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Overview: RESTful WCF services

These articles contain information related to the Client Side Programming in Sitefinity.

Overview

Sitefinity CMS introduces the web service API in its full extent. While, in previous versions of Sitefinity CMS, we have always made sure to provide developers with fully exposed API, we have done so only for the server side development scenarios. The web service API is based on the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) REST approach,where each service represents one entity of the domain model. The web service API follows very strictly convention where for each entity following operations can be performed:

  • Get single item
  • Get collection of items
  • Save item
  • Delete items
The two main usages of the webservice API are the client side asynchronous requests (AJAX) and communication between different applications.

In this section of the manual, we are going to explore the following topics:

  • Sitefinity CMS WCF RESTful Services - we will provide a high level overview to the WCF REST Services and their implementation in Sitefinity CMS. REST Services as it is known are taking advantage of the HTTP protocol to its full extent, making them highly accessible to a variety of clients.
  • Client binder controls - in order to simplify AJAX operations, Sitefinity CMS comes with a common framework for Ajaxifying user interface. The main advantage of this framework is a common and relatively simply way to work with data through webservice through declarative Client Binder controls, while abstracting the client side development.
  • Client Side API - while Client Binders will prove a great tool for the most common scenarios, ocassionaly one will need more control and work directly with the client side API. In this topic we will explain the client side classes and their usage.
  • WCF REST API reference - in this section we are providing full reference for all the Sitefinity CMS services and their usages.
  • Implementing your own WCF REST service - Sitefinity CMS provides base classes for smooth, quick and zero-configuration WCF REST services, which are the recommended way of implementing WCF services for Sitefinity CMS. In this section we will provide a step-by-step instructions on implementing such services.

Apart from the provider model, Sitefinity CMS uses the web services model. Sitefinity CMS is web service oriented application.

Web services overview

Sitefinity CMS introduces the web service API in its full extent. While, in previous versions of Sitefinity CMS, we have always made sure to provide developers with fully exposed API, we have done so only for the server side development scenarios. The web service API is based on the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) REST approach,where each service represents one entity of the domain model. The web service API follows very strictly convention where for each entity following operations can be performed:

  • Get single item
  • Get collection of items
  • Save item
  • Delete items (creates new item or updates an existing one)
The two main usages of the webservice API are the client side asynchronous requests (AJAX) and communication between different applications. The web services will be of great help to anyone who wish to integrate Sitefinity CMS with 3rd party applications:

Web service model

Simply put, the UI interacts with web services, which are also exposed and available for 3rd party applications and devices.

Sitefinity CMS WCF RESTful Services Overview

Sitefinity CMS provides a fully exposed web service API. Sitefinity CMS webservice API is made of RESTful webservices, meaning that the design is following the principles outline by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation.

What makes a webservice RESTful?

There are two main approaches to webservices: SOAP and REST: Whereas SOAP based webservices expose methods (such as GetNewsItems or SaveNewsItem), REST works with resources as the cornerstones of its architecture and relies on the HTTP methods to provide the operational context.

Let us take a look at the following diagram comparing the two approaches.

REST vs. SOAP

In essence, with both approaches we are providing the client of the service with the ability to accomplish the CRUD tasks , however, where SOAP is offering arbitrarily named methods as an API, REST is able to provide uniform API by combining the resource name with the well known standards of the HTTP protocol.

Sitefinity CMS conventions

For every resource exposed through a webservice, Sitefinity CMS supports CRUD operations. Every call to a webservice supports an optional parameter for the provider name (Overview: Provider model ). If no provider name has been set through an optional query string parameter, default provider will be used.

When requesting a collection of resources, Sitefinity CMS supports also following optional parameters:

  • sort - sort expression used to order the requested collection of items
  • skip - number of items to skip before retrieving collection (used primarily for paging purposes)
  • take - number of items to take when retrieving collection (used primarily for paging purposes)
  • filter - filter expression in dynamic LINQ format used to filter the collection between it is returned to the client.
The primary key of the item to retrieve, create or update is always required and it is part of the web service path. When returning a collection of items, Sitefinity CMS will actually return a CollectionContext object which carries some additional information about the collection along with the actual collection of items.

All built-in webservices provided by Sitefinity CMS are located in the ~/Sitefinity/Services folder.
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