Sitecore Best Practice Series:
| # | Practice | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Use Droplink instead of Droplist fields | Droplist stores the text of the option, which could make referential integrity problematic. |
| 2. | Set default image paths | Restricts image storage for a particular field to a certain location in the Media Library, thus, helping keep the Media Library organized and make content authoring tools more usable. |
| 3. | Use TreeListEx instead of TreeList field types | TreeList controls will load all items in that field on item selection, while the TreeListEx ones will only do that if the selection is being edited, increasing Content Editor load speed and general performance. |
| 4. | Avoid modifying system templates | Sitecore system templates are used by the application itself, changing them may negatively affect its operation. If you have to, create a custom template and inherit the system template or vice-versa, to reduce the cost of future upgrades. |
| 5. | Use inheritance for reusable fields | Sitecore inheritance eliminates unnecessary redundancy in item data definition templates. |
| 6. | Use user-friendly field, section, and item names | Put your technologist hat down and put on a content author hat; use readable and user-friendly names with spaces and proper capitalization for all items and fields. |
| 7. | Use Display Names instead of Item Names in Content Editor for readability | Item Names may get unnecessarily long for SEO purposes, as they are used in URLs; use Display Names to show a shortened or a user-friendly name with special characters in Content Editor. |
| 8. | Provide field Help information | This practice helps increase Content Editor usability. Use this guide for adding help messages. |
| 9. | Use tokens in Standard Values | Tokens allow automatic generation of field values on item creation, dramatically increasing content authoring tool usability. |
| 10. | Create item data definition template standard values | Standard values define default field values, validation, workflow, and presentation for page templates; it's almost guaranteed that one of these would need to be defined on every template. |
| 11. | Place the most frequently modified fields closer to the top | This practice help content editors be more efficient. |
| 12. | Limit the maximum number of template fields | An excessive number of fields on a single item may cause negative performance impact. |
| 13. | Use Rich Text Editor profiles to restrict functionality | Full functionality access may give too much freedom to content editors resulting in unintentional human errors, inconsistent designs, and performance issues. |
| 14. | Avoid using Rich Text Editor fields excessively | Rich Text Editor fields impose a negative performance impact on the Experience Editor, as well as may unintentionally provide content editors with the ability to modify web page design. |
| 15. | Choose item names that are easily understood by users | Increases usability of Sitecore content authoring tools. |
| 16. | Use branch templates for predefined content structures | Branch templates allow creating a predefined tree of items with a single insert action. |
| 17. | Group semantically related fields into sections | Helps increase the usability of Sitecore Content Editor. |