I used Umbraco before (v 7) to build some sites, but eventually transitioned away from hosting on Windows and left Umbraco. I enjoyed working on Umbraco as a CMS, but the hosting story was not something I wanted to deal with for my small business.
Now that v 9 is close to release, and it’s possible to host it entirely on Linux, I’d like to revisit Umbraco.
Here’s the situation:
I have a small consulting business that uses Wordpress for the website, along with a bunch of custom Javascript that I wrote. The wordpress site works fine and I’m the only person that logs into the backend.
However, I’m thinking of creating a “Client” area where my clients can log in (to the website, not Wordpress), upload certain documents, fill out various forms, track progress, etc. I usually have 3-5 clients a month so it’s nothing too intense.
I’ve created a test app in ASP.Net Core. It’s working fine and I can continue to build on it. However, I don’t want to run a Wordpress CMS frontend and then bolt on an app on a subdomain - I’d rather have it look and feel seamless for my clients, and carry the same CSS theme through. I could of course manually keep the CSS in sync, but over time that’s a pain.
Instead, I’d like to use Umbraco 9. My vision is
-
Umbraco CMS manages all the CMS-type content - blog posts, site pages, and so on. Making it super easy for me to log in and write a blog post or a new site page, add images, embed a video maybe - all the stuff Wordpress is really good at, and Umbraco as well. I know I can do this on Umbraco and I’ve done it before so that’s not an issue
-
My custom app is somehow integrated into Umbraco so that the look and theme carry through. I do not need to build anything custom on the Umbraco Backoffice - I can manage the app inside Visual Studio and I have no requirement for other people to log in and do anything on the back office.
-
Umbraco’s authentication is separate from my app - on Umbraco, I would only have one user (me) to log in and update content once in a while. My app has its own login flow using ASP.net Identity and the two don’t need to mix.
-
For the database, I could have separate databases for Umbraco and my app (if possible), or preferably combine the two into one DB. My app uses a few tables and isn’t super performance intensive so it’s not likely to slow Umbraco down.
Ideally, I end up with one unified CMS+App and one DB that I can easily back up and restore if needed.
I know this is possible to do, but I’d love to know some best practices, get a book recommendation, a pointer to a tutorial blog post, or any advice from more experienced members of the community.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://our.umbraco.com/forum/107027-help-creating-a-umbraco-9-website-with-a-custom-net-core-app