Page History: Developer Primer - Sitecore

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Page Revision: Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 3:23 PM

Overview¶

Sitecore is a CMS (Content Management System) based on ASP.NET and typically a SQL Server database, although Oracle is also supported. It can be highly customized by opening the web project within Visual Studio. Content items are created within the content hierarchy and stored in the database. In certain cases, content items will point to a file on the web server. This is the case with sublayouts, which is the Sitecore term for a web user control (ASCX file).

Content is stored in one of three database: Core, Master, or Web. The actual database name is prefixed with the name of your Sitecore instance, plus "Sitecore_". Thus, if the name of your Sitecore instance (specified during installation) is "MySite", the three databases would be called MySiteSitecore_Core, MySiteSitecore_Master, and MySiteSitecore_Web. The connection strings to these databases is held in the ConnectionStrings.config file in the /App_Config folder off the website root.

• The Core database holds all the UI and security data.
• The Master database holds all versions of all items.
• The Web database holds the most recent version of all items, and is typically the database the production site is based upon.
  

Terminology¶

• Template — what another CMS might call a "content type", Sitecore calls a "template". Similar to the term "class" in OOP or a database table, a template defines the fields for an item, as well as other details.
  

• Item — an item is a unit of addressable content. It is created from and based upon a template. It is similar to an "object" in OOP or a row in a database table. Although each item corresponds to a row in a database table (dbo.Items), the field values
  

• Layout —
  

• Sublayout and Rendering —