Quick note from Gabe Sumner: " These are questions & answers exchanges from the recent RC webinar on November 12th 2010. We had a record number of attendees for this webinar and A LOT of questions. Because of the volume of questions, many of the answers are very short (yes/no). There is obviously a lot more nuance to many of these answers. In the coming days we'll explore these topics in more detail. Furthermore, as always, Sitefinity support & sales is available to answer your questions. Thanks to everyone for attending and thanks to Lino & Falafel for getting these published so quickly.
Audience Question
Q: Ok, so since there's 5 editions now...will I have to compile marketplace controls for EVERY version, or does the license lock out features and I only need to compile once..?
A: You only need to compile 3-rd party Sitefinity extension once. They will work with all editions unless extensions use a feauture that isn't available in all editions.
Audience Question
Q: Does the RC have Oracle, My SQL support?
A: We will have Oracle and MySQL support for Official Release.
Audience Question
Q: I wrote alot of web controls using the existing API 3.7; Do I need to re-write the controls with the new API if I move to 4.0?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: what about Sybase ? Does 4.0 supports this database ?
A: Sybase support will be provided in 2011.
Audience Question
Q: It is possible to set a default language for front end and if a page is not translated, displaying into this page default language content?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: I came in late, was upgrades from 3.7 mentioned in the beginning?
A: It will be covered later.
Audience Question
Q: Whats about Silverlight content? Is it possible to use Silverlight apps as content of Sitefinity managed projects?
A: We are using it already.
Audience Question
Q: with SF4.0, is the an option to send a notification to an individual to request them to provide translations? for instance, we have a local person in Latin America. it would be great to login, dupe a en version of a page and send a notification to our local person to login and translate that copy.
A: Yes, this is built-in.
Audience Question
Q: Is workflow uploading compatible with load balanced web farm environments
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Have you already mentioned pricing?
A: it will come later in the webinar.
Audience Question
Q: Does page alias can be translated in many languages? for example in french we have histoire.aspx and in english history.aspx ...
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will this presentation cover module creation?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: Is it possible to define a workflow for files (e.g docs, pdf and so on)?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Does sitefinity 4.0 do translation from English to another language such as spanish? Or do we need to use some kind of language translator
A: Spanish translation will be out of the box in Official release.
Audience Question
Q: Is there a way to set up the site so that even an Administrator type user has to get approval from a different user?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Can users and groups (roles?) integrate with the customers' existing Active Directory accounts to streamline login and account management?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will be "Search functionality" finaly in the 4.0 RC ?
A: Search will be part of official release.
Audience Question
Q: What happened to the custom silverlight workflow builder? Don't get me wrong, this is super easy to setup a basic workflow (built in emailing...finally :)
A: This is planned for 2011.
Audience Question
Q: Will 4.0 give the ability for different users or user groups to be granted permission to only specific templates? What about specific sections of the website, only? (For example, granting a specific Department in your company permission to only that Department's section of the website, and that Department's template?)
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Can you set the permission for approving pages in areas of the site. Tech group approver can't approve stuff for the marketing department
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: does pptx, demonstrations... will be available for download after webinar?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Regarding the search functionality, will it offer an advanced search or a "fliterable" facetted search?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will the final release include an RSS Aggregator?
A: It is part of RC.
Audience Question
Q: Will all the existing SF3.x standard controls be ported across to 4?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: I hope you would be covering Videos in this RC, as you know the 3.x only support wmv. We want to avoid using third party controls.
A: We suport more file formats now.
Audience Question
Q: Does sitefinity produce markup which is accessible and W3C compliant? Is it table based or div based?
A: Yes, it is compatible.it is div based.
Audience Question
Q: Can an item be associated with more than one category?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: We have multiple sites running in just one database using Url Mapping; RC support URL mapping?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Are multiple top domains possible in Sitefinity 4?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Does the import happen continually or just the one time.
A: Depends on the settings.
Audience Question
Q: Is the RC DB Schema set in stone now?...like could we point the Release at an RC database for release(going live)?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: Will you announced the prices of 4.0 ?
A: They will be announced later in this webinar.
Audience Question
Q: SDK coming out today too?
A: SDK will come with the RC release early next week.
Audience Question
Q: is there already a SF4 CE?
A: Will be covered later in the webinar.
Audience Question
Q: will SF 4 support SilverLight?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Is the shared generic content enabled in RC?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: Is there an upgrade path from RC to production release assuming we start developing a client site now with the RC?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will this webinar available for download after today?
A: Yes, you will also receive a link over email.
Audience Question
Q: Will the SDK RC have VB.NET samples?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: Page Groups still being used?
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will the sitefinity RC be capable of supporting multiple subdomains under one single sitefinity instance??
A: Yes.
Audience Question
Q: Will version 4 support Access database's?
A: No.
Audience Question
Q: does the Widget editor actually edit ascx files or is that data stored in the DB somewhere?
A: It is stored in Database.
Audience Question
Q: Will the RC support Windows Azure
A: This will be supported in official release.
Audience Question
Q: When will the Migration Tool be fully ready?
A: It is available for download on Codeplex.
Audience Question
Q: Will there be a community edition?
A: Yes, details are coming.
Audience Question
Q: Is the licensing cover a singe domain or there can be multiple domains?
A: single domain , unlimited subdomains
Audience Question
Q: is it possible to upgrade from one edition to a higher edition?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Will there still be non-profit/educational discounts?
A: yes - same as now - 10%
Audience Question
Q: Will there be a shopping cart feature in SF4.0
A: it's on our roadmap for next year
Audience Question
Q: So site.com and site.de and site.co.uk would need separate licenses?
A: yes, unless domain aliases can be used
Audience Question
Q: What edition will 3.x with current subscription be upgraded to?
A: to standard edition, details for other options to follow
Audience Question
Q: What ORM are you using in this version?
A: openaccess
Audience Question
Q: Can you upgrade from standard edition to -> unlimited then....
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: is it possible to see the roadmap for the shopping cart feature we are going ot need a cart soon would be nice to see what sort of features you have planned
A: for now, please consider our e-commerce partners and the solutions they offer
Audience Question
Q: Do multilanguage pages count as extra pages?
A: no, but multilingual support is not part of the editions which have content item limitation
Audience Question
Q: for small business, is that 50 pages overall or per a site?
A: per license
Audience Question
Q: say I want to serve 1000 domains with single database/install, would I need 1000 licenses???
A: yes, the database is not part of the licensing limitations so it is irrelevant for the licensing model
Audience Question
Q: So if I bought last year what do I get for 4.0 when it releases?
A: if your subscription is active you will get 4.0 standard edition
Audience Question
Q: Do custom items count against the count? I.e. a custom type built off of Generic Content?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: ...ahh - so wan expect to see a breakdown of funcitionality by license and not only pages, users, and items as we see on the current slide?
A: standard edition
Audience Question
Q: Could I buy two SBE to get 100 Pages on a site?
A: no
Audience Question
Q: Will the Widget editor show red squiggles for standard element names, such as asp:panel - When Gabe showed us there was a lot of red but everything was correct.
A: it's the spellchecker in firefox
Audience Question
Q: For items, are you saying that each blog post is an item and each news story is an item?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Are there any current limitations on the concurrent users with 3.7 standard edition?
A: no
Audience Question
Q: how are custom modules limited in each edition?
A: custom modules are not limited
Audience Question
Q: Will you be able to download and test locally professional unlimited before purchasing.
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Can we purchase the analytics module separately? $6000 is a big jump if you just want to have that feature.
A: currently no modules are available as add-ons
Audience Question
Q: Q: Q: in referecne to the .fr, .de domain question, it has been vetted very clearly by your account and partner managers for v3.x that you can have a single license for domain.com and map .fr, .de to each localized version without requiring a license for each of those domains. is that not true? or has that changed in 4.0?
A: nothing has changed here with the new model
Audience Question
Q: Can you get the analytics seperately?
A: no
Audience Question
Q: pricing grid I mean
A: it's on the website
Audience Question
Q: when is the final release?
A: January
Audience Question
Q: Can you show the pricing again?
A: it's on the website
Audience Question
Q: A sitefinity license for a domain include unlimited alias domain?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Subscription maintenance cost
A: lowered to 20% for early renewals with 4.0, more details on the FAQ section
Audience Question
Q: will the RC expire someday?
A: yes, with the official release
Audience Question
Q: Does the RC support ASP.Net membership roles and providers? If not, will it be in the final release?
A: it is supported in RC
Audience Question
Q: price to migrate 3.7 standard to professional ullimited please :-)
A: for existing customers it is 50% off the list price until April 15th , details on the FAQ section or contact us
Audience Question
Q: what will be the search engine in SF4
A: lucene
Audience Question
Q: if standard purchased today, how hard is it to upgrade entire site to professional?
A: it's easy if you start with the 4.0 RC
Audience Question
Q: Will there be any issues for developing marketplace modules in the 'smaller' editions?
A: no issues, this is actually encouraged and all components will work with all editions
Audience Question
Q: Will you be posting this video tomorrow? So we can watch again?
A: we will send it to everyone next week when the RC ships
Audience Question
Q: is that 20% of 1999 or 20% of 899?
A: the new pricing takes effect with the official release in January, until then the 899 pricing applies
Audience Question
Q: will trial versions be available after the releace?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: does the 4.0 SBE have any restrictions to custom modules?
A: no
Audience Question
Q: If we start with the Community Edition, is it an easy migration to the paid versions?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: will 3.7 be available for ongoing purchases after the 4.0 release?
A: no
Audience Question
Q: what about eCommerce module?
A: it's on the roadmap for next year
Audience Question
Q: Could you repeat that? No forms module in 4.0?
A: forms wil be in 4.0 the licensing comparisson table is live on the website
Audience Question
Q: Will there be educational pricing?
A: yes, 10%
Audience Question
Q: When creating custom modules, do those items get counted towards your license?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: will 3.x be available for purchase after ver 4.0 realease
A: no
Audience Question
Q: I just got back from a meeting and caught only the end. What was the difference between standard professional and unlimited again, please?
A: it's already on the website
Audience Question
Q: will sf localhost development expire or will it remain limited?
A: the trial will be limited to 30 days
Audience Question
Q: it is better to start with 3.7 and upgrade to 4?0 official release or start with 4.0 RC and upgrade to official one?
A: it's better to start with the RC and upgrade to official, the upgrade will be easier
Audience Question
Q: Does 4.0 support multiple profile providers?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Are the 3 RAD controls licensed for the Community Edition as well?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: with concurrent users, is there a session timeout now in Sitefinity. Currently i could be logged on until i close browser or log out.
A: yes, this is a setting you can set
Audience Question
Q: Will this Q&A be published anywhere?
A: we have an FAQ published on the website, feel free t ocontact us if anything is left unaddressed
Audience Question
Q: As a developer will we have to purchase a new edition for each website we build?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: What is the annual fee for the professional unlimited once the 19K has been paid?
A: 20% for early maintenance renewal
Audience Question
Q: so to use custom workflow we need to buy 4.0 professional ?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: The 20% discount for maintenance is that a 20% discount or a %20 total mainentance...so $15000 or $5000
A: the cost is 20% of the license list price
Audience Question
Q: should I bother upgrading my 3.7 sp2 release to sp4 or focus more on 4.0 ?
A: focusing on 4.0 is advisable
Audience Question
Q: Do you need the sitefinity logo for the community version
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: Is there a way to pul in external data from say a SQL or Oracle server and display it with a widget?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: What about customers who own both sitefinity and the developers products? Will there be a discount so that we are npt paying twice for something that will be bundled free with sitefinity? This stinks!!
A: the FAQ is already on the website
Audience Question
Q: if I have two sites running under one license (domain, intranet) will the users be combined or per site?
A: combined
Audience Question
Q: Will there be pricing for registered no-profit charities?
A: we offer 10% non profit discount
Audience Question
Q: "You will also have the chance to win a free Sitefinity 4.0 ASP.NET CMS license." Did someone win this? ;)
A: the winner is yet to be announced
Audience Question
Q: When is the release for the RC?
A: early next week
Audience Question
Q: Where does the Custom Meta Field Builder fit in with the editions?...sitefinity wide?
A: sitefinity wide
Audience Question
Q: Does 4.0 support web services?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: What does "Starndard" workflow in the licensing mean?
A: linear workflow
Audience Question
Q: Has the process of creating Custom Content Types been overhauled in Sitefinity 4.0?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: about discount, if we buy a 3.7 versionn how many is the discount?
A: you will get 4.0 standard edition at no additional cost, please refer to the FAQ on the website for further details on pricing and discount options
Audience Question
Q: Do purchases today have to be tied to a spicific site, or could we buy several to take advantage of the current pricing, and tie to website when needed
A: you can purchase today and register the domains whenever you want to, the 899 pricing will be valid until the official release
Audience Question
Q: Are there additional educational discounts for educational institutions?
A: 10%
Audience Question
Q: can you upgrade incementally?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: powered by logo still needed for community version?
A: yes
Audience Question
Q: The 20% discount for maintenance is that a 20% discount or a 20% total ..so $15000 or $5000?
A: 20% on the license list price