Umbraco is a great open source CMS for enhancing your everyday editor experience. Just as WordPress, the community of Umbraco have made some open source extensions, better known as packages which may enhance the experience even more if combined right.
You may find these packages on the offical Umbraco project page.
Here are some packages that I usually end up with when starting a new project:
1. nuPickers
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/backoffice-extensions/nupickers/
If you are looking for a great package extension for enhancing selections for your edtiros, nuPickers is your answer. With these goodies you may extend the user interface experience in terms of checkboxes-, radio buttons, lists- or dropdowns-choices. It is a really powerful data type extension for quering XML, JSON or even SQL data.
2. Vorto
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/backoffice-extensions/vorto/
Vorto is a great package extension for extending your multilingual solution for 1-to-1 sites. Basically you're provided with two methods to extend your site setup, HasVortoValue and GetVortoValue.
By creating seperate property editors for each type of Vorto type you're after in the backoffice, you may identify each culture name to implement it's own collection of data and present this on the front end.
3. uCommerce
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/website-utilities/ucommerce/
Looking into bringing a e-commerce functionality to your website? Then uCommerce is a good choice for getting started i Umbraco. You may set up a free option for smaller business capacities or pro or enterprise. uCommerce is directly integrated in Umbraco with its own section to keep track of your orders. Find out more at https://www.ucommerce.net/
4. uSync
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/developer-tools/usync/
Keeping track of different environments such as development, test and staging may sometimes be trickier than intended. uSync keeps good track for bringing all the SQL storage into a Umbraco Package instead for most of the needs when synching different setups through the different environments.
5. Skybrud Image Picker / Link Picker
Project path: https://github.com/skybrud/Skybrud.ImagePicker
When implementing a gallery or mood board collection of pictures for your website, I intend to take usage of Skybrud Image Picker. It contains a datatype of a grid of pictures or links whom you may sort in your desired order for better user experience. The same goes for links that I need to have in multiple listings with Skybrud Link Picker.
6. Diplo God Mode
Project path: https://www.diplo.co.uk/blog/web-development/god-mode-umbraco-7-package/
Projects may get bigger than expected and to maintain an approach that keeps everything maintainable, Diplo God Mode was created. Here you may seach for assemblies, controllers, templates, members... you name it! Everything easily stored in an own seperated view for you to truly become the god of your Umbraco solution!
7. Doc Type Grid Editor
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/backoffice-extensions/doc-type-grid-editor/
The Umbraco Grid Editor is great since it first arrived in version 7. However, you may sometimes feel that macros and controls are a bit outdated and could easily become a cluster to manage between different edit options. Doc Type Grid Editor let's you choose between doctypes that you have specified in your Umbraco Solution and may achieve a more manageable solution for filling in property values.
8. Umbraco.Pylon
Project path: https://github.com/ministryotech/Umbraco.Pylon
Pylon is a great extraction for working atop of Umbraco's IPublishedContentRepository. This structure base addon makes it possible to mock and inject content via Umbraco's methods.
9. Multi Url Picker
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/backoffice-extensions/multi-url-picker/
Quite often I'm in this situation that I need a list where the editor may refer to multiple links, such as good to read list after an article's end. The Multi Url Picker is a basic and good extension to achieve this kind of list. Simply add the Multi Url-property to your preferred Doc Type and you are good to go.
10. Doctype Inspector
Project path: https://our.umbraco.com/projects/backoffice-extensions/doctype-inspector/
A simle yet great extension for adding some detailed Doctype information directly integrated into your site tree. By clicking the page in question instead of navigating away to the Developer Section for managing and get an overview of this information.
And there you have it! My preferences for extending Umbraco to become a better CMS.
Do you have any preferenced packages worth mentioning? Leave a comment below.
Honorable mentions
- Umbraco Core Property Value Converters
- Umbraco Forms
- Redirects Viewer
- Infuse AI Into U
- Translation Manager