I'd like to ask your advice on the best way to go about managing content nodes in the admin. For example, I have "Testimonials" node as node holder and individual testimonial items under it.
Qus 1: Is it possible to add a tab with dashboard sort of usercontrol displaying a list of unpublished testimonials on the "Testimonials" node?
Purpose: For logged in editor to review and publish them easily instead of opening the node tree and search for unpublished child node which might be right at the bottom of 100s of child items. Also to avoid missing out on unpublished nodes. Reason: I've read a bit on dashboard.config where you can create new tabs and areas on main section node. I'd like to have similar implementation for individual node holder document types. Creating a separate content section and trees would be a bit too complicated and I don't want to do that for every node holder functions eg. new section for News, Events, Ads, etc
Qus 2: How to just once specify the sort order in the parent node and have it maintain against all new child node additions?
Purpose: To list items by unpublished + createdDate DESC so that editors can see them easily when they open the node tree. Reason: At the moment, I've sorted the items by createdDate DESC and it listed correctly. Then I added new item "test" and expected it to appear at the top but it's showing right at the bottom. I don't want to reorder the parent node every time a new child item is added.
Could you share a bit of your experience on how you would handle the above scenarios please as this is my first umbraco site and I like to learn all the basic properly.
The first part of your question I am not sure about. I would probably stick to a dashboard on the top level content node to handle this
In terms of the sorting I think the most likely solution is to implement an event handler and perform the sort in code each time a new node is created. By default a new node will be added to the bottom of the list.
This link explains something about how to implement event handlers in Umbraco
The property that you need to alter is the sortOrder property. In your handler you should use the new node to get the parent and then implement your sorting routine over the children of that parent node,setting the sort order for each.
Regarding the Dashboard control: It should be possible and indeed a very good usecase for such. I created a "Latest Edits" dashboard recently, to give a special kind of overview while developing sites. Now, I'm not a C# developer, so I built it with a simple XSLT macro, as that is my thing; I know however, that what you need will require some .NET coding, because unpublished items are not accessible in the XML...
I'm sure it can be done - almost everything is possible with Umbraco :-)
Thanks Richard, I'll try out the sorting via eventhandlers and as for dashboard, I still couldn't find the way to do it on individual document page as a tab, so ended up creating as just main section page dashboard.
Thanks Dallas for pointing out that document sorter package. It's definitely what I need and I'll give it a try.
Hi Chriztian, the dashboard or content summary control I want to place is not exactly on the section main tab. I was able to create it as section dashboard as in the image below...but I was just wondering if it's possible to have similar one on individual node holders eg. on "Testimonials" or "Upcoming Events" or whatever content holder nodes. I tried to add a macro area in the document type but it's not exactly what I want as the whole macro area becomes part of the document and saved along with it. I just want a node summary display area kind of thing.
I'll check out your "Lastest Edits" dashboard as well. It seems like a useful one to track latest audit of the site. Thanks :)
Advice on content node management
Hello,
I'd like to ask your advice on the best way to go about managing content nodes in the admin. For example, I have "Testimonials" node as node holder and individual testimonial items under it.
Qus 1: Is it possible to add a tab with dashboard sort of usercontrol displaying a list of unpublished testimonials on the "Testimonials" node?
Purpose: For logged in editor to review and publish them easily instead of opening the node tree and search for unpublished child node which might be right at the bottom of 100s of child items. Also to avoid missing out on unpublished nodes.
Reason: I've read a bit on dashboard.config where you can create new tabs and areas on main section node. I'd like to have similar implementation for individual node holder document types. Creating a separate content section and trees would be a bit too complicated and I don't want to do that for every node holder functions eg. new section for News, Events, Ads, etc
Qus 2: How to just once specify the sort order in the parent node and have it maintain against all new child node additions?
Purpose: To list items by unpublished + createdDate DESC so that editors can see them easily when they open the node tree.
Reason: At the moment, I've sorted the items by createdDate DESC and it listed correctly. Then I added new item "test" and expected it to appear at the top but it's showing right at the bottom. I don't want to reorder the parent node every time a new child item is added.
Could you share a bit of your experience on how you would handle the above scenarios please as this is my first umbraco site and I like to learn all the basic properly.
Thanks.
May
Hi May,
The first part of your question I am not sure about. I would probably stick to a dashboard on the top level content node to handle this
In terms of the sorting I think the most likely solution is to implement an event handler and perform the sort in code each time a new node is created. By default a new node will be added to the bottom of the list.
This link explains something about how to implement event handlers in Umbraco
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/api-cheatsheet/using-applicationbase-to-register-events/event-examples
The property that you need to alter is the sortOrder property. In your handler you should use the new node to get the parent and then implement your sorting routine over the children of that parent node,setting the sort order for each.
Hope that helps a little
cheers
Hi May
The Document Sorter package can be configured to automatically sort documents by date
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/document-sorter
Dallas
Hi May,
Regarding the Dashboard control: It should be possible and indeed a very good usecase for such. I created a "Latest Edits" dashboard recently, to give a special kind of overview while developing sites. Now, I'm not a C# developer, so I built it with a simple XSLT macro, as that is my thing; I know however, that what you need will require some .NET coding, because unpublished items are not accessible in the XML...
I'm sure it can be done - almost everything is possible with Umbraco :-)
/Chriztian
Thanks Richard, I'll try out the sorting via eventhandlers and as for dashboard, I still couldn't find the way to do it on individual document page as a tab, so ended up creating as just main section page dashboard.
Thanks Dallas for pointing out that document sorter package. It's definitely what I need and I'll give it a try.
Hi Chriztian, the dashboard or content summary control I want to place is not exactly on the section main tab. I was able to create it as section dashboard as in the image below...but I was just wondering if it's possible to have similar one on individual node holders eg. on "Testimonials" or "Upcoming Events" or whatever content holder nodes. I tried to add a macro area in the document type but it's not exactly what I want as the whole macro area becomes part of the document and saved along with it. I just want a node summary display area kind of thing.
I'll check out your "Lastest Edits" dashboard as well. It seems like a useful one to track latest audit of the site. Thanks :)
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