I couldn’t find any code on how to do this, and being the .NET newbie that I am, it took me a little while to figure out. Here’s how I did it:

public static void SwitchContinuousUpdateOfXmlCacheState(bool newValue)
{
    if (UmbracoSettings.continouslyUpdateXmlDiskCache == newValue) return;

    var configFilePath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/config/umbracoSettings.config");

    if (File.Exists(configFilePath))
    {
        var umbracoConfig = new XmlDocument();
        umbracoConfig.Load(configFilePath);

        var key = umbracoConfig.SelectSingleNode("//ContinouslyUpdateXmlDiskCache");

        key.InnerText = newValue.ToString();

        umbracoConfig.Save(configFilePath);
    }
}

This way, I can toggle this setting off before performing the import, and then back on again after calling umbraco.library.RefreshContent();

I’m hoping this is the right approach. Feel free to let me know if it isn’t.

The setup below will show the map if JS in enabled, or a placeholder image if JS is disabled. If it can’t parse the Google Maps Datatype property name, it will show the map centered on its default coordinates.

To display the map in the front-end, I did the following:

1. Set up the following in its own JS file:
   

   $.fn.googleMap = function(location,options) {
       var defaults = {
           lat: -33.302959,
           long: 151.419733,
           zoom: 15,
           mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP,
           mapTypeControl: false,
           controls: ['GSmallZoomControl3D']
       };
   
       options = $.extend(defaults, options || {});
   
       if (location) {
           value = $.trim(location);
           var point = location.split(',');
           options.lat = parseFloat(point[0]);
           options.long = parseFloat(point[1]);
           options.zoom = parseFloat(point[2]);
       };
   
       var center = new google.maps.LatLng(options.lat, options.long);
   
       var map = new google.maps.Map(this.get(0), $.extend(options, { center: center }));
   
       var storeMarker = new google.maps.Marker({
           position: center,
           map: map
       });
   };

2. Included this on the page where I showed the map:
   1. JS:

      <script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script>
      <script type='text/javascript'>
          $(document).ready(function () {
              $('#map_container img').hide();
              $('#map_container').googleMap("<umbraco:Item field="storeLocationMap" runat="server"></umbraco:Item>");
          });
      </script>

   2. HTML:

      <div class="product_image">
         <div id="map_container" class="map_placeholder">
          <img src="../images/NoGoogleMap.png" alt="Could not load store map" style="margin-top:-20px;"/>
        </div>
      </div>

I’ve yet to see a good event calendar in any of the CMSes I’ve tried that properly handles recurring events and makes it easy for the layman to update calendar events. I’ve therefore recently implemented a small macro for Umbraco that displays Google Calendar events from a cached XML calendar feed. I did this using the excellent FeedCache plugin and some XSLT.

My one gripe with FeedCache is that you can’t edit the feeds.config file using ConfigTree, but rather need file-level access to it. This is a major bummer, as I wanted to test it on Umbraco Trials.

I won’t post any CSS, but the XSLT caters for styling as it uses bulleted lists and spans around key areas.

The feed will then be displayed similar to below:

Today

* Test Event (19:30-21:30)

Friday 16th October

* Meeting (19:30-21:30)

Sunday 18th October

* Seminar (10:30-12:30)
* Lunch (13:00-14:00)
* Games/Activities (14:30-15:30)

Here’s a screenshot of it working on an Umbraco Trials site. I found a random Google Calendar feed and used that for the demo. Note that I didn’t put any effort into styling the results:

Basically, what you need to do is:

1. Install FeedCache
2. Install the GCal Events List package
3. Set up the calendar feed in FeedCache’s feeds.config. The feeds.config entry should look like this:

   <feed>
    <url><![CDATA[http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/calendar@example.org/public/composite?orderby=starttime&sortorder=ascending&futureevents=true&singleevents=true]]> </url>
    <localFile>GoogleCalendarFeed.xml</localFile>
   </feed>

4. Insert a macro wherever you need it, and fill out the parameters;
   1. numberOfDays – (integer) how many days worth of events you would like to display
   2. xmlFileName (string) the exact file name of the cached XML file in the umbraco\plugins\FergusonMoriyama\feedcache\ folder. eg. googleEvents.xml
5. Call FeedCache from your browser to trigger a pull of the feed(s): http://example.org/umbraco/plugins/FergusonMoriyama/FeedCache/FeedCache.aspx
6. View the page that contains the macro inserted in step 4.