We are using Sitecore 7.2 with multi-site implementation. The actual data is shared between multisite, hence it's been stored in common Global Item folder.
We are facing a problem generating aunique ID on URL. I had a good search but could not find any solution except to use Sitecore Item ID.
This is what we want:
domain/players/player_id
e.g. domain/players/1234
where 1234 is uniquely generated ID.
Could someone please suggest if this is possible?
Every page that is managed in Sitecore is a Sitecore Item. As such, you should be able to just navigate to the name of the player item. If you were trying to say in your post that player items are stored in globals and not as pages, then you are left with the following options:
Query String: domain/players/player?playerId={ID}
If this is the route that you choose to take then I would suggest using the player item's Sitecore ID for the value of the query string parameter.
If you have other IDs then put the specified ID there, however it would be easiest with Sitecore IDs
What you would then do is get the item with the ID specified in the query string parameter (or get the item with the player ID specified in the query string parameter, depending on which route you take) and display the data for that player on the page
Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(Request.QueryString["playerId"])
playerItems.FirstOrDefault(playerItem => playerItem["Player ID"] == Request.QueryString["playerId"])
Note that this assumes that the Player ID is a field, not the Sitecore ID
If it is the Sitecore ID then change the lambda to use playerItem.ID == new ID(Request.QueryString["playerId"]
Regardless of which one you use, I suggest adding null checks to the QueryString getter
Sublayout Parameters
If you use this method, the query string will not change and people will not be able to get to the page from the direct URL
The process is the same as for query strings, except that you are using Sublayout parameters instead
Note that you must set these in a parent sublayout or in Sitecore (which means that you have a separate page for each player - i.e. this would be a bad solution)
Virtual Items
This is really what I think you are looking for
This can be a lot of work if you do it from scratch, or you can use the Wildcard Module
If you do it from scratch, you will need a custom pipeline and/or processor for handling the requests
Good suggestions from Zachary. I will add a couple more:
1) IIS Rewrite Module. If what you are really after is having external URLs look like /domain/players/1234, you could easily accomplish this by forwarding these requests to something like Zachary's option #1. The client sees /domain/players/1234, but it's really handled by a single Sitecore item at /domain/player/player.aspx?playerid=1234. Client doesn't have to know that.
2) Custom ItemResolver pipeline handler. Custom Pipelines may be a bit intimidating at first, but they are actually pretty easy to implement and highly useful. Would be pretty straightforward to add a new one which checked for "players/1234" and set the ContextItem to your player handling page and drop the ID into a session variable or some context variable.
Related
I am new to Sitecore and have a basic question around this. When I create a Sitecore item a Unique ID is created for this item. Is it ok if I use this item ID in the code to hold a reference to it? Does this change from deployment to deployment?
If you actually "deploy" your items -using a package or serialization (tool)-, the ID will stay the same and you can keep a reference to it in your code.
It is a good coding practice however not to spread hard-coded guids (as that is what the ID actually is wrapping) around all over your code. So either bundle them somewhere in a piece of code that can easily be deployed without side-effects or put them in a configuration file (but again, bundle them and don't mix with other stuff).
If for some reason the item would be gone some day and you need to re-create it (meaning: the id is changed) or you just need it to point to a new one, you will be grateful that you did keep it somewhere separated ;)
This is Sitecore behaviour to have Sitecore ID like a GUID. It is a very good aproach. The ID of an item can be also use in your C# code
The ID class in Sitecore is used to identify all types of item in Sitecore i.e. content items, templates, media items etc. It is a wrapper around .NET's own System.Guid struct and has a property called Guid which returns a System.Guid. Internally Sitecore stores IDs in it's SQL Server database using the uniqueidentifier type.
For exemple a template is also an item and it has a unique ID. If it wasn't the same ID between environments you need to modify your code between environments.
Sitecore ItemID always remain unique. So If you publish the content from your CM server to CD server, Item ID will not change. You can use ItemID as this ensure even if you change the name, you still reference to right Sitecore Content Item.
It is recommended to use some kind of class and put the item id there and reference from there so that in future, if you ever need to change then you change it in one place.
Using directly GUID or any number value for that matter are kind of magic values and is always prone to bugs.
A quick answer is yes, an ID does not change during deployments, so you can hold a reference in your code.
Sitecore Item Id will not change from deployment to deployment, You can use this ID in your code like:
Creating a class holding IDs
Or maybe a configuration file
I am creating a Sitecore MVC site for a client and I need to create page that will list news articles for the company.
So far, I have created items that use a shared data template called “Article,” and I also have a sublayout (a view rendering) called “Article” that will display these items.
For the list itself, my plan was to create another component (a sublayout) call “News_List”, and to put a placeholder in it called “List”.
My question is this: can I allow the author to insert articles (e.g., N items of type “Article”) into this placeholder via the page editor?
Will SC allow you to insert multiple instances of the same component into a placeholder? Will this break anything?
I believe this is a pretty common question but I have not found a definitive answer. Thanks in advance…!
You can insert as many components (of the same type) in your placeholder as you want.. Just make sure to put the placeholder settings correctly and give it a decent name (not just "list" ;))
But are you sure you want to do this? Your editors will manually need to create a list of components for each article they want to add on the page. Doesn't sound to be very user (editor) friendly.. Maybe you should consider creating a list component that can get a list of articles as a datasource and show those. Or even select them automatically (but that might be not according to your business case)..
Yes, authors can add multiple instances of the same component into a single placeholder.
Assuming that the code of the component doesn't do any stupid things it's absolutely ok to do this.
I used to implement listing/detail scenarios using wildcard items, meaning that, for the sake of URL, I create a regular item to display the list and then under that node, I create a wildcard item to represent all possible detail pages, like:
/news/*
(i generate a friendly name by code to replace wildcard and produce the full URL such as: mywebsite.com/news/the-meeting-press-release)
Then I create a folder or a bucket of content items somewhere else as my repository. Then I assign same datasource to listing node and wildcard node to give them same repository of content items.
Main reason I want to do this is to use datasources and make navigational nodes (which generate actual pages and URLs) to be separate from Content folder structure. In other words, separation of concerns: navigational items as presentation nodes and content items as my data repository.
This is an easy way to work around master/detail requirements but I always feel guilty about this, it feels like this technique breaks integrity (sitecore links table on database) and design pattern in Sitecore back-end.
For example when I look at Analytics, I get * as name of items, clearly the it feels like aliens to back-end system.
I know this is not a new topic. I have seen threads like this or ideas like Sitecore Pipeline Processor for Virtual Items to implement such requirements.
Is there any best practice about this? Have anyone good example of what is most sitecore-friendly way to implement such pipeline processor? How do you address this issue with wildcards on Analytics?
I'm going to go a different way to Martin here. I have successfully used Wildcards many times for the exact purpose you are suggesting (For an example have a look at http://www.atpworldtour.com/news - all news articles are items in a bucket with a wildcard to resolve the url).
There are 2 options to enabling the page editor.
The news article item becomes the page. In this way, you need a new processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline that resolves the url to the item and then sets Sitecore.Context.Item to the current item. IIRC you do this by setting one of the pipeline argument properties. This will work fine in the page editor as the context item - the one being edited - is the news article. And then other renderings on the page can just use data sources as needed.
The news article resolves to a Datasource. I have also tried this method. To do this, you need a custom Datasource resolver. I sill used a processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline so that I didn't have to resolve the Url multiple times for each rendering that needed the datasource. But then in the RenderRendering pipeline I had a processor that detected if I wanted a wildcard Datasource and used the item that had been resolved in the httpRequestBegin processor.
There are pros & cons for each method.
Option 1 is nice and simple. It means that you could use a single wildcard to resolve different "types" of page item as the presentation is on the page item and not the wildcard item, also each item can have its own custom presentation, so Datasources set in the page editor would be unique to an article. That is also a disadvantage in someways. A/B testing becomes more difficult with main article text etc... You are limited to testing article versions.
Option 2 is more flexible in the testing area - you can easily test/personalize parts of the article by changing the Datasource. But you are more limited as the presentation must be set on the wildcard. So renderings that are not part of the main article will have the same content/settings across all news articles.
I was previously in the same boat as you are. The are few issues with wildcard items, like resolving datasources or disability to run a page in Page(Experience) Editor or nested wildcards. Regardless of that, I have used wildcard few times and they do their job.
I've managed to resolve datasources properly, based on URL (see blog post: Automatically resolving correct Datasources for wildcard items based on URL), still did not sort the rest others.
Update: Richard suggests the way of implementing Page Editor below, you may find this helpful
Thus, my answer would be:
I would recommend you to keep classical approach of having a page item for each news item, rather than using wildcards. Content authors would use habitual approach (and page editor) rather that editing datasources somewhere on the content tree in Content Editor. If you configure that properly with templates and standard values - there would minimal hassle to create new news article.
In case if you worry about potential raise of number of news articles - use Buckets along with it (or suggest manual strategy to group them into folders).
Quite new to Sitecore and would like to understand the best way to access sitecore items. I've seen couple of ways:
Create Page ID field and get all items for given template and folder. Then do linq query on page ID.
Store all Page ID (Sitecore Item ID) on Constants file. Use this to query Sitecore using GetItem(itemID) API.
Could someone please suggest what's the best practice. Either way, I can see that there will be huge Constants file containing either custom Page ID or Sitecore Item ID.
My worry is do we really need to manage this Constants file or is there an elegant way to query CMS contents for given Page.
Thanks.
Approach 1 seems a bit odd. I don't really see why you would get a collection of items first when you already have the ID, but maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying.
I think a combination of 2 things you mention is best.
Constants classes are good for "landmark" items that will always definitely be there, so its fine for the GUID to be in code.
Some of these landmark items can be "configuraton items" that have fields containing the IDs of other items (These fields might have names like "Templates allowed in search"). This approach allows some flexibility for change by Sitecore users as the site evolves.
If you're concerned about the management of a constants file, I have to wonder how many items you need to access by ID. Sitecore items have properties like Parent and Children. You can also find items by template type etc.
This approach works well for me. I certainly don't think there is a more elegant way of getting strongly typed references to Sitecore items.
Personally, I prefer not to use constants files. What happens if your client or one of your developers deletes one of those items and creates a new one? One of the fundamental principles of Sitecore is that items can be added and removed by users who are not necessarily "technical" personnel.
Sitecore provides "Insert Options" so that you can specify what types of items can be added to each folder, and also grants the ability to protect certain items from deletion, via Roles and User Permissions. What does this mean conceptually? It means that Sitecore is set up such that the system architects/developers can create a structure that is not to be violated, while the content editors can add or remove content within that structure. In other words, Sitecore is designed to provide a framework in which the items can change but the location of each type of item is pre-determined.
As such, I suggest that you use the Custom Item Generator module available in the Sitecore Marketplace (free). CIG generates C# class representations (models) of your templates, and makes all fields into properties (I don't want to get too off-topic, but this is an awesome feature of CIG, especially when working with newer developers). You can add your own methods to your CIG classes for getting children of a particular type. For example, on a site in which the Profile Page is a direct child of the Homepage the following method could be added to the CIG HomepageItem.instance.cs file's HomepageItem partial class:
...
public partial class HomepageItem
{
public ProfilePageItem GetProfilePage()
{
//note that .IsOfType(...) is pseudo-code and not a real method, but I do
// suggest that you define an extension for it
return InnerItem.Children.FirstOrDefault(i => i.IsOfType(ProfilePageItem.TemplateId));
}
}
Be sure that you are assigning Insert Options to restrict the types of items that can be added as children to each item you make (add them on the Standard Values and not on the individual content items). I also suggest that you make a separate Template that inherits from Common/Folder for every folder that you use in the content tree. This way you can use CIG for your entire structure, via:
...in your Globals Item's CIG class...
public partial class GlobalsItem
{
public SlidesFolderItem GetSlidesFolder()
{
return InnerItem.Children.FirstOrDefault(i => i.IsOfType(SlidesFolderItem.TemplateId));
}
}
...in your Slides Folder Item's CIG class...
public partial class SlidesFolderItem
{
public IEnumerable<SlideItem> GetSlides()
{
return InnerItem.Children.Where(i => i.IsOfType(SlideItem.TemplateId));
}
}
and then you can get your Slide items via:
...
var slidesFolder = globals.GetSlidesFolder();
var slides = slidesFolder != null ? slidesFolder.GetSlides() : null;
Remember that CIG, Insert Options, and templates for each type of folder will enable you to create an iron-clad structure for your site that will not break if content editors make unexpected changes like replacing items.
Let me know if you have any questions on this. Good luck, and Happy Coding! :)
I am using play framework 2.0 .I a page where I list all the elements that the user can edit/delete. one of the listed elements in a look up from another table. I have coded a select in the forms and that works fine.
I would like to include the combo box in the displayed list, so the user can update it right there without having to drill down into each element to update the field. Is there a way to do this? I want to listen to the change in the combobox and update the underlying model.
I tried a few iterations, but the select box seems to want a play.api.data.Field , and not the value I provide.
the parameters to the page is a pageable list like this
#(currentPage: Page[Deal], currentSortBy: String, currentOrder: String, currentFilter: String)
I don't know if I understand the issue, but I think the problem you are stating would be better solved at the client, with some ajax in it...
otherwise, you would be issuing a whole page refresh every time the user updates the items
I would expose the pageable list like a rest-json web service, and I wuld call it from javascript, binding the on-change event...
Here you have an example using select2 to do the lookup and consumign a rest web service: http://bb-jugar.rhcloud.com/assets/js/tmp/select2/demo.html