Developing dynamic websites under the template-based publishing framework
SDL Tridion Sites provides various features for developing dynamic websites, such as taxonomies, search, Dynamic Content Assembly, Linking and Dynamic Component Presentations.
If your organization uses a template-based publishing model, the following steps describe the general implementation plan for developing a website for SDL Tridion Sites-based content:
- Choose a scripting language: choose the scripting environment in which you want to develop the website (JSP or ASP.NET).
- Choose a website model: decide which website model(s) you want to develop (the extent of dynamic functionality in your website).
- Organize content for navigation (optional): if you want to generate navigation automatically, design a content organization that corresponds to the navigation you want to generate (otherwise uses static navigation).
- Create taxonomies for navigation (optional): if you want to generate navigation automatically, design a knowledge map of your content using Categories and Keywords from which to generate navigation and tag content with Keywords (otherwise uses static navigation).
- Install, implement, and integrate search (optional): install and configure your third-party search engine. If you want to integrate search into SDL Tridion Sites, you can do so by creating a custom Deployer module.
- Develop Regions, Component Templates and Page Templates: create Regions, Component Templates and Page Templates that present the Components and Pages in the way that you want them to be displayed.
- Write queries for Dynamic Content Assembly (optional): if your website model requires queries for Dynamic Content Assembly, create a Page Template that executes such a query and processes the results.
- Customize Linking (optional): SDL Tridion Sites ships with a standard implementation of linking. You may wish to change the default behavior.
- Publish Dynamic Component Presentations (optional): if the website model requires it, make Component Templates dynamic in order to create Dynamic Component Presentations.
- Test the website: perform tests to verify that the website itself, including search, hyperlinks, and navigation, all work as expected.