Getting started with SDL Tridion

Question

Good afternoon,

I started to work with Tridion and my company will not pay the training for me. I would like to know if someone can help me with the following questions. This is my scenario:

I followed the instructions of TridionWorld to create a development environment ( http://www.sdltridionworld.com/articles/sdltridion2011/tutorials/creating-development-vm-1.aspx ). But there are two things that I did not understand yet:

1. There is only showing how to implement the CMS but not the CDS. This means that I will be working in live mode?
2. How can I create a site to access in my browser? ( for example: http://localhost/test )

With these basic questions answered, I will be able to learn by myself how to use the system. Thank you everyone for your attention.

Answer 1

Welcome to the community.

Tridion is a decoupled system - if you only have the CMS, then that's all you have. The delivery side (aka "Content Delivery") must be installed and configured separately on an Application Server of your choice (WebSphere, Tomcat, IIS, etc). It can be setup on the same machine as the CMS.

There are other tutorials on Tridion World covering how to do the delivery side too. Roughly, you'll need a CM back end, a Deployer, and a Website. I would recommend using the SDL Tridion Reference Implementation as your starting point, as this comes with a pre-built website and implementation using .NET MVC, Razor views, etc.

To be honest, I would really recommend getting a training from SDL as Tridion is quite different from other, simpler WCM systems out there (and as you will probably find out, it is different for a good reason).

Another excellent starting point is the official documentation's "Getting Started" guides. You will need a login for this site, but that's rather easy to find via either SDL Customer Support or any contact you may have within SDL (btw, this login requirement will disappear very soon).

Answer 2

The challenge with learning Tridion and using it is there are many ways to solve the same problem, and this includes choosing the architecture for your solution. I would suggest to learn from your current project but also understand that the decisions taken by others in the project prior to your arrival were based on the requirements at that time. Today many customers are choosing to move towards a DD4T-based approach instead of the classic DWT / Razor approach.

If you have not seen the Tridion Developer Summit videos, I would suggest taking a look there.

In the official documentaiton, the quick start guides give you some help and guidance, but the documentation is mostly considered a reference guide and not a 'how to build your website' approach.

I agree with Nuno and support in-person training given by SDL or the DD4T course given by Trivident. See my recent review of the Trivident DD4T course here.

Answer 3

Getting started with SDL Tridion in 2014 is much easier than it was, but it is still a challenge unless working for a company with a license for the software (and access to the documentation).

If you are lucky enough to have access to a development license I would also suggest, start playing with the Tridion Reference Implementation. It gives you an idea of how to implement a website in Tridion.

You can also, if you have the budget, look into the official education programs from SDL. These programs cover the entire SDL product suite, and will give you a great introduction and foundation to get started.

Once you are up an running, and have started to play with the system, you can return here and other places in the community and ask questions.