So I have a layout view within Sitecore Mvc, this view contained a Controller Rendering that pulls in a header and footer navigation. Example:
#Html.Sitecore().Rendering("/sitecore/layout/renderings/some_rendering")
This specifies a Controller Rendering I've defined in Sitecore. This works great, except when I'm in the experience editor. It doesn't give me the ability to select this rendering. If I create a Placeholder and then define these navigation elements to this placeholder dynamically via Sitecore, then I can, but these navigational elements exist on every page of this layout, so I would like them statically placed instead of using a Placeholder, but I would still like the user to be able to select the navigation element in the experience editor (so I can create custom command to interact with this navigation, such as creating new links, etc).
Does anyone have an idea that will help me achieve this?
Use Edit Frame for that and create Custom Edit Frame Button for operations like adding new element to the navigation.
And remember to pass Datarsource ID or Path as a second parameter to the Html.Sitecore().Rendering() method:
#Html.Sitecore().Rendering("/sitecore/layout/renderings/some_rendering", new { DataSource = "{some-id-or-path}" })
Here is set of blog posts which can help you to understand how Edit Frames work and how to add them in Sitecore MVC solution:
https://visionsincode.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/how-to-use-editframe-in-sitecore-mvc/
https://www.cmsbestpractices.com/how-to-properly-use-sitecore-edit-frames/
https://briancaos.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/using-sitecore-editframe-in-pageedit/
You won't be able to remove the component or move it around the page (yeah, it's statically bound to one place on your layout), but you will be able to edit it's properties and datasource.
You can try to use GlassMapper views and statically inherit the view from the GlassView.
Then you'll be able to use Editable method to render the field.
But the consideration you need to take is that you'll not be able to set a datasource to the component from the page editor or content editor.
Instead of injecting the rendering through the Rendering method you should be able to use standart MVC RenderPartial.
I've used this approach on one of the projects I've been on and it worked.
Related
In Sitecore I have created base Template & Renderings for "Header, Top Menu, Logo, Search ,Login Button…etc that comes in Header across all Pages of the Site."
Also the same template & Rendering is using in other website so we can't set value in Standard field.
Now the problem is “suppose we have 100 pages in a Site then each page we have to go and add/update rendering & data source.
Is there any way that a “Header rendering” contains child rendering and by placing “Header rendering” render all its child renderings.
Header Composite Component ===>
Logo Component
Top Navigation Component
Search Component
There is a composite component module on the Sitecore Marketplace :https://marketplace.sitecore.net/Modules/C/Composite_components.aspx?sc_lang=en
This fill's your requirements exactly.
It works by creating a "Composite Component" item, then you add your renderings for your header to that component. E.g. Logo, Navigation etc...
Then in the standard values of your page templates, you add a new Composite Component rendering and set the datasource to the component item you created.
The module will then inject the renderings from the component item presentation into your current item. So you only have to update a single place to update all pages etc...
I have this running in a few production sites and it works well. It even supports the Experience Editor.
I don't think there's a solution out of the box. SxA solves this with Partial and Page Designs at site level. Just wrote a blog about it:
http://reinoudvandalen.nl/blog/sitecore-experience-accelerator-partial-designs-and-page-designs/
I also made something that might help you: Partial Layout Presets
http://reinoudvandalen.nl/blog/sitecore-partial-layout-presets/
It even allows you to store presets per site, but keep in mind that it injects composed layouts. If you modify the preset then it does not get applied to the pages where it was injected (though you might be able to pull something of with a shared datasource per site).
Lastly the obvious solution would be to create a page template per site so you'll be able to have standard values per site.
You may want to take a look at using Placeholder Fallback.
This will allow you to add components and renderings to a top level page and then the child pages would "fallback" to using the renderings inserted into the placeholder of the top level page in the item hierarchy. The editors can also insert page specific renderings on each child page if required.
If you do not want to custom code and only out of the box features then you could use Devices. You can find more information in the documentation about Set up a device layout. Once the device is created you can specify a different default device per site:
Now when you open the Presentation Details on the __Standard Values of your templates you can specify a different Layout or Renderings per device, i.e. different ones for AltSiteDevice
I'm trying to implement a menu in sitecore page. Menu that will be available in all the pages.
I can do a rendering that goes to some specific datasource and assign the rendering to a placeholder inside Design Layout of the layout.
However how can they edit the datasource (order, ammount of elements, etc..) item in page A that will be also replicated in page B.
Without going through all the pages to change order, color, text, items etc...
To do that you will want to create a new data template that holds the shareable content on it. So it would have fields for navigation items etc... any setting that you wanted to be shared across pages.
Then in your rendering, you can set the Datasource to this item. Any changes to that item would be reflected across all pages that use it.
You should add the rendering to the standard values of your page templates and set the Datasource to your main default navigation item, then all new pages will get the navigation ready setup.
You need design your view in such a way that it should be editable in experience editor mode.
If you have implemented using Glass Mapper there is good section on how to use Edit Frame.
Also you can check below community blog. for more details.
https://community.sitecore.net/technical_blogs/b/sitecorejohn_blog/posts/render-field-values-for-mvc-solutions-using-the-sitecore-asp-net-web-cms
I'm setting up a carousel in Sitecore using Glass Mapper. In the foreach loop to generate each carousel item, I can get the items out easily enough and make them editable with the #Editable command. What this doesn't give, however, is finer control over the edit process. For example, I want to edit the background image using a custom button in the Experience Editor, but I need to set that up in a rendering.
If I was using straight Sitecore, it looks like I'd use Html.Sitecore().ItemRendering and pass in the carousel item as a regular Sitecore item. In this case, I have my strongly-type class from Glass Mapper, which can't be passed in that way.
Is there a comparable method in Glass Mapper for setting up an item rendering? Or is there another way to affect the Experience Editor buttons for the carousel items? I've also experimented with setting up a separate edit mode, which would work fine, but I wanted to put together a cleaner editing experience with a more WYSIWYG approach to the item.
You'll have to use Custom User Experience Buttons which will allow you to edit in Page Editor Mode.
I just googled and found couple of good article which might help you.
http://www.nishtechinc.com/Blog/2015/March/A%20Better%20Approach%20at%20Carousel%20Management
http://www.awareweb.com/awareblog/11-25-14-custombuttonspageeditor
Try Html.Glass().BeginEditFrame() functionality built into Glass Mapper, wrapped in a #using block.
It allows you to specify the fields you wish to edit directly as params. Or if you're feeling adventurous, it can point to a full edit frame configuration in the core DB.
Before digging into my explanation i will summarize my question:
How do I provide the user (editor) with a user-friendly possibility to select a datasource item for sublayouts that are preset on the standard values?
My situation is as follows:
I have a page template, with pre-defined layout on the standard values.
Let's say the layout consists of:
one placeholder "wrapper"
one sublayout "content"
This sublayout is pre-defined on my page template, but can also be placed in the placeholder using the Page Editor.
It needs to have a datasource item that defines a Title and Body value.
Now, if a user adds this sublayout to the placeholder using the Page Editor, he will get a nice interface to select or create the datasource item (see screenshot).
However, if the sublayout was pre-defined on the standard values, it will be added without datasource (I can't pre-set the data source in the standard values because it's still unknown by then).
At that point there seems to be no way to get to that nice interface for selecting or creating a datasource item.
Ideally I want to be able to add a field to my template that can hold a datasource item which the user can select/create using the nice interface. I looked at the datasource field type, which could be an alternative, but it's still not exactly what I want.
Bare in mind that the content sublayout is just an example.
I understand that in that specific case I could solve it by always adding a title/body field to the template which hold the values if there is no datasource, but for my real world problem that won't suffice.
I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Page Editor (with the new way of working with it) so I would like to get some advice on this subject.
According to what you said here:
Ideally I want to be able to add a field to my template that can hold a datasource item which the user can select/create using the nice interface. I looked at the datasource field type, which could be an alternative, but it's still not exactly what I want.
It seems you want an intuitive data source selector interface in the CMS shell similar to the Page Editor-based UI.
Quick answer: Simply put, there's nothing that does this for you in Sitecore.
Longer answer: There are still some options for you, e.g.
Define a global "dummy" data source and set that to be the data source set in in Presentation > Layout Details of the template's standard values. So every time you create a new page, it will always point to that dummy value to show something.
From here you can do a few things:
If the user must use the shell UI and not Page Editor, they can simply create another data source item for the specific page and update that page to point to it using the existing native interface in Layout Details.
Another option is to write an event handler, say for item:created or similar that when you create an item, auto-create a corresponding data source item for this specific page (whether this auto-created item be a sub-items or global item...) then programmatically set this to be the data source. A similar concept is shown in this video by Nick Wesselman: http://www.techphoria414.com/Blog/2012/May/Sitecore_Page_Editor_Unleashed
I have two eclipse plugins(custom text editor plugin and a view plugin as two different projects). There is an action in the text editor that builds index of 'functions' of all dependent source files. At the end of this action I would like to show index(list of 'functions') in a tableviewer of the view plugin. What would you say the best way to achieve this? The view does not have to listen to the editor. It should be updated only when an action from editor plugin fires.
I exported a package from the editor plugin and exported another package from the view plug because text editor plugin needs to reference view type to populate tableViewer in the view plugin, and the view plugin needs to reference editor type in tableviewer's contentProvider. But I am getting an build path error:
A cycle was detected in the build path of project
How can I resolve this? Or If this is a bad approach, do I have a better way?
Thanks.
tk.
First of all, circular references between plug-ins are not allowed. So when you need to share information bidirectional between plug-ins, you often have to refactor the problem, to have a listener pattern for one of the directions.
In this case, I would use the same structure for your view as used for the existing Outline view. So your view should sub-class the PageBookView which have a rather simple protocol for how a participating editor can provide data to the view.
Basically I would do the same as done for the Outline view, and let the editor itself provide the content of the view via adaption. The Outline view does this by tracking the current editor, and whenever a new editor is "seen", the Outline view attempts to adapt the IEditorPart to IContentOutlinePage. The editor is responsible for the SWT widgets and listeners, etc that will be needed in the view page for this particular editor... Have a close look at the JavaDoc for ContentOutline - this is a rather good description of the protocols involved.
If you have multiple "open" editors, then the new view will automatically show the relevant information for the active editor and not "just" the editor that was active the last time you executed your action.
With this scheme, your action will simply
Show (and activate) the new view. This can be done via IWorkbenchPage.showView(...).
Request the provide page to update its view...