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For implementation of our project in Tridion 2013 SP1, we need to choose from templating(DWT) or DD4T approach. but instead of using either of the approach, now we are trying to implement both the approaches in our project as we have both static and dynamic pages, so for that we decided to use templating(DWT) for static pages and DD4T using MVC for Dynamic pages.

Here i am looking for your help about this hybrid approach wheather it is fine or not, should we go for it or not. So please provide the pros and cons of this hybrid approach.

Thanks

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    Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean with 'static' pages and 'dynamic' pages? From a Tridion CM perspective, both are just Pages. Where do you use both for ?
    – Raimond
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 12:50
  • As Raimond says, as far as Tridion is concerned, DD4T pages are static pages. If you have dynamic content that is a separate issue from DD4T vs. DWT. Can you provide some examples of what content you're thinking of using DD4T for vs what you're thinking of using DWT for?
    – Ant P
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 12:58
  • Also, from a configuration and architecture perspective, this question is very similar (and may be a duplicate depending on what you're actually asking): tridion.stackexchange.com/questions/5693/…
    – Ant P
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 12:59
  • You don't need DD4T to serve DCPs from the broker - DD4T allows you to serve (functionally) static pages from the broker. If you're planning on serving your static pages from the filesystem, you don't need DD4T at all.
    – Ant P
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 13:22
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    We did consider a hybrid MVC approach whereby we could use DWTs to publish views and then use DD4T templates for dynamic stuff. We got as far as fancy routing to determine "static" from "dynamic" before we canned it and went all-out DD4T for a much more straight-forward codebase. Theres no doubt you need to think a little more carefully about your schema design with DD4T and the impact on hardware (which is a normla consideration when moving from static to dynamic anyway) but I'd recommend keeping it simple and embracing DD4T fully over hybrid.
    – Neil
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 8:27

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It's perfectly possible to create pages within your CMS based on DD4T templates (these must be published to the database) and have a bunch of other templates available (using dwt) that can be configured to publish to the file system.

It's impossible to give you a list of pros and cons for both approaches as it really depends on what you're trying to do. Ultimately either approach is pretty straight-forward and it's possible to have a single website using both DD4T pages and pages published to the file system. The only gotcha you need to handle is your MVC routing to ensure any pages that are on the file system are not being treated the same as DD4T pages.

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  • do you have any name of the live website which followed the hybrid approach, just for reference. and thanks for the reply
    – Nash
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 14:38
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    The only gotcha you need to handle is your MVC routing to ensure any pages that are on the file system are not being treated the same as DD4T pages - If you have MVC set up correctly, IIS should still serve static files directly without requests ever going through MVC routing.
    – Ant P
    Commented May 29, 2014 at 15:01

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