barsonax/sitecoresearchfields

Custom fields for sitecore that work well with search

SitecoreSearchFields

Did you run into the limitations of the build-in fields in sitecore when using buckets or a heavily search driven workflow for content editors? Is it hard to find your items that are in buckets when using droplink or multilist fields? Would you wish you could have proper search enabled fields?

Because I ran into these limitations I reverse engineered how sitecore uses the search UI and adapted it so I could made these custom search enabled fields. These custom fields provide the same search UI functionality that you normally get when using buckets so everything works as you would expect such as:

• Basic search functionality
• Facets
• Bucket settings

Uses sitecore 9.2 but might work with other versions as well.

Documentation

The documentation can be found in the wiki

sitecoresearchfields's Issues

Document the pfilter parameter

Document that this is used for the persistent query filter and what the syntax is

Also link to this article https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/90/platform-administration-and-architecture/en/create-a-default-and-a-persistent-search-query.html

Move constants to a separate class

Document how to use the search page for other purposes

The following code will open up a search modal which is used in the custom fields but could also be used for other purposes

var url = Sitecore.UIUtil.GetUri("control:DroplinkSearch",  $"id={id}&{PfilterParameter}={persistentFilter}");               
SheerResponse.ShowModalDialog(url, "1300", "700", "", true);
args.WaitForPostBack();

Document what you can do with this view

Document the features of the SingleLinkField

• Setting a item using search
• Opening a item
• Clearing the value
• Data compatible with droplink
• Source parameters

Add field type config

Some config should be added for all custom fields:

  <sitecore>
    <fieldTypes>
      <fieldType name="SingleLinkSearch" type="Sitecore.Data.Fields.LookupField,Sitecore.Kernel"/>
    </fieldTypes>
  </sitecore>

This will allow sitecore to understand its a reference which is needed for rebuilding the link database and possibly more.

Split project in separate projects

Split the single project we have now into multiple projects:

• A shared project containing shared logic such as the search view itself
• A project for each field containing just the code needed for the field.

Add setup instructions

Add a dfilter parameter for a default query

Should work in the same way as the pfilter parameter

Document the dfilter parameter

Document that this is used for the default query filter and what the syntax is

Also link to this article https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/90/platform-administration-and-architecture/en/create-a-default-and-a-persistent-search-query.html

Document the features of the MultiLinkField

Features:

• Adding a item using search
• Deleting a item
• Opening a item
• Data compatible with multilist
• Source parameters