A critical vulnerability was discovered in React Server Components (Next.js). Our systems remain protected but we advise to update packages to newest version. Learn More


Nov 8, 2012
  3380
(0 votes)

Navigate to Edit mode instead of Dashboard in EPiServer CMS 6

There is a question on the forum regarding how to change the default mode when navigating to the protected path in EPiServer CMS 6. Customer wants to get into Edit mode instead of Dashboard when navigating to <yourSiteUrl>/<yourProtectedUrl>. I think that answer to this question worth a small post here.

Routing to the Dashboard is controlled by a special module called EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ShellRoutingModule. It can be replaced with your own implementation. Here is how it can look like if you want your users to be redirected to Edit mode instead of Dashboard:

public class CustomRoutingModule : UrlRoutingModule
{
private static object _orignalPathKey = new object();

/// <summary>
/// Matches the HTTP request to a route, retrieves the handler for that route, and sets the handler as the HTTP handler for the current request.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="context">Encapsulates all HTTP-specific information about an individual HTTP request.</param>
public override void PostResolveRequestCache(HttpContextBase context)
{
string protectedPath = EPiServer.Shell.Paths.ProtectedRootPath;
string requestedPath = context.Request.CurrentExecutionFilePath;
if (string.Equals(protectedPath.TrimEnd('/'), requestedPath.TrimEnd('/'), StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
context.Items[_orignalPathKey] = requestedPath;
context.RewritePath(protectedPath + "cms/edit/default.aspx");
}

base.PostResolveRequestCache(context);
}

/// <summary>
/// Assigns the HTTP handler for the current request to the context.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="context">Encapsulates all HTTP-specific information about an individual HTTP request.</param>
public override void PostMapRequestHandler(HttpContextBase context)
{
base.PostMapRequestHandler(context);

string requestedPath = context.Items[_orignalPathKey] as string;
if (requestedPath != null)
{
context.RewritePath(requestedPath);
}
}
}

You also need to replace ShellRoutingModule with a CustomRoutingModule in the web.config in configuration/system.webServer/modules:

<!-- add name="ShellRoutingModule" type="EPiServer.Shell.Web.Routing.ShellRoutingModule, EPiServer.Shell" /-->
<add name="CustomRoutingModule" type="MyRoutingModule.CustomRoutingModule, MyRoutingModule" />

After that, your users will be able to navigate to Edit mode with the same URL that before was used for Dashboard. However, the Start menu and Dashboard context menu will navigate to Edit mode as well, thus making Dashboard unavailable from menus. To fix this, you need to remove default routes for the Shell module defined in C:\Program Files (x86)\EPiServer\Framework\6.2.267.1\ Application\UI\module.config:

...
<route>
<!--defaults>
<add key="moduleArea" value="Shell" />
<add key="controller" value="Dashboard" />
<add key="action" value="Index" />
<add key="id" value="" />
</defaults-->
</route>
...

The last changes will affect all EPiServer sites on the server, so you might consider creating a copy of the whole folder containing module.config and pointing physicalPath attribute of the EPiServerShell virtual path provider to the new folder.

Nov 08, 2012

Comments

Please login to comment.
Latest blogs
A day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP: Learning Optimizely Just Got Easier: Introducing the Optimizely Learning Centre

On the back of my last post about the Opti Graph Learning Centre, I am now happy to announce a revamped interactive learning platform that makes...

Graham Carr | Jan 31, 2026

Scheduled job for deleting content types and all related content

In my previous blog post which was about getting an overview of your sites content https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/Per-Nergard/Dates/2026/1/sche...

Per Nergård (MVP) | Jan 30, 2026

Working With Applications in Optimizely CMS 13

💡 Note:  The following content has been written based on Optimizely CMS 13 Preview 2 and may not accurately reflect the final release version. As...

Mark Stott | Jan 30, 2026

Experimentation at Speed Using Optimizely Opal and Web Experimentation

If you are working in experimentation, you will know that speed matters. The quicker you can go from idea to implementation, the faster you can...

Minesh Shah (Netcel) | Jan 30, 2026