During yesterday’s webinar we provided the first ever in-depth look at Sitefinity 4.4’s new Module Builder. This valuable productivity tool is designed to help developers rapidly create extensions (new modules) for their Sitefinity projects, while still providing a framework that can be customized for a wide variety of use cases.
For those who missed this webinar, it was recorded and can be watched on Telerik.tv.
Notes about the origin of this webinar
Internally we chatted about this webinar late last year. An early goal I had for this webinar was to demonstrate a real project, as opposed to a best-case-scenario project that fits neatly within the confines of Sitefinity’s out-of-the-box behavior. By doing this I wanted to convey that this tool is not merely a demo-toy, but instead extensible enough to address a wide variety of real-world project requirements.
To do this, I based the webinar project on our current showcase gallery and worked with Josh Morales and others to rebuild this module using the Module Builder. I wanted to get as close as possible to our current showcase and take the time to work through use cases that weren’t addressed by Sitefinity out-of-box.
Like any real-world project, we discovered edge cases where our vision didn’t entirely line up with the default tooling. We investigated workarounds and implemented custom solutions that were then integrated into our project. Those adventures became part of my webinar and inspiration for future Sitefinity improvements.
This resulted in a webinar that (I hope) felt very real to the audience. However, it’s also worth noting the sheer volume of functionality that was created in a relatively short amount of time. In addition, we were able to demonstrate the adaptability of Sitefinity’s new Module Builder.
More than anything, I hope this webinar encourages you to toss your own projects at the Module Builder and share your feedback. We look forward to seeing what you create.