I'd like to know if anyone has had experience of using rendering parameter fields in Sitecore to store content. If so, what drawbacks are there?
In some respects, this seems like an attractive idea as you can add a sublayout to a page numerous times without needing to create child items and setting each sublayout's datasource to one of these child items.... however putting content into renderings fields has a few disadvantages:
This solution is not localizable since the renderings field is shared, so no good for multi-language sites.
To edit the content (if using the content editor) you need to switch to the presentation tab, click details, select the sublayout then edit the rendering parameters which is all a bit cumbersome.
Are there any more serious consequences of adopting this approach?
There is no way to apply workflow to the fields.
There is no way to enable the fields for the page editor.
You can accomplish this just as easily by using the Page Editor and setting a Datasource Template and Datasource Location on your sublayout.
I'll reiterate something you already pointed out -- it's a shared field, so the content can't be localized.
There's no way to reuse the content stored in parameter fields.
Even if you DID do it, its hard to get the data from the parameters because they are XML-based (hint: add an Image to rendering parameters and look at what value you get back)
Overall, you are breaking the separation of content and presentation that the layout field is intended to provide. Please don't do this, one day a developer following in your footsteps will come across it and then spend all day on http://nooooooooooooooo.com/.
Related
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).
I am building a brand new website in Sitecore and I am looking for advice on the following scenario:
My site has 2 version of its homepage. Both are quite different. The layout is the same, but most of the components and sublayouts on it will change depending on whether the user is logged in or not.
Does anybody has a suggestion of a good practice, or way to do that in Sitecore? My basic requirements are, have a single URL for both (the website root, it is a homepage) and do not harm the content author experience.
My thought so far was:
Use of personalization to control the components to be displayed (Concerns: performance and the content author experience he woudnt have to change component by component to see both versions)
Use of two item in the tree and intercept a pipeline to resolve the right item at the right time (Concerns: the content author would have two home items to maintain *not actually a big problem)
Does anybody has any other approach or considerations on those I listed?
Thanks
An alternative solution would be to make use of devices, and use a pipeline to switch devices if the user is logged in.
Set up your Device in Sitecore to use the default layout as a fallback so it does not affect other pages in your site (and they continue to work as expected). You are then able to set different sublayouts and components for that Item (directly or in Standard Values for the template) for each device. You can make use the VaryByDevice caching option to make better use of the Cache.
Your content editors can also switch between the devices easily in the Page Editor from the ribbon. Any further customization you need in other areas of the site, such has switching out a single component, can be run using a Personlization Rule taking advantage of "where the current device compares to value".
It does sound like you have the need for personalization based on authenticated status, so I would recommend staying with the built-in personalization interface to avoid confusion. Authors will have been trained during Sitecore training on how to use personalization, and introducing an alternative method for accomplishing the same thing could lead to a less-than-optimal experience for the author.
To address your concern of the author needing to view components by toggling each one, I would recommend installing the Experience Explorer module. You can create presets that meet your rules on your presentation and then the author can preview the site for different 'experiences'.
If you have a single URL for the home page, it is more straight-forward to go with a single item, so I would definitely advise against having two home page items that are being resolved by the same URL.
You mentioned a concern for performance, so I would recommend you making sure that you enable your sublayout caching settings. In your case, varying by Data may be the way to go, given you would personalize with two sets of datasources.
In the past I have used the following crude technique:
Make two components, one for "logged in" and the other for anonymous.
Each rendering has just one line, a single placeholder, either:
<sc:placeholder key="logged-in" runat="server" />
or
<sc:placeholder key="anonymous" runat="server" />
For "logged in" I make a personalisation rule which hides the component if anonymous, and for the anonymous component I make a personalisation rule which hides the component if the user is logged in.
I then nest all the components under the correct placeholder key.
So I am rather new to sitecore, and it's a topic that wasn't covered during my training. My questions is just to help point me to the correct term, or documentation on a method to do the following.
I have a definition item, with a ton of field groups, what I want to do is something like:
if Value of Field X is "yes" then collapse/hide Field X or Field Group X.
Does that make sense? Is it a validation rule? or some other kind of rules, is it a workflow I need to attach? Do you place it on just the field I want to hide, or the field that triggers the action?
I appreciate any guidance.
There is nothing out-of-the-box in Sitecore to achieve what you want but there is no reason you cannot create a composite custom field type to do this. The following articles will help you achieve this:
Creating a custom Sitecore Field
Getting to Know Sitecore: Custom Fields, Part 1
Create a new control, inheriting either from Droplist (if the comparison of the value is to be text based) or Droplink (for comparison of ID). You could add a parameter in the Source field of the control to specify what the values that trigger the hide should be.
The underlying control in the Content Editor is just a standard HTML select element. Add onchange events to the control and add your Javascript handler to hide the other controls. Since I could not find a way of adding additional custom css classes to the Sitecore controls, it would be best/easiest to hide all other controls in the same collapsible group after you control. This would mean you would need to group your controls better (or logically at least).
The Javascript will be something like this (the Content Editor uses the Prototype JS framework):
if ($(this).getValue() == 'no') {
// find the parent container of this control and then hide all the next siblings in the same group
$(this).up('.scEditorFieldMarker').nextSiblings('.scEditorFieldMarker').invoke('hide');
}
You can test this by running the above in the console, change out the keyword this with the id of your field, e.g. $('FIELD2292054').
What I am not sure about is how to trigger the hide on initial load, i.e. when someone returns to an existing item, it may be possible by adding to one of the pipelines, but would be better using a JS solution if possible. I'll have a think about this and get a proper code sample up over the next few days.
EDIT: You can add an event handler to sc:contenteditorupdated to handle the content editor being rel-oaded.
document.observe("sc:contenteditorupdated", myFunction);
I wrote up a blog post and put the code on GitHub if you are interested.
Not sure if you have come across Andy Uzick's this blog post.
He wisely talks about hiding fields in the Content Editor and has also created a Sitecore Module called Hide Field Template Extension which is hosted on the Sitecore Marketplace with the full source code to extend.
After reading through and trying the extension, I do feel that it will not completely resolve your issue (how you have described it in the question).
But it will give you:
A mid-term solution to hide a few unnecessary field that some content editors would not like to view.
Fields that are only required by administrators for admin purpose - to de-clutter these fields could be hidden.
Just one thing to bear in mind that it mentions in the requirements Sitecore 6.5 & 6.6. I have not tested it in Sitecore 7. If you are using Sitecore 7, which I think you are, one could modify the source code and make it work for Sitecore 7.
Have a look and share your findings.
Happy Sitecoring!
Let's say there exists a presentational component in a project that renders an unordered list (called ListRenderer, perhaps.) We have a couple options of supplying data to any given ListRenderer on a page:
Have a TreeList (or TreeListEx) field on the content item, and have ListRenderer read from it.
Supply a DataSource (or other Parameter) to the ListRenderer via the presentation details.
I usually avoid #1 in my projects because it binds Sublayouts to templates, which gets quite messy. If you go down that path, eventually you'll have fields to support every potential sublayout in your project.
So my solutions tend toward option #2, which gets rid of that problem. It does, however, come with its own bag of questions. Where do I put these various "Lists" for a given ListRenderer to use? To maximize reuse and sharing, I usually create a components directory near the site root that contains all these types of things, if I predict the Lists will be shared. This seems less findable and harder to use for the content author, who suddenly have no idea where the source for their ListRenderer is unless they know how to crack open the presentation details (which is slightly advanced for my average user).
If I feel like Lists won't be shared, and are very specific to the page, I'll put them directly underneath the item in question. This has a tendency to muddle up the content tree, though, and any dynamically generated navigation sublayout then has to check for whether or not an item is an actual page before it generates the link to it. The more I work in Sitecore, the less I use this approach, but it seems easier for the content author. There is much easier access to information when you use this approach.
Is there any industry-accepted way of approaching this problem? It happens in projects all the time, and in my head I struggle to balance technical and content authorship concerns in situations like these.
Great question. I've used all the techniques you mentioned, depending on the audience and specifics of the project. The problem is that, as with all things Sitecore, they are all valid ways of achieving the same goal and you will struggle to find one answer that will work in every situation.
I almost always use #2 as well, but some content author retraining maybe necessary and make sure you add in restrictions to what the content author is able to select as a target. I have (within the same project) structured the items near the root (in a shared content folder) and under the item in question, depending on what I felt would provide the best context.
Also, if other child pages would exist below the item as well as the list items, then I would put the list items in a separate folder (with a common "list items" icon") and re-order it to be the first item for separation and clarity.
If you want to use any kind of personalization and DMS then you will need the ability to switch out the datasource anyway so you shouldn't hard code locations.
You might also (if you have not already) want to consider using:
Convert Data Source Paths to IDs Using the Sitecore ASP.NET CMS
- Useful if you need to restructure your content at a later date
Queryable Datasource Locations
- Useful for multi-site situations when you need to make clones, or setting as the default datasource value in Standard Values when the lists are directly below the item but gives you the flexibility to change it.
I prefer using querable datasources personally, I find the xpath syntax more logical.
As Mark has commented, there is no real industry standard.
I feel like this is something that needs improvement.
Especially when you are using the DataSource option, things become less transparent to the editors and as the size of the site grows, so does the complexity.
All I can tell you is how I would do it, which is most likely much like how you are doing it.
1) For overview pages like news, events and faq items, I will put the items underneath the overview item and use the NewsMover shared source module to auto-create a hierarchy.
2) I will create a Global site that contains items that are shared across sites or pages. DataSource items for components will be put in here.
3) For components that are present on the standard values, I will add a list field to the template (for example, when you display related items on a content page)
Most often it's a logical choice and sometimes it's just a matter of taste.
I'd like to add that I've written a blog post on how to have datasource items created automatically for components that are set on standard values. That might help you if you are using those.
Edit:
"I usually avoid #1 in my projects because it binds Sublayouts to templates, which gets quite messy. If you go down that path, eventually you'll have fields to support every potential sublayout in your project."
Today I've blogged about a method of hiding fields and sections in the content editor if there is no sublayout set on the item that requires those fields, which helps to prevent the mess of having a lot of unused fields on your items.
I am listing products as table rows, each row contains input fields for specifying the quantity of products.
I made a Fiddle for it here, http://jsfiddle.net/kroofy/4jTa8/19/
As you can see, after the input in the Qty field have been made, the whole row render again. And because of that the focus of the input field will be lost, which is not good if you want to input more than just one digit, or tab between input fields.
What would be the most elegant way to solve this?
I would handle this by setting model.set({qty: _qty}, {silent: true}) and then updating the non-input fields with this.$.
As an alternative to the silent treatment: rather than listening for change events, listen for change:qty and change:sellPrice and have a method that updates just the HTML that needs updating within this.$, rather than re-rendering the DOM object and breaking your focus.
Either way, your comment about "selective updating" on the fiddle is certainly the right way to go.
(this.$ is a backbone hack to jQuery that restricts all selectors to search only within the DOM of the View's element. The element doesn't even need an ID or class; it just needs to exist and the View maintains a handle to it. It's incredibly useful.)
i built a plugin for backbone called Backbone.ModelBinding that may be able to help in this situation. my plugin allows you to update portions of a view with data from a model, when the model changes.
i've forked / updated your fiddle to show it in action: http://jsfiddle.net/derickbailey/FEcyF/6/
i removed the binding to the model change. i've also added id attributes to the inputs of the form to facilitate the plugin (the attribute that the plugin uses is configurable, though). and lastly, i've added a data-bind attribute to the sell price total td.
you can get the plugin here: http://github.com/derickbailey/backbone.modelbinding/
hope that helps
FWIW: my plugin is an automated version of what Elf is suggesting. I've written code exactly like he is describing, numerous times, which is where the plugin came from. I just got tired of writing that code by hand :)