. Please feel free to add anything you needed to do. I'll edit as I find further issues.

UPDATE: If you need help upgrading to 4.11 or beyond take a look at this post: Upgrade Your Umbraco Site...

Fix 'Yet Another Media Picker 4′ For Upgrade From Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.5.2

Sitecore vs. Umbraco Terminology

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:19:26 Z

Here at ProWorks we have built a web site using the Sitecore CMS (Wasatch Funds) and had a great experience. We are Sitecore Partners and like to use Sitecore when it makes sense. Sometimes the web sites we are asked to build have budget constraints or are just to small to warrant using Sitecore. In that case we typically have been using Sitefinity to build smaller, simpler sites (Forest Seedling Network).

We like Sitefinity, but an open source project called Umbraco recently caught our eye. The similarity to many of the Sitecore like functions is great because we like the Sitecore experience generally. Of course, the functionality may be similar but the terminology is not. Therefore, I'm creating a terminology map to help me keep some of this straight.

This will be a work in progress and here is what I have so far:

Sitecore	Umbraco
Templates	Document Types
Visual Rendering editor	Templates
Layout	Master Template
SubLayout	Sub Templates
Edit Rich Text Editor settings	Stylesheets (can add generated styles to Rich Text Editor)
Renderings (XSLT/Web Controls)	Macros (XSLT/Web Controls)
Similar to using items as picklists (somewhat)	Data Type to create new field editors

So far there doesn't appear to be an equivalent to Sitecore SubLayouts in Umbraco (to be able to have placeholders inside of controls/macros).

EDIT: Sub-templates seem to perform the general functionality of Sitecore Sublayouts.

Anything I'm missing or confused on?

How to 301 Redirect example.com to www.example.com in IIS

Mon, 04 May 2009 17:44:45 Z

Generally in the Linux/Apache world that means modifying the .htaccess file to redirect example.com to www.example.com.

In IIS it gets a little more complicated, but isn't too bad. Here's an easy and effective way I've found to do it. This is assuming that you already have a website in IIS that is bound to www.example.com and example.com. I'll keep it pretty simple to minimize confusion. If you're an expert, scroll down for the good stuff.

1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager in Administrative Tools.

2. Create a new website that is bound to the example.com domain.

This involves right-clicking on the "Web Sites" folder under the server name in IIS and selecting "New > Web Site...". In the Web Site creation wizard name the site something like Example.com Redirect so you remember what the purpose of the site is.

Then make sure your host header for the new web site is the domain without the www. In this case we will use example.com:

Browse to the same location for the files as the www.example.com web site and allow anonymous access.

Finish out the wizard.

3.Change the Home Directory to redirect to the www web site.

Right-click on the new redirect web site and select "Properties...". Go to the "Home Directory" tab.

Change the content to point to "A redirection to a URL" and redirect to the www site (www.example.com).

Click OK and you should be done!

Now you won't get penalized by Google for having duplicate sites and your customers can still find you without typing in the www.

Anything I missed? Any comments?

UPDATE: For doing this in IIS7, take a look at this great tutorial: HTTP Redirection in IIS 7 on Windows Server 2008

UPDATE 2: If HTTP Redirection doesn't seem to be available in IIS 7, then follow this tutorial on how to install it: Install HTTP Redirection in IIS7

ProWorks Web Design, Development, and Umbraco Blog

Catch Weak Content Before It Goes Live with ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator

What Is AI-Powered Page Evaluation?

What is ProWorks Umbraco.AI Page Evaluator (AI Page Evaluator)?

How To Get Started

Installation

Configuration

Test it Out

Key Takeaways

Check it Out!

Need Help?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Does the plugin work with any AI provider, or only Claude / Anthropic?

What versions of Umbraco does it support?

Does the plugin send my content to a third-party API?

Can I control which content gets sent to the AI?

Can I customize what the AI evaluates?

Is the plugin free? Are there any ongoing costs?

What's the difference between this plugin and ProWorks' full AI content evaluation service?

Upgrading from Umbraco 13 to 17 LTS: Lessons from the Trenches

Why Upgrade?

Prepare for Your Upgrade

Current Umbraco Version?

Using Outdated Property Editors?

v17 Package Support?

Custom/Bespoke Back-Office Extensions?

Using Smidge?

TipTap or TinyMCE?

Use Umbraco Forms?

Review Official Documentation:

Pre-Upgrade Process

Backup Your Database / Media

Side-by-Side Setup

Verify Dev Setup

Verify Latest v13

Upgrade Time!

1. Update Project Target Frameworks

2. Update Nuget Packages

3. Delete Build Artifacts

4. Code Changes

Program.cs:

_ViewImports.cshtml:

Generated Models

5. Configure Razor Files for .NET v10

Verify Runtime Modes

6. Optional: Disable Custom Packages

7. Optional: Explicitly Set LocalTimeZone

8. Licensing Changes

Remove .lic Files

Add Licensing Configuration

Build, Run, and Test!

Migrating Custom Extensions to v17

Final Thoughts

Need help with your Umbraco upgrade?

Change Log

Umbraco Anti-Patterns Talk at uWestFest

Must Have Umbraco Packages and Techniques - Our uWestFest '16 Presentation

Simple and Cool Use for the nuPickers Umbraco Package for v7

New Umbraco v7 Package: Dialog Expander

New Umbraco Package: Inline HTML Help Label

How to find if Umbraco 7 Debugging is Enabled in AngularJS or Javascript in the Backoffice

How to Pass Data to the Umbraco 7 dialogService on open()

ProWorks is Proud to Sponsor the First North American Umbraco Festival

Disabling Request Validation in Umbraco CMS

How to Redirect the Umbraco Media Path to Another Location

Permanent 301 Redirect domain.com To www.domain.com in Umbraco

Notes and Experiences Upgrading Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.6.1 and 4.7.0

My Notes:

Umbraco 4.7 Additions:

Fix 'Yet Another Media Picker 4′ For Upgrade From Umbraco 4.0.x to 4.5.2

Sitecore vs. Umbraco Terminology

How to 301 Redirect example.com to www.example.com in IIS