I have a page template that inherits multiple data templates.
Take for example: Event Page
which inherits: Basic Page, HasDateRange, and HasLocation
Now, I want the Date Range field group of the HasDateRange template to appear first when editing Event Pages. That's a simple example, but in general, how can I influence the field group order on templates when using multiple inheritance? Let's say I don't need DateRange at the top of one template and at the bottom of another... I generally have more important fields that need to appear at the top of every template they are included on.
Not sure it matters, but I am using Sitecore version 7.1
Template Section items have a sortorder field which accepts an integer. That number governs the order in which sections will appear.
Here's an article from the Sitecore site:
Sorting sections in templates
Also, see the following Stack Overflow question:
Sortorder of Inherited Templates
Related
Relatively new Sitecore dev here and I'm trying to get some clarity on simple topics, so I have a few questions.
When creating a data template: what is the difference between just filling in the values on the template, and adding standard values? Don't both become default values whenever you create an instance of that template? If I want to make sure each item of a template has a certain value, which should I use and why? When is it appropriate to just fill out the value on the template, as opposed to adding standard values?
Branch templates: I need to create a group of items whenever a single item is created, and it sounds like branch templates are perfect for this. However, I recently read that instantiated items from a branch template stop inheriting the moment they're created.
For example, I have a branch template called Store, and create an item based off of this called Walmart. I then add features to the Store by adding new items, but Walmart doesn't get those changes? If this is problematic to my situation. I really need to keep all instantiated items in line with the branch template, and give them the new features. If my understanding is correct, how can I get around this?
Thanks
Templates. For mature .NET developer it would make sense to think about templates as about C# classes - they define the data structure for the items that would be created on that particular template. Like classes in C# they may be inherited, but unlike in C# multiple inheritance is supported with them.
Official documentation on templates is quite descriptive and handy: https://sdn.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore7/70/data_definition_api_cookbook_sc70_a4.pdf
Standard Values is a kind of blueprint prototype item for your template. You create some default values that will be auto-filled as soon as you create an item of that particular template. Standard Values item is a child item of a template definition item. You may also use tokens - dynamic values like $name, $parentname, $date, $time, $now, $id and others (you may also create your own tokens). Please read more about standard values: http://goo.gl/uUZJZf
Branch templates allow you to re-produce a sub-tree on instantiation, not just one item, but also some children (and children of those children) as you specify in branch template itself. As on screenshot below, whatever is selected within red frame will be created as a result of branch template instantiation:
Also, Sitecore items can't inherit from values set in a branch template. They will always default to the values in the original template's standard values. This is a limitation of branches (as described in this SO question: http://goo.gl/PSElYy)
As far as I understood your case, you should have a branch template called Store (somewhere underneath /sitecore/templates/Branches) and within that item reproduce exact structure that will be created on when template is used to replicate into a new branch in your content. Again, you may use tokes all around branch template (at any level) - they would be replaced with actual values. Likewise, when you use your Store branch template to create Walmart, you may auto set its display name to Walmart by using $name token.
I have template (A) and template (B).
B template has base template (A). But, if I update layout presentation in template (A)'s standard values, it doesn't effect on template (B)'s standard values.
Why???
This is an issue to do with the way the layout is stored in the standard values. As soon as you change the presentation details of template(B) Sitecore will copy the __renderings field value from template(A). Standard values unfortunately store the full definition of the layout, not just the change deltas like regular items and so the link is broken for the layout details between the 2 templates.
You can write a Item Saving event handler to "copy up" the calculate the differences and apply those. You can find more info and code in this blog post by Przemek Taront:
Complex layouts in Sitecore using standard values hierarchy
You need to click Reset under Layout ribbon on Template B's standard values.
After changing the inheritance structure of a template I seem to have broken every layout on the entire site.
In short we had two content page templates in two different locations. I basically changed templates inheriting from /bad path/Content Page to /good path/content page.
I've set breakpoints in the sublayouts, but basically anything set up in the page editor using placeholders isn't displaying correctly, and the code isn't even getting hit.
* UPDATE *
Here is an interesting warning in the log file
3176 09:05:52 WARN Long running operation: renderContentEditor pipeline[id={xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx}]
Thanks
If your presentation details are set on individual items and not being inherited from the template, a change of template would not generally affect the placeholder settings of the item. It should retain all of its existing item-specific presentation details.
That being said, I would recommend double-checking the items to make sure they are not inheriting from the template and have their own override value (check the Layout field in the Content Editor to see if it says "Standard Values" next to the field name)
The other part of this could be the field access. You mentioned you changed templates inheriting from one content page to another. If your code references fields by ID, your different templates will have different ID values for the same field. So if your "content page" template has a "Title" field, it will not get the data from the "Title" field of your other "Content Page" template. This could cause a lot of errors as you may be depending on the presence of a field. This would usually lead to .NET errors in many cases, however.
In Sitecore, I have a field which is re-used by several page templates. I use basepage inheritance, partly so I don't have to configure the source, help-text and so on each time it is used.
However there are times when the field has a slightly different meaning for one particular page template, and I would like to adjust the Title and help text accordingly to make it easier for the content editors.
Can anyone suggest a good way of doing this in Sitecore? Or is the solution just to make another copy of the field and edit that accordingly, especially as that's only a few seconds work.
Update: Thanks for the answers, I agree with all of them. The difference in the purpose of the fields was so subtle that I didn't think it warranted different fields, but I guess that's a kind of micro-optimisation that will just end up confusing everyone anyway, and certainly isn't worth developing a whole UI / datastore just for this purpose.
Good question, and one that most Sitecore people arrive at eventually. That fact is that the help text is part of the field item. So if you want different help text, you need a different field.
As you point out, the fields sometimes have a different meaning. This is an indicator that it should in fact be a different field.
My suspicion is that you're probably better defining the field more than once.
It may well be possible to modify how Sitecore generates the editing controls shown in Content Editor so that your field's title varies. But that implies you need to store some configuration somewhere to say "when should it change" and "what should it change to". And that's likely to take some time to set up. Plus I think that might be confusing to future developers on the project as it's unexpected behaviour for a field to change it's appearance in different places?
So I'd argue that multiple definitions of the field will be easier for other developers to understand, and probably less prone to mistakes.
If this is not a field that is different on every page, I would keep the inherited field, whether or not it is used by the current page, and create a new one to suit the changed purpose. If the field does have a different meaning on every page, then I would remove it from the base template and re-make it for each page template.
If you have this field on your base page template and it is used on most pages, you will want to ensure that you are still able to use it on the other pages that need it, even if there are one or two exceptions where it does not apply. However, if the purpose of this field changes on every page, then it is better architecture to create a separate field on each page.
It is best practice to use each field for a defined, uniform job; you should not be re-purposing fields between items, as it will lead to confusion for both developers and content editors.
Depending on how many templates you have it may be worth taking that field out of the base template and create two separate templates for these fields.
Essentially will probably have the same field name but with a different help text and title.
Then just inherit the one you want.
This way you keep it separate and this makes better sense being separated as mentioned above.
If you have loads of template already using it then maybe a quick script to swap these over before applying the new template to help change existing ones over (only if you have lots of templates using this base template already)
Hopefully I've made sense here.
As everyone has stated, you need different field for different page templates.
I would do the following, create a new template which contains your common field, and make page templates that use this field with same 'meaning' inherits the new template.
And for page templates that use this field with different meaning, add a separate field to each template.
I'm working on a Sitecore (6.4.0.101124) site that has two templates used for the home page. These have a very similar structure - the big difference between them is that they each have one different sublayout in the Controls section of the Presentation Details of the Standard Values. My understanding is that when the template is changed on an item the standard values of the template should be applied to that item. However, when the content editors change the template the presentation details remain the same until I go in and change them.
So this means that either I misunderstand how this is supposed to work, or something wonky is happening. This is a very similar problem to what's discussed in this thread, but the answers given don't seem to apply since this item was not created using a branch template.
Has anyone had a similar experience with this (and solved it)? Am I way off base in how this is supposed to work?
You write:
My understanding is that when the template is changed on an item the standard values of the template should be applied to that item.
This is only true if a field has not been edited. Once a field for an item has been edited, the edited value takes precedence over the default. Changing the template to one that has different Standard Values will only have an impact if the field has not been touched, or if the user resets the field to the default value using the Fields Reset button. (Note that manually clearing the field will not do the trick. Sitecore will store an empty string, which will override the Standard Value. By using the Reset button, you set the field to a Database Null, which causes the Standard Value to be used.)
You can tell if a field has been edited by checking for the text "standard value" next to the field in the Content Editor:
Sitecore 6.4.0 and Layout Deltas
Things are more complex with the Renderings field on Sitecore 6.4.0 and above, because Sitecore introduced a feature called "Layout Deltas" with this release. Before Layout Deltas, if you edited the presentation details of an item, Sitecore would copy the layout information from the "Renderings" field of Standard Values into the item's Renderings field, which had the consequence that any subsequent change to Standard Values Renderings would have no effect on the display of this item.
This functionality made it difficult to manage changes to presentation, since a minor change to a detail of presentation on an individual item, such as adding conditional rendering logic, would break the inheritance from Standard Values. If if was necessary to change the presentation of a class of items, it was necessary to first change Standard Values, and then to make the same change to every item that modified presentation.
With Sitecore 6.4's Layout Deltas, if you modify the presentation of an item, just the change is stored in the item's Renderings field, rather than a complete copy of the Standard Values rendering. This change, or delta, information is applied on top of the Standard Values Renderings information, so that modifications to Standard Values layouts are applied to all inheriting items, not just ones with unmodified presentation.
It sounds like your content editors have made a modification to the presentation of the item. When the template is switched, this change is being applied on top of the new template. You can confirm this by checking for the [Standard Values] text next to the Renderings field of the item in question.
The template has values, but what carries the values to the items that are created using that template is in the standard values item. Now, that being said, each field on an item that is created from that template has a flag that says whether or not its using template standard values. If the presentation details are NOT flagged as using standard values still, then its not going to cascade down the updates to the items.
Now.. to be sure that you understand the difference between a branch and a template.. a branch is sort of a "model" of how you can create an item. It is NOT going to cascade changes down when you make changes to the branch item at all. Items will inherit values from their TEMPLATE standard values. The branch values inherit only upon item creation.
EDIT: By the way, I should add that if you turn on the gutter on the left to show presentation overridden, you can see if the presentation values are standard values or not. If you see the icon, then you know the item is not currently using standard values.
I got to this question because I had a field across hundreds of pages which I needed to change. It was not shared to begin with. I tried setting the field to Shared & Unversioned within the template but that did not cause it to change everywhere when I made changes.
I then proceeded to set a Standard Value in the template to what I wanted the field to be, and then selected Versions -> Fields -> Reset after highlighting the Standard Value. The first time I did this, it reset the field to blank. Then I did it again and the field changed on every page which used that particular field. Hope this helps. It seems if you already have a field which wasn't shared to begin with, you need to do a standard value reset to it.