Sitecore Load all items into an MVC model? - sitecore

Question

I have created a bunch of custom templates to store items (such as Industries, Subindustries, etc.) in Sitecore. I now want to go about loading these into my Sitecore MVC model.
The lists are located in sitecore > Content > Lists. For example inside the Lists folder there is a folder called Country. I want to get back all the items within the Country folder and populate them as unordered list in my view.
UPDATE: I implemented the Glass.Mapper.Sc method suggested below. It is fully operational now.
This is what my working model looks like now:
using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Configuration;
using Glass.Mapper.Sc.Configuration.Attributes;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Mvc.Presentation;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace Sitecore.Web.Models
{
public class Registration: IRenderingModel
{
public Rendering Rendering { get; set; }
public Item Item { get; set; }
public Item PageItem { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<CountryChildItem> CountryList { get; set; }
[SitecoreType(AutoMap = true)]
public class CountryItem
{
public virtual IEnumerable<CountryChildItem> Children { get; set; }
}
[SitecoreType(AutoMap = true)]
public class CountryChildItem
{
[SitecoreId]
public virtual Guid Id { get; set; }
[SitecoreInfo(SitecoreInfoType.Path)]
public virtual string Path { get; set; }
[SitecoreField]
public virtual string DisplayName { get; set; }
[SitecoreField]
public virtual string Abbreviation { get; set; }
}
public void Initialize(Rendering rendering)
{
Rendering = rendering;
Item = rendering.Item;
PageItem = PageContext.Current.Item;
}
}
}
and this is what my working contoller looks like:
using Glass.Mapper.Sc;
using Sitecore.Web.Models;
using System.Web.Mvc;
namespace Sitecore.Web.Controllers
{
public class RegistrationController : Controller
{
Registration registrationModel = new Registration();
public ActionResult Index()
{
ISitecoreContext sitecoreContext = new SitecoreContext();
ISitecoreService service = new SitecoreService(sitecoreContext.Database);
Registration.CountryItem countryItem = service.GetItem<Registration.CountryItem>("/sitecore/content/Lists/Country");
registrationModel.CountryList = countryItem.Children;
return View(registrationModel);
}
}
}
and a snippet of my working view:
<ul class="select-menu-options dropdown-menu">
#foreach (var country in Model.CountryList)
{
<li>#country.DisplayName</li>
}
</ul>

Answer 1

If I were in your position I'd look into Glassmapper for Sitecore.
It's a fairly lightweight ORM for Sitecore.
http://www.glass.lu/Mapper/Sc
I'd also suggest moving the lists located in
sitecore > Templates > User Defined > Lists > Content
to some where under either
sitecore > Content
or
sitecore > System
(whichever makes more sence)
UPDATE:
Try adding this above your class:
[SitecoreType(AutoMap = true)]
public class CountryItem
{
//...
}

Answer 2

If you change your CountryItem and other model classes to inherit from SearchResultItem like that:
[PredefinedQuery("TemplateID", ComparisonType.Equal, "{ID-OF-CountryItem-TEMPLATE}", typeof(ID))]
public class CountryItem : Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchTypes.SearchResultItem
{
[IndexField("_displayname")]
public virtual string DisplayName { get; set; }
[IndexField("abbreviation")]
public string Abbreviation { get; set; }
}
You should be able to use Sitecore indexes to retrieve all the countries and other lists like that:
private static string IndexName
{
get
{
return string.Format("sitecore_{0}_index", (Context.ContentDatabase ?? Context.Database).Name);
}
}
private static string Language { get { return Context.Language.Name; } }
public IEnumerable<CountryItem> GetCountries()
{
using (var context = ContentSearchManager.GetIndex(IndexName).CreateSearchContext())
{
IQueryable<CountryItem> queryable = context.GetQueryable<CountryItem>();
queryable = queryable.Where(i => i.Language == Language);
queryable = queryable.Where(i => i.LatestVersion);
// ... maybe excluding standard values or some other filters
var searchResults = queryable.GetResults();
return queryable.ToList();
}
}
Please be aware that this is just an example. You need to test it and most probably adapt to your solution.
And as Dar Brett mentioned, you should not keep any data items under the Templates node.