Kentico Custom Module Development

Question

I'm just made the switch from Sitefinity to Kentico CMS. I really like the CMS so far but I'm having a few issues I've found this

http://www.kentico.com/docs/devguide/custom_modules.htm but its hardly useful since it doesn't show how to implement the extend from the existing classes like the Blogs module does.

In Sitefinity 3.7 there was boiler plate code for a custom module and document type but I can't find any for Kentico. I've tried to look at the CMSModules/Blogs Module but its impossible to replicate since I don't have the classes from the CMS.Blogs namespace?

Answer 1

For starters, if you want to examine the compiled code for the various modules you can use Reflector, DotPeek, ILSpay, or any other reflection/decompilation app to see the code. Kentico is very friendly and they don't do anything to prevent you from seeing what is going on under the hood.

While you may want to look at the compiled code, they don't do anything too fancy. I believe that all of their classes simply use their standard API classes. So there isn't any "magic" they are hiding from you.

As far as creating a custom module, there isn't a sample because a custom module can be almost anything. On a simple level, you can IFrame Google and call it a custom module. Or you can create a "real" custom module with a custom interface, the look and feel of Kentico's UI, permissions, and import/export capabilities. As far as what is official... a Custom Module is simply a set of user interface elements that you can add to the different areas of the CMS Desk or CMS Site Manager.

A custom module can be any combination of document types, web parts, custom admin pages, custom code, and permissions that encapsulate a set of functionality. There isn't any one way to make a custom module.

If you did want to see what others have done, check out the Kentico Marketplace and see if there are any custom modules you can dissect. Also, I believe that Thom Robbins had a blog post about making a Twitter integration (which you could call a module).

Hope that helps!