I have a Rest API which needs to return an item's presentation details.
I tried this line of code, but Sitecore.Context.Device is null, since this is a rest API call.
LayoutItem layoutItem = item.Visualization.GetLayout(Sitecore.Context.Device);
Update: I tried moving this code to when I index my data (hoping to read the value and write it to Solr), but I am facing the same issue.
How would I go about doing this?
The renderings are added per "device" in Sitecore, but in most cases nowadays, there's only one device. Depending on how you route your API endpoint etc., the device may not be resolved automatically. If you know you only have one device, you could pick the first device, or provide the device as a parameter. Then you can use a device switcher in case you need to call other Sitecore methods that requires a device to be set. For example like this:
var deviceName = "Default"; // The default device. Modify according to needs
var deviceItem = item.Database.Resources.Devices.GetAll().First(d => string.Equals(d.Name, deviceName, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
using (new DeviceSwitcher(deviceItem))
{
...
}
Related
I am writing a HomeKit app that successfully shows live data from my supported accessories in-app. I can read single values (HMCharacteristic.readValue) or use notifications to stay updated (HMCharacteristic.enableNotification).
Now I want to implement Widgets that show this data on the user's Home Screen. This consists of four steps:
A dynamic Intent fetches all the registered (and supported) Accessories from the HMHomeManager and enables the user to select one of them to be shown on the Widget.
Inside the IntentTimelineProvider's getTimeline function I can then again use the HMHomeManager to retrieve the Accessory I want to display on the Widget (based on the Accessory's UUID which is stored inside the getTimeline's configuration parameter - the Intent).
Still inside the getTimeline function I can choose the Services and Characteristics I need for displaying the Accessory's Widget from the HMHomeManager.
Up until here everything works fine.
However, when I try to read the values from the Characteristics I chose before using HMCharacteristic.readValue, the callback contains an error stating
Error Domain=HMErrorDomain Code=80 "Missing entitlement for API."
The Widget's Info.plist contains the 'Privacy - HomeKit Usage Description' field and the Target has the HomeKit capability.
After some research I came up with the following theory: Obviously the whole WidgetKit API runs my code in background. And it seems like HomeKit does not allow access from a background context. Well, it does allow access to Homes/Services/Characteristics, but it does not allow reading or writing on Characteristics (I guess to make sure App developers use HomeKit Automations and don't try to implement custom automations that are controlled by some background process of their app running on the iPhone).
My (simplified) getTimeline code:
func getTimeline(for configuration: SelectAccessoryIntent, in context: Context, completion: #escaping (Timeline<Entry>) -> ()) {
// id stores the uuid of the accessory that was chosen by the user using the dynamic Intent
if let id = configuration.accessory?.identifier {
// Step 2.: fetch the accessory
// hm is a HMHomeManager
let hm = HomeStore.shared.homeManager
// take a short nap until the connection to the local HomeKit instance is established (otherwise hm.homes will create an empty array on first call)
sleep(1)
let accessories = hm.homes.flatMap({ h in h.accessories })
if let a = accessories.filter({ a in a.uniqueIdentifier.uuidString == id }).first {
// a holds our HMAccessory
// Step 3.: select the characteristic I want
// obviously the real code chooses a specific characteristic
let s: HMService = a.services.first!
let c: HMCharacteristic = s.characteristics.first!
// Step 4.: read the characteristic's value
c.readValue(completionHandler: {err in
if let error = err {
print(error)
} else {
print(c.value ?? "nil")
}
// complete with timeline
completion(Timeline(entries: [RenderAccessoryEntry(date: Date(), configuration: configuration, value: c.value)], policy: .atEnd))
})
}
}
}
}
My questions:
First: Is my theory correct?
If so: What can I do? Are there any entitlements that allow me to access HomeKit in background or similar? Do I need to perform the readValue call elsewhere? Or is it just impossible to use the HomeKit API with WidgetKit with the current versions of HomeKit/WidgetKit/iOS and best I can do is hope they introduce this capability at some point in the future?
If not: What am I missing?
Our organization wants to develop a "LOST & FOUND System Application" using chatbot integrated in a website.
Whenever the user starts the conversation with the chatbot, the chatbot should ask the details of lost item or item found and it should store the details in database.
How can we do it ?
And can we use our own web-service because organization doesn't want to keep the database in Amazon's Server.
As someone who just implemented this very same situation (with a lot of help from #Sid8491), I can give some insight on how I managed it.
Note, I'm using C# because that's what the company I work for uses.
First, the bot requires input from the user to decide what intent is being called. For this, I implemented a PostText call to the Lex API.
PostTextRequest lexTextRequest = new PostTextRequest()
{
BotName = botName,
BotAlias = botAlias,
UserId = sessionId,
InputText = messageToSend
};
try
{
lexTextResponse = await awsLexClient.PostTextAsync(lexTextRequest);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new BadRequestException(ex);
}
Please note that this requires you to have created a Cognito Object to authenticate your AmazonLexClient (as shown below):
protected void InitLexService()
{
//Grab region for Lex Bot services
Amazon.RegionEndpoint svcRegionEndpoint = Amazon.RegionEndpoint.USEast1;
//Get credentials from Cognito
awsCredentials = new CognitoAWSCredentials(
poolId, // Identity pool ID
svcRegionEndpoint); // Region
//Instantiate Lex Client with Region
awsLexClient = new AmazonLexClient(awsCredentials, svcRegionEndpoint);
}
After we get the response from the bot, we use a simple switch case to correctly identify the method we need to call for our web application to run. The entire process is handled by our web application, and we use Lex only to identify the user's request and slot values.
//Call Amazon Lex with Text, capture response
var lexResponse = await awsLexSvc.SendTextMsgToLex(userMessage, sessionID);
//Extract intent and slot values from LexResponse
string intent = lexResponse.IntentName;
var slots = lexResponse.Slots;
//Use LexResponse's Intent to call the appropriate method
switch (intent)
{
case: /*Your intent name*/:
/*Call appropriate method*/;
break;
}
After that, it is just a matter of displaying the result to the user. Do let me know if you need more clarification!
UPDATE:
An example implementation of the slots data to write to SQL (again in C#) would look like this:
case "LostItem":
message = "Please fill the following form with the details of the item you lost.";
LostItem();
break;
This would then take you to the LostItem() method which you can use to fill up a form.
public void LostItem()
{
string itemName = string.Empty;
itemName = //Get from user
//repeat with whatever else you need for a complete item object
//Implement a SQL call to a stored procedure that inserts the object into your database.
//You can do a similar call to the database to retrieve an object as well
}
That should point you in the right direction hopefully. Google is your best friend if you need help with SQL stored procedures. Hopefully this helped!
Yes its possible.
You can send the requests to Lex from your website which will extract Intents and Entities.
Once you get these, you can write backend code in any language of your choice and use any DB you want.
In your use case, you might just want to use Lex. PostText will be main function you will be calling.
You will need to create an intent in Lex which will have multiple slots LosingDate, LosingPlace or whatever you want, then it will be able to get all these information from the user and pass it to your web application.
I need to intercept my loopback queries before they query my Mongodb to add additional filters, for example, to limit the object to what the user has access to.
I can successfully update the query on access operation hook to add filters to the GET /Applications , where Applications is my object. However This fails to work for GET /Applications/count
The command runs with a 200, however it returns zero results, even though I'm adding the exact same filters. There most be something different about count that I'm missing. The ctx object looks have a ton of functions/objects in it. I'm only touching the query property, but there must be something else I need to do.
Any ideas? Thank you, Dan
Could you please share your access hook observer's implementation. I tried it on a sample app, and following access hook works as expected for /api/Books/count:
module.exports = function(Book) {
Book.observe('access', function logQuery(ctx, next) {
ctx.query.where.id = 2; // changing filter value for where
console.log('Accessing %s matching %j', ctx.Model.modelName, ctx.query.where);
next();
});
};
Verify that you're modifying query property of Context (see access hook).
Hope that helps.
We are building some plugins in Microsoft Dynamics CRM by inheriting from IPlugin. We have these configured so they fire whenever an Account is updated.
The problem is the plugins are calling our services, which causes our service to respond with an update. We are doing some pretty hacky things right now to prevent these cyclical updates from happening.
We were wondering if there was a way to pass a value to the IOrganizationService service (the web service) that a plugin can look at. Our other system could send a flag ("hey, don't bothing sending an update!") and the plugin could skip calling back.
Can we pass parameters from web service to the plugins?
Good idea could be usage of custom flag-field. For example you add bit field and call it CallFromExternalSystem. So when you make an update from your external system through IOranizationService you just fill this flag with true field and in plugin you can check condition that this field is present in fields list so you have no need to call external system endpoint again.
We decided the correct solution was to use the value found in IPluginExecutionContext.InputParameters["Target"]. In the case of an Update, this returns an Entity containing attributes for all the attributes that were updated.
We basically have a list of attribute names we cared about. We loop through names and see if any of them appear in the entity attribute list. If so, we send an update to our other system. The good news is, Dynamics CRM ignores updates where the values don't actually change, so trying to update a value to itself is no-op.
public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
IPluginExecutionContext context = serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));
Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];
string[] fields = new string[] { "name", "statecode", "address1_line1" };
bool hasUpdates = fields.Where(f => entity.Attributes.Contains(f)).Any();
if (!hasUpdates)
{
return;
}
}
I need show different content between Default and Mobile devices. Is there any way to create a Language Version according to a Device? Or is it possible to create a handler or module where i can identify the current device type? Also, is it possible to create a custom MediaRequestHandler where I can identify the current device and change the MediaPath of the requested image?
This is my implementation of Pipeline Processor:
public class MediaToDeviceProcessor : HttpRequestProcessor
{
public override void Process(HttpRequestArgs args)
{
HttpContext currentHttpContext = HttpContext.Current;
if (currentHttpContext == null || Context.Database == null || Context.Device == null)
return;
var request = MediaManager.ParseMediaRequest(currentHttpContext.Request);
if (request != null)
{
var media = MediaManager.GetMedia(request.MediaUri);
if (media != null)
{
if (!Context.Device.IsDefault)
{
}
}
}
}
}
For the first part of your question you could take a look at creating a custom device resolver. Look at <processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.DeviceResolver, Sitecore.Kernel" /> in the web.config then use dotPeek to look at how this is implemented in Sitecore. It's usually quite straightforward to replace the standard resolver with your own - you can inherit from Sitecore's device resolver and add whatever device detection code you want. You could then set the language context in this device resolver.
For the mobile version of your site, are you using separate presentation components? If so, you could consider simply having a set of fields in your templates which are used for the mobile presentation components.
Regarding a custom MediaRequestHandler; I'm not sure this is necessary. If you had alternative content fields for media items, these would simply reference the mobile equivalents of your media items. If you use a different language for your mobile content, then this again would point to the mobile equivalents of your images.
Edit
If you choose to go down the route of having a different language versions of your content for mobile/default content you could investigate using the 'Versioned' media templates (based on /sitecore/templates/System/Media/Versioned/File) instead of the 'Unversioned' (based on /sitecore/templates/System/Media/Unversioned/File). There is a config setting which allows you to set the default which is used when creating new media items. This would mean you could create a corresponding language version of your media items (uploading the different image) for the mobile site, you would not need a special media handler in this case.