Monday, August 22, 2005

MCMS Manager 4.1

This version is mainly targeted to improve the performance of the tool. I’m sure - this version will work faster than the previous one. Also this one includes resource search – it can be searched by guid, name, display name, mime type, size, etc. Download MCMS Manager from here.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chester, I think your MCMS Manager is just getting better and better - absolutley brilliant!

One suggestion is to have an option to choose which 'provider' one wants to use when connecting to MCMS. The 'new web service' to connect to remote machines and the 'originial api' to connect locally.

This could be a configuration option at startup.

Even though the web service is great functionality, I have found it to be quite a bit slower (even with the improved version).

I am also having problems when using host headers - the tool keeps trying to authenticate on every root level channel. I noticed someone else is is having this problem too in some other comments.

I've had to roll-back to version 3.1 for the moment however looking very forward to using MCMS Manger 4.2+

11:54 PM  
Blogger Chester said...

Thanks Justin.

I also have the same feeling. Currently I'm working on compressing the response. Anyway I think it’s better to use local API directly for local machines.

I couldn't reproduce that problem. Is thumbnail preview enabled? Can you explain me little more about that?

11:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Chester,
I've also recently come accross your MCMS Manager, just in time to see that remote version being able and I am very enthusiastic about its features.

Though, I've also noted a few points.

1. I agree with others that the remote version running on the webservice is rather slow. I find it a bit slow even running locally, but remotely its slightly worse.

2. The search function I can't get to work at all as its greyed out all the time. I thought it was about permissions, but even on the local dev box with all Admin Rights I still can't get the search to work. I wonder why that is.

3. the "using postings" function on the templates view is also greyed out - I suppose for the same reason.

4. Finally, the "statistics" function doesn't work for me and is throwing the following Exception:
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at MCMS.MCMSManager.FormMCMSManager.GetChannel(CmsChannel& channel, String channelGuid, CmsChannel parentChannel)
at MCMS.MCMSManager.FormMCMSManager.channelStatistics_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.MenuItemData.Execute()
at System.Windows.Forms.Command.Invoke()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmCommand(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Overall, still a great tool and I wonder why Microsoft didn't build in all the features you've added into SiteManager...
Thanks!
David

3:35 PM  
Blogger Chester said...

1. I agree. I'm working on that. You may see a version which has both into one - for local it will use direct API and for remote it will access through web service.

2. It needs all the postings to do a search. So it will asynchronously create the collection. So it will take few secs to get enabled.

3. Same as above.

4. I'll have a look into that.

Thanks for your comments!

Cheers,
Chester.

8:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

regarding "It needs all the postings to do a search. So it will asynchronously create the collection. So it will take few secs to get enabled.
"

Can't see a difference even after waiting for 10 minutes on the local box these options are still greyed out. Anything else I should check for?

David

9:00 PM  
Blogger Chester said...

Hi David,

How many postings you have in your sire? How is the channel structure? Is it too deep?

Cheers,
Chester.

2:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, its a test box and we are abusing it quite heavily.
There are 11 containers in the Channels root. The hierarchy goes down 6 or 7 levels, but now that you mention it I've noticed that MCMS Manager only displays the first 3 levels (not sure if this is the cause of the problem or just a results of the problem).

In total there would be probably around 400-500 channel containers and I'd guess around 5000 postings.

However, we got servers which have about 3-4 times all of the above...

So, do you think the channel structure is too big/too deep?

8:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

RE: Issue with being prompted for authenticaton:

Can't reproduce the problem so far with v4.1, however I'm only testing locally on my machine and I think the problem may have been accessing the web service remotely on a different domain. I'll do some more testing and provide more information if I can reproduce the error.

I'm going to put all my suggestions for improvements at the Forum at Source Forge.

Thanks again...

10:16 PM  
Blogger Chester said...

Hi David,

About ‘only showing 3 level’ is a bug. Which I’ve fixed, but still I didn’t upload that to the site.

If your site has more than 5000 postings, then it may take few mins to create the postings which are necessary to do the search. Your site seems to be little big. I hope you are following the best practices in this article - http://chestermr.blogspot.com/2005/07/mcms-performance-best-practices.html . Also MCMS Manager has a tool which can be used to check the health of the site.


Thanks,
Chester.

11:10 AM  
Blogger Chester said...

Hi Justin,

You are doing a great job!
Thanks!

Cheers,
Chester.

11:12 AM  
Blogger Chester said...

Hi Andy,

Are you using web service/local? How is the size of the site(large/small)? Is resource search working?

Also if possible post it here - http://mcmsmanager.sourceforge.net/phpBB2

Cheers,
Chester.

11:13 PM  

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