Replace Proxies With Clones in the Sitecore CMS
The other day I stumbled upon a thread in the Sitecore Developer Network (SDN) forums that briefly touched upon replacing proxies with clones, and I wondered whether anyone had built any sort of tool that creates clones for items being proxied — basically a tool that would automate creating clones from proxies — and removes the proxies once the clones are in place.
Since I am not aware of such a tool — not to mention that I’m hooked on programming and just love coding — I decided to create one.
The following command is my attempt at such a tool:
using System;
using System.Linq;
using Sitecore.Configuration;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Data.Proxies;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Shell.Framework.Commands;
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Commands
{
public class TransformProxyToClones : Command
{
public override void Execute(CommandContext context)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
TransformProxyItemToClones(GetContextItem(context));
}
private static void TransformProxyItemToClones(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
if(!CanTransform(item))
{
return;
}
string proxyType = GetProxyType(item);
Item source = GetItem(GetSourceItemFieldValue(item));
Item target = GetItem(GetTargetItemFieldValue(item));
if (AreEqualIgnoreCase(proxyType, "Entire sub-tree"))
{
DeleteItem(item);
CloneEntireSubtree(source, target);
}
else if (AreEqualIgnoreCase(proxyType, "Root item only"))
{
DeleteItem(item);
CloneRootOnly(source, target);
}
}
private static void CloneEntireSubtree(Item source, Item destination)
{
Clone(source, destination, true);
}
private static void CloneRootOnly(Item root, Item destination)
{
Clone(root, destination, false);
}
private static Item Clone(Item cloneSource, Item cloneDestination, bool deep)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(cloneSource, "cloneSource");
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(cloneDestination, "cloneDestination");
return cloneSource.CloneTo(cloneDestination, deep);
}
private static void DeleteItem(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
if (Settings.RecycleBinActive)
{
item.Recycle();
}
else
{
item.Delete();
}
}
public override CommandState QueryState(CommandContext context)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
if (CanTransform(GetContextItem(context)))
{
return CommandState.Enabled;
}
return CommandState.Hidden;
}
private static Item GetContextItem(CommandContext context)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
return context.Items.FirstOrDefault();
}
private static bool CanTransform(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return IsProxy(item)
&& IsSourceDatabaseFieldEmpty(item)
&& !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(GetProxyType(item))
&& !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(GetSourceItemFieldValue(item))
&& !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(GetTargetItemFieldValue(item));
}
private static bool IsProxy(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return ProxyManager.IsProxy(item);
}
private static string GetProxyType(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return item["Proxy type"];
}
private static bool IsSourceDatabaseFieldEmpty(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(item["Source database"]);
}
private static string GetSourceItemFieldValue(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return item["Source item"];
}
private static string GetTargetItemFieldValue(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return item["Target item"];
}
private static Item GetItem(string path)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(path, "path");
return Context.ContentDatabase.GetItem(path);
}
private static bool AreEqualIgnoreCase(string one, string two)
{
return string.Equals(one, two, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
}
}
}
The above command is only visible for proxy items having both source and target items set, and the proxy is for the context content database.
When the command is invoked, the source item — conjoined with its descendants if its sub-tree is also being proxied — is cloned to the target item, after the proxy definition item is deleted.
I registered the above command in Sitecore using an include configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
<sitecore>
<commands>
<command name="item:transformproxytoclones" type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Commands.TransformProxyToClones, Sitecore.Sandbox"/>
</commands>
</sitecore>
</configuration>
I also wired this up in the core database for the item context menu (I’ve omitted a screenshot on how this is done; If you would like to see how this is done, please see part 1 and part 2 of my post showing how to add to the item context menu).
Let’s take this for a drive.
I created a bunch of items for testing:
I then created a proxy for these test items:
I then right-clicked on our test proxy item to launch its context menu, and then clicked on the “Transform Proxy To Clones” menu option:
The proxy item was removed, and we now have clones:
If you can think of any other ideas around proxies or clones, or know of other tools that create clones from proxies, please leave a comment.
Display Content Management Server Information in the Sitecore CMS
The other day I cogitated over potential uses for the getAboutInformation pipeline. Found at /configuration/sitecore/pipelines/getAboutInformation in the Web.config, it can be leveraged to display information on the Sitecore login page, and inside of the About dialog — a dialog that can be launched from the Content Editor.
One thing that came to mind was displaying some information for the Content Management (CM) server where the Sitecore instance lives. Having this information readily available might aid in troubleshooting issues that arise, or seeing the name of the server might stop you from making content changes on the wrong CM server (I am guilty as charged for committing such a blunder in the past).
This post shows how I translated that idea into code.
The first thing we need is a way to get server information. I defined the following interface to describe information we might be interested in for a server:
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Server.Base
{
public interface IServer
{
string Name { get; }
string Cpu { get; }
string OperatingSystem { get; }
}
}
We now need a class to implement the above interface. I stumbled upon a page whose author shared how one can acquire server information using classes defined in the System.Management namespace in .NET.
Using information from that page coupled with some experimentation, I came up with the following class:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Management;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Server.Base;
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Server
{
public class Server : IServer
{
private string _Name;
public string Name
{
get
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(_Name))
{
_Name = GetServerName();
}
return _Name;
}
}
private string _Cpu;
public string Cpu
{
get
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(_Cpu))
{
_Cpu = GetCpuInformation();
}
return _Cpu;
}
}
private string _OperatingSystem;
public string OperatingSystem
{
get
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(_OperatingSystem))
{
_OperatingSystem = GetOperatingSystemName();
}
return _OperatingSystem;
}
}
private Server()
{
}
private static string GetServerName()
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyFirstInnerProperty("Win32_ComputerSystem", "name");
}
private static string GetCpuInformation()
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyFirstInnerProperty("Win32_Processor", "name");
}
private static string GetOperatingSystemName()
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyFirstInnerProperty("Win32_OperatingSystem", "name");
}
private static string GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyFirstInnerProperty(string key, string propertyName)
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyInnerProperties(key, propertyName).FirstOrDefault();
}
private static IEnumerable<string> GetFirstManagementBaseObjectPropertyInnerProperties(string key, string propertyName)
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObjectProperty(key, propertyName).Split('|');
}
private static string GetFirstManagementBaseObjectProperty(string key, string propertyName)
{
return GetFirstManagementBaseObject(key)[propertyName].ToString();
}
private static ManagementBaseObject GetFirstManagementBaseObject(string key)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(key, "key");
WqlObjectQuery query = new WqlObjectQuery(string.Format("select * from {0}", key));
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
return searcher.Get().Cast<ManagementBaseObject>().FirstOrDefault();
}
public static IServer CreateNewServer()
{
return new Server();
}
}
}
The class above grabs server information via three separate ManagementObjectSearcher queries, one for each property defined in our IServer interface.
In order to use classes defined in the System.Management namespace, I had to reference System.Management in my project in Visual Studio:
Next, I created a class that contains methods that will serve as our getAboutInformation pipeline processors:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Pipelines.GetAboutInformation;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Server.Base;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Server;
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Pipelines.GetAboutInformation
{
public class GetContentManagementServerInformation
{
private static readonly string CurrentServerInformationHtml = GetCurrentServerInformationHtml();
public void SetLoginPageText(GetAboutInformationArgs args)
{
args.LoginPageText = CurrentServerInformationHtml;
}
public void SetAboutText(GetAboutInformationArgs args)
{
args.AboutText = CurrentServerInformationHtml;
}
private static string GetCurrentServerInformationHtml()
{
return GetServerInformationHtml(Server.CreateNewServer());
}
private static string GetServerInformationHtml(IServer server)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(server, "server");
IList<string> information = new List<string>();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(server.Name))
{
information.Add(string.Format("<strong>Server Name</strong>: {0}", server.Name));
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(server.Cpu))
{
information.Add(string.Format("<strong>CPU</strong>: {0}", server.Cpu));
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(server.OperatingSystem))
{
information.Add(string.Format("<strong>OS</strong>: {0}", server.OperatingSystem));
}
return string.Join("<br />", information);
}
}
}
Both methods set properties on the GetAboutInformationArgs instance using the same HTML generated by the GetServerInformationHtml method. This method is given an instance of the Server class defined above by the GetCurrentServerInformationHtml method.
I then connected all of the above into Sitecore via a configuration include file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
<sitecore>
<pipelines>
<getAboutInformation>
<processor type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Pipelines.GetAboutInformation.GetContentManagementServerInformation, Sitecore.Sandbox" method="SetLoginPageText" />
<processor type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Pipelines.GetAboutInformation.GetContentManagementServerInformation, Sitecore.Sandbox" method="SetAboutText" />
</getAboutInformation>
</pipelines>
</sitecore>
</configuration>
Let’s see this in action.
When hitting the Sitecore login page in my browser, I saw server information in the right sidebar, under the Sitecore version and revision numbers:
Next, I logged into Sitecore, opened the Content Editor, and launched the About dialog:
As you can see, my CM server information is also displayed here.
You might be questioning why I didn’t include more server information on both the login page and About dialog. One reason why I omitted displaying other properties is due to discovering that the login page area for showing the LoginPageText string does not grow vertically — I saw this when I did include a few more properties in addition to the three shown above.
Sadly, I did not see what would happen when including these additional properties in the the About dialog. Ascertaining whether it is possible to include more information in the About dialog is warranted, though I will leave that exercise for another day.
If you have any other thoughts or ideas for utilizing getAboutInformation pipeline processors, or other areas in Sitecore where server information might be useful, please drop a comment.
Suppress Most Sitecore Wizard Cancel Confirmation Prompts
By default, clicking the ‘Cancel’ button on most wizard forms in Sitecore yields the following confirmation dialog:
Have you ever said to yourself “Yes, I’m sure I’m sure” after seeing this, and wondered if there were a setting you could toggle to turn it off?
Earlier today, while surfing through my Web.config, the closeWizard client pipeline — located at /sitecore/processors/closeWizard in the Web.config — had caught my eye, and I was taken aback over how I had not noticed it before. I was immediately curious over what gems I might find within its only processor — /sitecore/processors/closeWizard/processor[@type=’Sitecore.Web.UI.Pages.WizardForm, Sitecore.Kernel’ and @method=’Confirmation’] — and whether there would be any utility in overriding/extending it.
At first, I thought having a closeWizard client pipeline processor to completely suppress the “Are you sure you want to close the wizard?” confirmation prompt would be ideal, but then imagined how irate someone might be after clicking the ‘Cancel’ button by accident, which would result in the loss of his/her work.
As a happy medium between always prompting users whether they are certain they want to close their wizards and not prompting at all, I came up with the following closeWizard client pipeline processor:
using System;
using Sitecore.Configuration;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.Pages;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer;
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Web.UI.Pages
{
public class SuppressConfirmationWizardForm : WizardForm
{
private const string SuppressConfirmationRegistryKey = "/Current_User/Content Editor/Suppress Close Wizard Confirmation";
private static string YesNoCancelDialogPrompt { get; set; }
private static int YesNoCancelDialogWidth { get; set; }
private static int YesNoCancelDialogHeight { get; set; }
static SuppressConfirmationWizardForm()
{
YesNoCancelDialogPrompt = Settings.GetSetting("SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Prompt");
YesNoCancelDialogWidth = Settings.GetIntSetting("SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Width", 100);
YesNoCancelDialogHeight = Settings.GetIntSetting("SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Height", 100);
}
public void CloseWizard(ClientPipelineArgs args)
{
if (IsCancel(args))
{
args.AbortPipeline();
return;
}
if (ShouldSaveShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting(args))
{
SaveShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting(args);
}
if (ShouldCloseWizard(args))
{
EndWizard();
}
else
{
SheerResponse.YesNoCancel(YesNoCancelDialogPrompt, YesNoCancelDialogWidth.ToString(), YesNoCancelDialogHeight.ToString());
args.WaitForPostBack();
}
}
private static bool ShouldCloseWizard(ClientPipelineArgs args)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
return args.HasResult || ShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting();
}
private static bool ShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting()
{
return Registry.GetBool(SuppressConfirmationRegistryKey);
}
private static bool ShouldSaveShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting(ClientPipelineArgs args)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
return args.HasResult && !IsCancel(args);
}
private static void SaveShouldSuppressConfirmationSetting(ClientPipelineArgs args)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
Registry.SetBool(SuppressConfirmationRegistryKey, AreEqualIgnoreCase(args.Result, "yes"));
}
private static bool IsCancel(ClientPipelineArgs args)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
return AreEqualIgnoreCase(args.Result, "cancel");
}
private static bool AreEqualIgnoreCase(string one, string two)
{
return string.Equals(one, two, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
}
}
}
The pipeline processor above will let users decide whether they want to continue seeing the “Are you sure?”‘ confirmation prompt — albeit I had to change the messaging to something more fitting giving the new functionality (see the patch include configuration file or testing screenshot below for the new messaging).
If a user clicks ‘Yes’, s/he will never be prompted with this dialog again — this preference is saved in a Sitecore registry setting for the user.
Plus, suppressing this dialog in one place will suppress it everywhere it would display
Clicking ‘No’ will ensure the message is displayed again in the future.
Clicking ‘Cancel’ will just close the confirmation dialog, and return the user back to the wizard.
You might be wondering why I subclassed Sitecore.Web.UI.Pages.WizardForm. I had to do this in order to get access to its EndWizard() method which is a protected method. This method closes the wizard form.
I plugged it all in via a patch include configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
<sitecore>
<processors>
<closeWizard>
<processor mode="on" patch:instead="processor[@type='Sitecore.Web.UI.Pages.WizardForm, Sitecore.Kernel' and @method='Confirmation']" type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Web.UI.Pages.SuppressConfirmationWizardForm, Sitecore.Sandbox" method="CloseWizard"/>
</closeWizard>
</processors>
<settings>
<setting name="SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Prompt" value="You are about to close the wizard. Would you also like to avoid this message in the future?" />
<setting name="SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Width" value="100" />
<setting name="SuppressConfirmationYesNoCancelDialog.Height" value="100" />
</settings>
</sitecore>
</configuration>
I tested the above pipeline processor on the wizard for creating a new data template:
I decided to omit screenshots after clicking ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Cancel’ — there really isn’t much to show since all close the confirmation dialog, with the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ buttons also closing the wizard.
I also did a little research to see what wizard forms in Sitecore might be impacted by the above, and compiled the following list of wizard form classes — this list contains classes from both Sitecore.Kernel.dll and Sitecore.Client.dll:
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Analytics.Lookups.RunLookupForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Analytics.Reports.Summary.UpdateForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Analytics.SynchronizeDatabase.SynchronizeDatabaseForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Analytics.VisitorIdentifications.RunVisitorIdentificationsForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Databases.CleanUp.CleanUpForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.ArchiveDate.ArchiveDateForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.FixLinks.FixLinksForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.Publish.PublishForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.RebuildLinkDatabase.RebuildLinkDatabaseForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.Reminder.ReminderForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.TransferToDatabase.TransferToDatabaseForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.Upload.UploadForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Globalization.AddLanguage.AddLanguageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Globalization.DeleteLanguage.DeleteLanguageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Globalization.ExportLanguage.ExportLanguageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Globalization.ImportLanguage.ImportLanguageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Globalization.UntranslatedFields.UntranslatedFieldsForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.AddFileSourceForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.AddItemSourceForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.AddStaticFileSourceDialog
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.AddStaticItemSourceDialog
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.BuildPackage
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.InstallPackage.InstallPackageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Install.Dialogs.UploadPackageForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.IDE.Wizards.NewFileWizard.IDENewFileWizardForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.IDE.Wizards.NewMethodRenderingWizard.IDENewMethodRenderingWizardForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.IDE.Wizards.NewUrlRenderingWizard.IDENewUrlRenderingWizardForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.IDE.Wizards.NewWebControlWizard.IDENewWebControlWizardForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.Layouter.Wizards.NewLayout.NewLayoutForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.Layouter.Wizards.NewSublayout.NewSublayoutForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.Layouter.Wizards.NewXMLLayout.NewXMLLayoutForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.Layouter.Wizards.NewXSL.NewXSLForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.MarketingAutomation.Dialogs.ForceTriggerForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.MarketingAutomation.Dialogs.ImportVisitorsForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.ScheduledTasks.NewSchedule.NewScheduleForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.ScheduledTasks.NewScheduleCommand.NewScheduleCommandForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Search.RebuildSearchIndex.RebuildSearchIndexForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Templates.ChangeTemplate.ChangeTemplateForm
- Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Templates.CreateTemplate.CreateTemplateForm
If you can think of any other ways of customizing this client pipeline, please drop a comment.
Show Clones of An Item In the Sitecore CMS
“Out of the box”, there is no specific way to see all clones for a given item — at least I haven’t found one yet.
One could see these by looking at referrers of an item:
Unfortunately, referrers in this dropdown aren’t just reserved for clones — all referrers of the item will display in this dropdown. An example would include an item referencing the item in a Droplink field.
In a previous post, I provided a solution for auto-cloning new subitems to clones of their parents. That solution leveraged an instance of the ItemClonesGatherer utility class I defined in that post to return a collection of clones for a given item.
Yesterday, I realized this class could be reused for a feature to show a listing of clones for an item in Sitecore, and this post showcases that solution.
I had to come up with a medium for displaying a list of clones of an item. I decided I would display these in a new content editor tab.
I recalled reading an article by Sitecore MVP Mark Stiles on adding new Editor tabs in Sitecore.
As Mark Stiles had done in his post, I created a stand-alone ASP.NET web form (/sitecore modules/Shell/ShowClones/default.aspx). This web form will display the content of our new “Show Clones” tab:
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="Sitecore650rev120706.sitecore_modules.Shell.ShowClones.Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
<title>Show Clones</title>
<style type="text/css">
h1
{
color: #072d6b;
font-size: 14pt;
margin-bottom: 5px;
}
a
{
text-decoration: none;
font-size: 8pt;
font-family: Tahoma;
}
a:hover
{
text-decoration: underline;
}
#clones
{
margin: 10px;
}
#clone_listing
{
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0 0 0 15px;
}
#clone_listing li
{
margin: 0;
}
#clone_listing li + li
{
margin-top: 5px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div id="clones">
<h1>Clones</h1>
<asp:MultiView ID="mvClones" ActiveViewIndex="0" runat="server">
<asp:View ID="vClones" runat="server">
<asp:Repeater ID="rptClones" runat="server">
<HeaderTemplate>
<ol id="clone_listing">
</HeaderTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<li>
<asp:HyperLink
ID="hlClone"
NavigateUrl="#"
onclick='<%# string.Format("parent.scForm.invoke(\"item:load(id={0})\"); return false;", Eval("ID").ToString()) %>'
Text='<%# Eval("Paths.FullPath") %>'
runat="server" />
</li>
</ItemTemplate>
<FooterTemplate>
</ol>
</FooterTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
</asp:View>
<asp:View ID="vNoClones" runat="server">
<script type="text/javascript">
parent.scContent.closeEditorTab('ShowClones');
</script>
</asp:View>
</asp:MultiView>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
The web form’s code-behind:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Sitecore.Data;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Globalization;
using Sitecore.Web;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Gatherers.Base;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Gatherers;
namespace Sitecore650rev120706.sitecore_modules.Shell.ShowClones
{
public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
private static readonly IItemsGatherer ClonesGatherer = ItemClonesGatherer.CreateNewItemClonesGatherer();
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ShowClones();
}
private void ShowClones()
{
BindRepeater();
ToggleViews();
}
private void BindRepeater()
{
rptClones.DataSource = GetClones();
rptClones.DataBind();
}
private void ToggleViews()
{
if (rptClones.Items.Count > 0)
{
mvClones.SetActiveView(vClones);
}
else
{
mvClones.SetActiveView(vNoClones);
}
}
private IEnumerable<Item> GetClones()
{
Item item = GetItem();
if(item == null)
{
return new List<Item>();
}
ClonesGatherer.Source = item;
return ClonesGatherer.Gather();
}
private Item GetItem()
{
Item item = null;
try
{
item = Sitecore.Context.ContentDatabase.GetItem(GetID(), GetLanguage(), GetVersion());
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
Log.Error(this.ToString(), ex, this);
}
return item;
}
private ID GetID()
{
Sitecore.Data.ID id;
if(Sitecore.Data.ID.TryParse(WebUtil.GetQueryString("id"), out id))
{
return id;
}
return Sitecore.Data.ID.Null;
}
private Language GetLanguage()
{
Language language;
if(Language.TryParse(WebUtil.GetQueryString("la"), out language))
{
return language;
}
return Sitecore.Context.Language;
}
private Sitecore.Data.Version GetVersion()
{
Sitecore.Data.Version version;
if (Sitecore.Data.Version.TryParse(WebUtil.GetQueryString("vs"), out version))
{
return version;
}
return Sitecore.Data.Version.Latest;
}
}
}
The code-behind above uses an instance of the ItemClonesGatherer class to get all clones for the passed item. If clones are found, these are bound to a repeater to display them as links.
If there are no clones, the Multiview in the web form is toggled to render JavaScript to close the tab — the tab should not be open if the item does not have any clones.
After revisiting Mark’s article, and realized I needed a different solution: one that will allow me to add a new tab on the fly.
Such a solution should only allow the tab to open when an item has clones, and it should not be be associated with any templates — it must be template oblivious.
I stumbled upon a command in one of the Sitecore DLLs — which one it was is evading me at the moment — and noticed it was using an instance of Sitecore.Web.UI.Framework.Scripts.ShowEditorTab. I decided to take a chance on using an instance of this object, hoping it might open up a new content editor tab on the fly.
Using that command as a model, I came up with the following command:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Gatherers.Base;
using Sitecore.Sandbox.Utilities.Gatherers;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.Globalization;
using Sitecore.Resources;
using Sitecore.Shell.Framework.Commands;
using Sitecore.Text;
using Sitecore.Web;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.Framework.Scripts;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer;
namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Commands
{
public class ShowClones : Command
{
private static readonly IItemsGatherer ClonesGatherer = ItemClonesGatherer.CreateNewItemClonesGatherer();
public override void Execute(CommandContext commandContext)
{
ShowClonesEditorTab(GetItem(commandContext));
}
private static void ShowClonesEditorTab(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
const string command = "contenteditor:pagedesigner";
const string id = "ShowClones";
bool shouldClickEditorTab = IsEditorTabOpen(command);
if (IsEditorTabOpen(command))
{
ClickOpenEditorTab(id);
return;
}
OpenEditorTab(CreateNewShowClonesEditorTab(item, command, id));
}
private static bool IsEditorTabOpen(string command)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(command, "command");
return WebUtil.GetFormValue("scEditorTabs").Contains(command);
}
private static void ClickOpenEditorTab(string id)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(id, "id");
SheerResponse.Eval(string.Format("scContent.onEditorTabClick(null, null, '{0}')", id));
}
private static void OpenEditorTab(ShowEditorTab tab)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(tab, "tab");
SheerResponse.Eval(tab.ToString());
}
private static ShowEditorTab CreateNewShowClonesEditorTab(Item item, string command, string id)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(command, "command");
Assert.ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty(id, "id");
UrlString urlString = new UrlString("/sitecore modules/shell/showclones/default.aspx");
item.Uri.AddToUrlString(urlString);
UIUtil.AddContentDatabaseParameter(urlString);
return new ShowEditorTab
{
Command = command,
Header = Translate.Text("Show Clones"),
Icon = Images.GetThemedImageSource("Network/32x32/link_view.png"),
Url = urlString.ToString(),
Id = id,
Closeable = true,
Activate = true
};
}
public override CommandState QueryState(CommandContext context)
{
if (!HasClones(GetItem(context)))
{
return CommandState.Hidden;
}
return CommandState.Enabled;
}
private static Item GetItem(CommandContext context)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
return context.Items.FirstOrDefault();
}
private static bool HasClones(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
return GetClones(item).Any();
}
private static IEnumerable<Item> GetClones(Item item)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");
ClonesGatherer.Source = item;
return ClonesGatherer.Gather();
}
}
}
The command above uses an instance of ItemClonesGatherer to get all clones for the item in the content tree, and ensures it is visible when the item has clones. The logic hides the command when the item does not have clones.
When the command is invoked, it will open a new “Show Clones” tab, or set focus on the “Show Clones” tab if it’s already present.
I then registered the command above in a patch include configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
<sitecore>
<commands>
<command name="item:showclones" type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Commands.ShowClones,Sitecore.Sandbox"/>
</commands>
</sitecore>
</configuration>
Now, we need to lock and load this command in Sitecore. I switched over to the core database, and added a new item context menu option:
Let’s see this in action.
I first created a bunch of clones:
On my source item, I right-clicked, and was presented with a new context menu option to “Show Clones”:
After clicking the “Show Clones” context menu option, a new “Show Clones” tab appeared:
I then clicked on one of the links in the “Show Clones” tab, and was brought to its associated clone:
If you have other ideas around using clones in Sitecore, or if you know of another way of listing clones of an item, please leave a comment.
SitecoreJunkie.com 