Using document types in Kentico to build newagestore.com

Back in 1999 we built NewAgeStore.com primarily as an online shop. A hand crafted ecommerce site selling beads and crystals and the site was more a hobby than a business. Today the site receives over 25,000 visitors a day and serves up over 8,000,000 page views per month. The video below shows how we used document types in Kentico to manage the different card decks on newagestore.com.

Document Types

Document types are the way Kentico implements structured content, which in essence is the ability to break content down into chunks. In our example we card have built web pages for each card in the tarot, but that would mean that every time we wanted to use some information from the tarot cards on the site we’d have to duplicate that information. For example on the home page we have a tarot card, plus we have tarot cards throughout the readings, and we have a reference that shows each card in isolation too. Using document types means that we effectively have a database of cards allowing us to use the right information, displayed the right way at the right time. And rather than having one web page for each card, we have fields that breakdown the information on the card into different components. For example, the title of the card is one field, the short description is another, the full image another, the upside down image is yet another.

How Document Types are Used

When we need to use some of the information from a card, Kentico provides a tool called transformations. This allows us to take information from the cards and display it in different ways. On the home page it’s presented with a large image and a brief description. As part of a tarot reading the card is generally shown with a smaller image and title only, until the last page where the full description is shown.

Jen Lawrence is the owner of NewAgeStore.com and has been kind enough to let me share this video i took of how the document types work. You’ll notice also that I said “we” above, Jen is my x-wife… here’s a picture of us with our modern family on our christmas cruise last year. That’s me in the middle in the yellow shirt and Jen to my right. To her right is her fiancé and to my far left is my partner. Our kids all around.