How to add buttons in Sitecore Experience Platform

In one of my project requirement, I have to add buttons in Sitecore Experience Platform screen.

Here are quick steps 

•  Login to Sitecore Desktop mode.
• Select CORE Database
• Open Content Editor
• Add a new group “My LaunchPad Group” under item “/sitecore/client/Applications/Launchpad/PageSettings/Buttons” which is inherited from “/sitecore/client/Applications/Launchpad/PageSettings/Templates/LaunchPad-Group”
• Add required number of button items under "/sitecore/client/Applications/Launchpad/PageSettings/Buttons/My LaunchPad Group" which is inherited from "/sitecore/client/Applications/Launchpad/PageSettings/Templates/LaunchPad-Button"

·         There are 4 fields in each LanuchPad-Button item

o    Text – Text which is display under icon

o    Icon – Image for LuanchPad-Button

o    Link – Redirect link on the button and text

o    OpenNewTab – If checked, open the link in new browser tab

I added 3 buttons – external link, internal link and image as

 

Launchpad Items

Note :-

When you specify external link, put link value with “http://” like http://www.google.com

While for internal link, provide link value as item path like “/sitecore/content/Home”

That’s it.

So after adding these 3 buttons, my Sitecore Experience Platform looks as

Buttons in Sitecore Experience Platform

I hope you like this quick Sitecore lesson. Stay tuned for more Sitecore related articles.

Till that happy sitecoring :)

Please leave your comments or share this article if it’s useful for you.

Mini MS-Paint in Sitecore

I was looking to my designer to update one Sitecore image and I come to know that he is on leave.

I decided to edit it myself as I can’t wait for a day.

I tried to google some of the image editing tool but to my surprise there is already one image editing tool available in Sitecore.

This is something new to me as a hidden gem in Sitecore. 

If you go to Sitecore desktop and visit to Start -> All Applications -> Image Editor then you will get a mini MS-Paint applications as

Image Editor Link

You can open any media library image here and can do below functionality

• Open media library image
• Crop the image
• Resize the image
• Flip image Vertically
• Flip image Horizontally
• Rotate 90 degree Right
• Rotate 90 degree Left
•  Save the image directly in media library item

Image Editor

Below is a default home page in Sitecore

Default Home Page

But after resize, crop, flip horizontally and publishing the homepage image, this is how I get my home page now

Updated Sitecore Home Page

Though there is MS-Paint is available in all windows computer which have lots of other features. But this tool allow you to edit directly in media library itself online and without need of any other image editing software. So for me this is a quick and handy tool.

I hope Sitecore provide more and more features in Image Editor in upcoming releases.

I hope you like this quick Sitecore lesson. Stay tuned for more Sitecore related articles.

Till that happy sitecoring :)

Please leave your comments or share this article if it’s useful for you.

Launchpad button disappear from Sitecore

One of my colleague working on Sitecore desktop instance and he called me for help that his Launchpad icon is just disappear.

If you login to Sitecore desktop, normally Launchpad icon looks as highlighted with yellow box below 

With Launchpad Icon

However, on my colleague system, Launchpad icon was missing as 

Without Launchpad Icon

 

Due to this he can’t choose any of the options like control panel or desktop.

Solution: 

Just logged-out and login again. You will get your Launchpad button again. 

This trick worked for him. But I suppose this is temporary solution. I was unable to reproduce it on my system so unable to figure out the exact cause. 

Let me know if anyone knows the root cause and its permanent solution.