Session 1: Advanced Content Model Wednesday 06 February 2007

1. Sitecore for Experts“Sitecore skills for real men” Session 1: Advanced Content Model Wednesday 06 February 2007

2. Today’s Program Introduction to the subject Wildcard Items Linkdatabase Proxy items Discussion: Relations Questions & Additional reading End

3. Different Content Models Single simple modelExamples: Yoursite.com Simple division divided modelExamples: Yoursite.com/Divsion1, Yoursite.com/Division2 Multi site modelExamples: Yoursite.com, Yoursite.nl, Yoursite.dk, Yoursite.fr Multi language modelExamples: Yoursite.com/Int, Yoursite.com/nl Yoursite.com/dk Multi languagal and site modelExamples: Yoursite.com/Int, Yoursite.com/nl Yoursite.com/dk Yoursite.be/Int, Yoursite.be/nl Yoursite.be/fr

4. Different models have in common… Sharing of navigation Sharing of layouts Sharing of applications Sharing of news And legal content Relations in different sites and languages Thesauri?

5. Sitecore solution schematic

6. 1. Wildcards items

7. The case It’s required to allow all kind of url’s. Even those who doesn’t represent an item in Sitecore. You want to make sure you can validate your input Without using the QueryString, you are still possible to pass parameter trough (SEO)

8. Solution: Wildcards

9. Item resolving in the pipeline

10. Advantages: Good argument to prevent the usage of the QueryString Ability to control the return messages such as 404’s. It’s processed in the Pipelines, so it’s easily extendable. Protects you against possible security issues such as database injections

11. Disadvantages: Aren’t able to set restrictions, so you have to write lots of code* for right processing. No native code* support It’s processed in the Pipelines, so it’s might cxause some preformence(not fully cachable on DataProvider level) It responds by default as a valid page(in headers) but in your opinion this might not be right. Support is limited to 4.3 and 5.3 * Code in this context means XSLT/C#/…?

12. XSLT Usage Example     1 <xsl:template match="*" mode="main">     2   <!-- Retrieve the first level and display when exists -->     3   <xsl:variable name="level1" select="webutil:GetUrlName(0)" />     4   <xsl:if test="$level1 != ''">     5     <xsl:value-of select="$level1"/>     6      7     <!-- Retrieve the first level and display when exists -->     8     <xsl:variable name="level2" select="webutil:GetUrlName(1)" />     9     <xsl:if test="$level2 != ''">    10       &gt; <xsl:value-of select="$level2"/>    11     </xsl:if>    12   </xsl:if>    13 </xsl:template>

13. C# Usage Example <% Sitecore.Data.Items.Item currItem = Sitecore.Context.Item; int currLevel = 0; int maxLevel = GetWebRootLevel(); do { Response.Write(currItem.DisplayName+ "<br/>"); Response.Write(currLevel + "<br/>"); Response.Write(GetUrlName(currLevel) + "<br/>"); Response.Write("<hr/>"); currItem = currItem.Parent; currLevel++; } while (currItem.Parent != null && currLevel <= maxLevel); %>

14. C# Usage Helpers public string GetUrlName(Int32 index) { string url = Sitecore.Web.WebUtil.GetRawUrl(); string path = url.Substring(1, url.LastIndexOf(".")-1); string[] parts = path.Split("/".ToCharArray()); if (index < parts.Length) return parts[parts.Length - 1 - index]; else return ""; } public int GetWebRootLevel() { string path = Sitecore.Context.Site.ContentStartPath; return path.Split("/".ToCharArray()).Length; }

15. 2. Linkdatabase

16. The case You want to have a full list: Family members in the Tree Items you do link to Items who links to you

17. Solution: Linkdatabase

18. Advantages: Easily access from the API (Item.Links, Sitecore.Links) Based on logical concept Very fast(no preformence penalties)

19. Disadvantages: ‘Native’ not supported for XSLT Seperated database, which implicates sync problems. Hard to extend Not all fields are supported * Code in this context means XSLT/C#/…?

20. C# Example private static Item[] GetFeedsInDatabase(Database database, Language language){   TemplateItem feedTemplate = database.Templates[Constants.FeedTemplateID];   if (feedTemplate == null)   {      return null;   }   // Get all items refering to the feed template   ItemLink[] links = Globals.LinkDatabase.GetReferers(feedTemplate.InnerItem);   if (links == null)   {      return null;   }   ArrayList result = new ArrayList(links.Length);   // and filter the referers - we dont need to include masters   foreach(ItemLink link in links)   {      if (link.SourceDatabaseName == database.Name)      {         Item item = database.Items[link.SourceItemID, language];         if ((item != null) && (IsMaster(item) == false))         {            result.Add(item);         }      }   }   return (Item[])result.ToArray(typeof(Item));}

21. Possible cases Where would you use this? ‘Related to’ links on the bottom of news/articles Navigations (Item groups, etc) As the technical basis for a Thesauris solution Others?

22. 3. Proxy items

23. The case You want to reuse content nodes in different trees or sites. For SEO, you want to make sure /sitecore/content will not appear in URI’s. Or Divide navigation management from content

24. The solution Proxy Items…

25. Proxy template Source item: The item to copy it from Target item: Place where the item will be located Exclude subitems: In or exclude subitems Source database: Might be any database

26. Creation of Proxy items

27. Advantages: Very fast as virtual items are also cached in the dataprovider Easily to configure in the client(even more simple module available) Very powerfull as the API seems to think it are real items Ability to publish virtal items to real items for preformence improvements

28. Disadvantages: Solution seems to change in every version of Sitecore? Might be confusing for users There are no visible possibilities to select an item in another database

29. Proxies in the API Item.RuntimeSettings.IsVirtualIndicates whether the item is a virtual item or not. Item.RuntimeSettings.IsExternal Indicates whether the source item is from a database other than the target database. Item.RuntimeSettings.OwnerDatabaseThe database that owns the source item. Note the Item.Database property will always return the target database! Programmatically enable or disable proxies: bool Sitecore.Context.ProxiesActive Enable (set to true) or disable (set to false) proxies for the current session. Sitecore.Data.Proxies.ProxyDisabler Disable proxies for a block of code. using (new Sitecore.Data.Proxies.ProxyDisabler()) { // Proxies disabled here }

30. 4. Discussion: Relations

31. The case 1 You want to create a collections of items, which aren’t always linked. This collections should be changeable. And is the members of this collections should ofcourse be defined by your own criteria.

32. The solution? That’s up to the experts… What are the requirements? What do you want to store? Where do you want to store it? How should it be retrievable?

33. The case 2 You want to create a collections of items divided by keywords or maybe the alphabet. Preformence is not an issue. How can we solve this?

34. Next steps: Think about it! Some review questions: What kind of relations are available in Sitecore? Why do you want to introduce more relations? Are the examples provided clear? Do you have a better example? What would be a nice addition to Sitecore for extending the content model?

35. Next steps: Additional reading http://sdn5.sitecore.net http://www.lfn.dk http://www.alexeyrusakov.com/sitecoreblog/ http://sitecore.alexiasoft.nl

36. Questions? This is your last change…

37. Next month… In the Sitecore API

38. The end… Thank you for your attention! And please, think about it and spread the word… Mistakes, corrections and additions can be mailed to Alex de Groot: a.degroot@lectric.nlThe presentation is part of LECTRIC / Alex de Groot but can be used without any premission.