Umbraco:item

The umbraco:item element is used to pull a property from the page, currently being rendered, the below sample renders the value with the alias "bodyText" from the current page, if the value does not exist, nothing is rendered

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" runat="server" />

insertTextBefore

The insertTextBefore allows you to add text before your field is outputted, only rendered if field contains a value

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" insertTextBefore="bodyText field: " runat="server"/>

insertTextAfter

The insertTextAfter allows you to add text before your field is outputted, only rendered if field contains a value

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" insertTextAfter="I am some text after the field." runat="server"/>

formatAsDate

formatAsDate allows you to output your field as a date - not a richtext editor field but a field that stores dates.

<umbraco:item field="startDate" formatAsDate="true" runat="server" />

formatAsDateWithTime

This is like formatAsDate but instead this will also output the time along with the date, if you use this attribute you will also need to use the formatAsDateWithTimeSeperator attribute.

<umbraco:item field="startDate" formatAsDateWithTime="true" formatAsDateWithTimeSeperator=" " runat="server"/>

formatAsDateWithTimeSeparator

This is like formatAsDate but instead this will also output the time along with the date, if you use this attribute you will also need to use the formatAsDateWithTimeSeparator attribute.

<umbraco:item field="startDate" formatAsDateWithTime="true" formatAsDateWithTimeSeperator=" " runat="server"/>

useIfEmpty

The useIfEmpty attribute allows you to define an alternative field if the main field is empty/blank.

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" useIfEmpty="altText" runat="server"/>

textIfEmpty

The textIfEmpty attribute allows you to define an alternative textif the main field is empty/blank.

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" textIfEmpty="I am the alternative text" runat="server" />

convertLineBreaks

The convertLineBreaks attribute allows you to convert line breaks in an editor field (not a RichText editor) into
tags.

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" convertLineBreaks="true" runat="server"/>

stripParagraph

The stripParagraph attribute allows you to remove the first

and last

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" stripParagraph="true" runat="server"/>

case

The case attribute allows you to convert your field into lower or upper case.

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" case="lower" runat="server"/>
<umbraco:item field="bodyText" case="upper" runat="server"/>

urlEncode

The urlEncode attribute allows you to encode your field into a URL encoded format

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" urlEncode="true" runat="server"/>

htmlEncode

The htmlEncode attribute allows you to encode your field into an HTML encoded format (so that special characters are converted to their HTML entity equivalent).

<umbraco:item field="bodyText" htmlEncode="true" runat="server"/>

Xslt and XsltDisableEscaping

The Xslt and XsltDisableEscaping attributes are particularly useful for manipulating complex content, such as that stored in a Content or Media Picker on a page.

For example, retrieving the URL to an image requires calling umbraco.library:GetMedia from within a macro - Razor, XSLT or otherwise. However, if a single image is being handled, the following code snippet may be useful:

<umbraco:Item Field="myImage" runat="server"
            Xslt="umbraco.library:GetMedia({0},0)/umbracoFile"
            insertTextBefore="&lt;img src='" insertTextAfter="' /&gt;" />

Common uses will probably include calling single XSLT functions for parsing values prior to render.

Another useful attribute is XsltDisableEscaping, whereby the value returned by the transformation specified in the Xslt attribute requires escaping. This might be useful when parsing content or data that contains HTML, and therefore requires escaping to be successfully rendered to the page.