Generating an appropriate Url for content based on user context
In Part 1 of this blog post, I showed how Sitecore can return content based on any arbitrary URL. Clearly that is only half of the story. A UK-based visitor should see “regional” links as:
The corollary to this requirement is that will also need a mechanism to generate a valid Url for items that don’t actually exist, so that where we used the Sitecore LinkManager previously, we could use a custom LinkManager and get a valid Url.
The second requirement can be fulfilled by extending the LinkManager class to support the appropriate Url types.
public class ProductLinkProvider : LinkProvider
{
public override string GetItemUrl(Item item, UrlOptions options)
{
return item.IsRegionalItem() ? item.GetRegionalUrl() : base.GetItemUrl(item, options);
}
}
public static class ItemExtensions
{
public static string IsRegionalItem(this Item item)
{
// Code to identify "regional items"
// Perhaps from a "Shared" area of the Content Tree
}
public static string GetRegionalUrl(this Item item)
{
// Code to generate appropriate Url
}
}
In order for this code to be called, the Sublayout rendering the link needs to use the Sitecore rendering controls:
<sc:Link Field="Your Field Name" runat="server" />
or
<sc:FieldRenderer FieldName="Your Field Name" runat="server" />
This technique can be really powerful in separating your content items from their organisation, so that content editors and users can both have a site structure that they like.
Mintydog 