Sitefinity CLI

Prerequisites

To use or build the CLI, you need to install the corresponding version of the .NET SDK.

Installation

• Use prebuild version

  You can download a prebuild version for some operating systems from the release assets. Extract the archive to a folder of your choice and add this folder to the PATH system variable.

Build the app yourself

To build the application for your OS, enter the following command from the project root folder:

dotnet publish -c release -r [rid]

NOTE: Replace [rid] with the identifier for your OS. For more information, see the .NET Core RID Catalogue.

EXAMPLE: To build the app for Windows 10 x64, enter the following command:

dotnet publish -c release -r win10-x64

and add the following path to the PATH System variable:

(project_root_path)\bin\release\netcoreapp2.0\(rid)\publish

How to use

• Open command prompt and navigate to the root of your Sitefinity project (SitefinityWebApp folder).

• Run sf command.

  A help will appear describing the available commands and options.

CLI commands

You can use the add command with the following subcommands:

• To create a new Resource package, execute the following command:

  sf add package "Test resource package"

• To create a new Page template, execute the following command:

  sf add pagetemplate "Test page"

• To create a new Grid widget, execute the following command:

  sf add gridwidget "Test grid"

• To create a new Widget, execute the following command:

  sf add widget "CustomWidget"

• To create a new Integration Tests Project, execute the following command:

  sf add tests "Sitefinity.Tests.Integration"

• To create a new Custom Module, execute the following command:

  sf add module "Custom Module"

• To Create a new Sitefinity project, execute the following command:

  sf create TestProject

  You can also specify a directory for the project to be installed in after the name (By default the current directory is used).

  sf create TestProject "D:\TestProjectFolder"

  Add --headless to the command to install the headless version of Sitefinity.

  Add --coreModules to the command to install the core modules only version of Sitefinity.

  Run the help option to see all available install options and configurations.

• To Upgrade your project, execute the following command:

  sf upgrade "D:\TestProject\SitefinityWebApp.sln" "13.0.7300"

  For more information, see Upgrade using Sitefinity CLI.

NOTE: For more information about the arguments and options for each command, run the help option:

sf add [command name] -?

Sitefinity CMS version

Every command has an option --version. It is used to tell the CLI which template version should be used in the generation process. Templates can be found in the Telates folder, in separate folders for each Sitefinity CMS version, starting from 10.2.

When running a command the CLI will try to automatically detect your Sitefinity CMS project version and use the corresponding template. If it cannot detect the version or your Sitefinity CMS version is higher than latest templates version, CLI will use the latest available.

You can use the --version option to explicitly set the templates version that CLI should use.

EXAMPLE: Following is an example command of using the –-version option:

sf add package "New resource package" --version "11.0"

In this case, the CLI will look for a folder named 11.0 inside folder Templates. Folder 11.0 must have ResourcePackage folder containing templates for a resource package.

Template generation

When you run a command, the CLI prompts you to enter the name of the template to be used for the generation. You can also set the name using option --template.

EXAMPLE: Following is an example command of using the -–template option:

sf add pagetemplate "New page" --template "CustomPageTemplate"

In this case, the CLI will look for a file CustomPageTemplate.Template in the folder Templates(version)\Page.

Custom templates

Templates use Handlebars syntax. For more information, see Handlebars.Net.

You can easily create custom templates. To do this, create a file with extension .Template and place it in the corresponding folder. If the template contains some properties, you should also create a (templateName).config.json file. It must contain all the properties used in the template. The CLI will read the .config file and prompt you to enter the properties when the template is selected.

EXAMPLE: Following is a sample template file:

{{> sign}}

{{message}}
{{time}}
{{age}}

EXAMPLE: Following is a sample config file:

[
  "message",
  "time",
  "age"
]

NOTE: The partial {{> sign}} is automatically populated by the CLI.

Known issues

Visual Studio 2015 integration

Sitefinity VSIX/CLI correctly updates the csproj and sln files but Visual Studio 2015 won't refresh the solution correctly. The workaround is to reopen the solution