Earlier this year I mentioned in a blog post that ektron would be focused on improving the DevCenter and to expect big things from us. Well, we’re happy to announce the first fruits of this effort with the release of a major project we’ve been working on. The Ektron Exchange, the largest repository of freely available source code for the Ektron platform, is now live! The Exchange is a site where you can find code created by Ektron and the Developer Community as well as share and promote your work with the entire Developer Community. The code on the Exchange is available for you to take and use in your web projects now!

We’re also very excited to announce our first ever developer contest-- the Wicket Widget Contest. Any Widget uploaded by May 1st and tagged “wicked” will be automatically entered into the contest. More details on the contest and the prizes will be available soon on this blog!

Here’s a video that gives a quick overview of how to find and share code using the Exchange:

• Introducing the Ektron Exchange! [video]
• Ektron Exchange Homepage
  

Try out the Exchange, download some code, share your work with your colleagues, and give us your feedback!

Ektron is committed to maintaining a strong and vibrant community for its users. The Exchange – a “one-stop shop” for developers – offers a variety of community benefits and features, including the latest news, “Best Practice” advice from Ektron experts, pre-built code, server controls, widgets and more. The Exchange is the largest library of free-ware code for the Ektron Platform.

The Ektron Code Factory Group (CFG) provides best practices for developing code and packaging your code for the Ektron Exchange. You can expect to find updates about new product features, new code samples, and developer tips and tricks here.

The Code Factory Group has provided some best practices that will help you get up and running in developing code to share on the Exchange.

• Code in such a way that makes the integration process as simple as possible.
• Create as detailed a help file as possible. This will make integration easier for the user of your code and could help your code rating.
• If you choose, you can add a YouTube Video link in the code upload form for a video or screencast that’s associated with your code. The video will then display on your code’s download page. Videos are helpful to show how your code works or how it is implemented
• Do not upload components that are widely available for free around the web.
• Do not borrow code from similar components.
• Your code should be contained in a single .ZIP file that contains all the files for download, help documentation and any other files such as extra images. This is the file that a user will get when they download your item.

Subscribe to this blog to keep up-to-date with Exchange and Code Factory Group news.

The Ektron Code Factory Group provides best practices for developing code and packaging your code for the Ektron Exchange. The CFG will be posting code samples to this site to share with the Ektron Community. Code that comes from Ektron is indicated with a orange "e" image in the corner of the code's image. The CFG will be developing and managing the following type of objects and adding them to the Exchange:

1. CMS widgets
2. User controls
3. Helper classes (namespaces)
4. XSLTs
5. Wireframes