I've been struggling to deliver a (good) user experience on an existing Force.com Sites implementation where we want to add in a public knowledge base.  So far, I've hit roadblock after roadblock in being able to do this without doubling the administrative burden in managed FDC administration.  Here's where I'm at, I'm hoping I'm just missing something trivial and not multiple design flaws:

PKB

• PKB doesn't seem to be supported any more.  It's an unmanaged package, which means that even if there we updates, they are extremely hard to integrate into a custom-styled FDC website.
• PKB will not render articles if it is configured to use a Force.com site with a URL Rewriter.  It uses an undocumented page renderer/API to render the articles.  This means that you would have to put PKB in a separate FDC Site if your main site requires the use of a URL Rewriter (and many do, for SEO).

Chatter Answers in a public Force.com site

• The administrative setup for this was atrocious.  Back and forth over dozens of Setup Area UI screens, some of which had to be visited/edited multiple times just by following the implementation guide from top to bottom.  And that's after already having set up all the the Knowledge dependencies while implementing PKB in the same SF Org.
• When enabling a Chatter Answers zone to "bind" to a Force.com site, it actually creates a NEW Force.com site loosely tied to the original one.  The issue with this approach, is that it requires a different cookie domain (which breaks transitioning logged in users in and out of the Chatter Answers pages).  It also requires the admin to set up identical settings for the main FDC Site AND this newly created site, including the FDC Site Settings, Public Access Settings, Login Access Settings, etc.  Nightmare.

I'm hoping I'm missing something here, but after literally days of configuring both of these, each, all I can see is a complete disregard for a user experience allowing a developer to deliver these solutions alongside an existing Sites implementation in a way that will be acceptable.
 

This seems to be bugged.

Example

Map<string,Contact> ccMap = new Map<string,Contact>();

Contact c1 = new Contact();
c1.firstname = 'Joe';
c1.lastname = 'User';
c1.email = 'joe@example.com';
c1.accountId ='<some id>';

ccMap.put(c1.email,c1);

This will always retgurn null:
Contact con = ccMap.get(c1.email);

I didn't see anything in the Apex documentation noting restrications on the string's value when creating a custom map.

I'm working on a project with a Force.com site that also uses the PKB (from the AppExchange).  I'm finding that PKB is using some undocumented Sites mechanism with the /articles/ folder to render articles when they are viewed.  This seems to fall flat on it's face with a 404 Page Note Found if the Site hosting the PKB is configured to use a URL Rewriter.  This happens even if the URL Rewriter has no rules/code that would touch or overlap the /articles/ folder.

Anyone hit this?  Trying to keep the customer's Site on a single Site config to preserve the login session for authenticated users.

The PKB documentation doesn't specifically say you can't use a URL rewriter, but rather, seems to have a copy/paste snippet from the Sites documentation.  https://appexchange.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=00P3000000HCTKdEAP 

I've been struggling to deliver a (good) user experience on an existing Force.com Sites implementation where we want to add in a public knowledge base.  So far, I've hit roadblock after roadblock in being able to do this without doubling the administrative burden in managed FDC administration.  Here's where I'm at, I'm hoping I'm just missing something trivial and not multiple design flaws:

PKB

• PKB doesn't seem to be supported any more.  It's an unmanaged package, which means that even if there we updates, they are extremely hard to integrate into a custom-styled FDC website.
• PKB will not render articles if it is configured to use a Force.com site with a URL Rewriter.  It uses an undocumented page renderer/API to render the articles.  This means that you would have to put PKB in a separate FDC Site if your main site requires the use of a URL Rewriter (and many do, for SEO).

Chatter Answers in a public Force.com site

• The administrative setup for this was atrocious.  Back and forth over dozens of Setup Area UI screens, some of which had to be visited/edited multiple times just by following the implementation guide from top to bottom.  And that's after already having set up all the the Knowledge dependencies while implementing PKB in the same SF Org.
• When enabling a Chatter Answers zone to "bind" to a Force.com site, it actually creates a NEW Force.com site loosely tied to the original one.  The issue with this approach, is that it requires a different cookie domain (which breaks transitioning logged in users in and out of the Chatter Answers pages).  It also requires the admin to set up identical settings for the main FDC Site AND this newly created site, including the FDC Site Settings, Public Access Settings, Login Access Settings, etc.  Nightmare.

I'm hoping I'm missing something here, but after literally days of configuring both of these, each, all I can see is a complete disregard for a user experience allowing a developer to deliver these solutions alongside an existing Sites implementation in a way that will be acceptable.
 

This seems to be bugged.

Example

Map<string,Contact> ccMap = new Map<string,Contact>();

Contact c1 = new Contact();
c1.firstname = 'Joe';
c1.lastname = 'User';
c1.email = 'joe@example.com';
c1.accountId ='<some id>';

ccMap.put(c1.email,c1);

This will always retgurn null:
Contact con = ccMap.get(c1.email);

I didn't see anything in the Apex documentation noting restrications on the string's value when creating a custom map.

I'm working on a project with a Force.com site that also uses the PKB (from the AppExchange).  I'm finding that PKB is using some undocumented Sites mechanism with the /articles/ folder to render articles when they are viewed.  This seems to fall flat on it's face with a 404 Page Note Found if the Site hosting the PKB is configured to use a URL Rewriter.  This happens even if the URL Rewriter has no rules/code that would touch or overlap the /articles/ folder.

Anyone hit this?  Trying to keep the customer's Site on a single Site config to preserve the login session for authenticated users.

The PKB documentation doesn't specifically say you can't use a URL rewriter, but rather, seems to have a copy/paste snippet from the Sites documentation.  https://appexchange.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=00P3000000HCTKdEAP