Hi Carl-Philip,

Are you talking about a complete custom Umbraco section or just a dashboard control that appears in the tabs ?

If you are talking about custom section in MVC I can help you, but the dashboard control has to be a webform usercontrol so far as I know.

Let me know if you need help with the MVC custom section.

Best regards,

Gardar

 

 

Hi, 

I am interested in the same thing. I'd like to add an entire new section to my app. I was starting a project today and was hoping to go with the 7.0RC bits. I have been reviewing the documentation, but the instructions for custom tree/sections are a "todo" still. Any guidance on this would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Justin

I was working on this recenty, and found this post very useful in working out what to do.

Andy, thanks for the link. I'll check it out. My idea is to have a "subscriptions" custom table in the database. I am not sure if that will end up just being a custom tree on the members section, or a whole new section. Either way, I'm sure it'll be a neat little dive into umbraco today.

Thanks!

Hi Justin,

The link Andy sent you is a great start but it does not cover all the bases.

The Post Build Events are really nice to know that is described in the post, but it does not f.ex say how to customize the context menu and creating your own actions in the context menu.

If you want to create a new custom section in MVC for Umbraco I would first create a new empty MVC project, it can inside your current project or seprate it in a hole new project.

You only need the .dll to be in you Site project and create plugin folder in App_Plugins for the section. There should be all the views and content for the section. That is described better in the post Justin sent you.

 

This code here populates your Tree and automaticly created a row in Tree.config

 

    [Tree("CustomSection", "CustomSection", "CustomSection")]

    public class populateTree : BaseTree

    {

        public populateTree(string application)

            : base(application)

        { }

 

        protected override void CreateRootNode(ref XmlTreeNode rootNode)

        {

    // Created Root node

            rootNode.Icon = FolderIcon;

            rootNode.OpenIcon = FolderIconOpen;

            rootNode.NodeType = "init" + TreeAlias;

            rootNode.NodeID = "init";

            rootNode.Action = "javascript:openCategory(-1);";

        }

 

        protected override void CreateAllowedActions(ref List<IAction> actions)

        {

            // Customize context menu for all nodes beside root node

            actions.Clear();

            actions.Add(createAction.Instance);

            actions.Add(editAction.Instance);

            actions.Add(umbraco.BusinessLogic.Actions.ActionRefresh.Instance);

            actions.Add(umbraco.BusinessLogic.Actions.ContextMenuSeperator.Instance);

            actions.Add(deleteAction.Instance);

 

        }

 

        protected override void CreateRootNodeActions(ref List<IAction> actions)

        {

    // Customize context menu for root node

            actions.Clear();

            actions.Add(createAction.Instance);

            actions.Add(umbraco.BusinessLogic.Actions.ActionRefresh.Instance);

        }

 

        public override void Render(ref XmlTree tree)

        {

 

            // Get the current database object

            var db = ApplicationContext.Current.DatabaseContext.Database;

 

            // Fetch a collection of categories from the db.

            List<Category> listOfCategories = null;

 

            int key = -1;

 

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.NodeKey))

            {

                key = Convert.ToInt32(this.NodeKey);

            }

 

            listOfCategories = db.Fetch<Category>("SELECT * FROM Categories WHERE deleted=@0 ORDER BY name", false);

 

            if (listOfCategories != null)

            {

 

                foreach (Category category in listOfCategories.Where(x => x.parentId == key))

                {

 

                    string id = category.treeId.ToString();

 

                    // Create tree node

                    var node = XmlTreeNode.Create(this);

                    node.NodeID = id;

                    node.Text = category.name;

                    node.Icon = "folder_o.gif";

                    node.Action = "javascript:openCategory(" + node.NodeID + ");";

 

                    // Add child nodes

 

                    bool hasChildren = listOfCategories.Where(x => x.parentId == category.treeId).Any();

 

                    node.Source = hasChildren ? this.GetTreeServiceUrl(node.NodeID) : "";

 

                    // Add the node to the tree

                    tree.Add(node);

 

                }

 

            }

 

        }

 

        public override void RenderJS(ref StringBuilder Javascript)

        {

            Javascript.Append(@"

            function openCategory(id) {

                document.getElementById('right').scrolling = 'auto';

                UmbClientMgr.contentFrame('../App_Plugins/CustomSection/Category/List?id=' + id);

            }

            ");

        }

    }

 

 

 

Here his the iAction interface

 

    public class editAction : IAction

    {

        //create singleton

        private static readonly editAction _instance = new editAction();

 

 

        public static editAction Instance

        {

            get { return _instance; }

        }

 

        #region IAction Members

 

        public char Letter

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.Letter getter implementation

                return 'æ';

            }

        }

 

        public string JsFunctionName

        {

            get

            {

                return "openModal('/App_Plugins/CustomSection/Category/Edit?id=' + nodeID, 'Edit Category', 300, 190);";

            }

        }

 

        public string JsSource

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.JsSource getter implementation

                return "";

            }

        }

 

        public string Alias

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.Alias getter implementation

                return "editCategory";

            }

        }

 

        public string Icon

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.Icon getter implementation

                return "Images/pencil.png";

            }

        }

 

        public bool ShowInNotifier

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.ShowInNotifier getter implementation

                return true;

            }

        }

        public bool CanBePermissionAssigned

        {

            get

            {

                // TODO:  Add ActionNew.ShowInNotifier getter implementation

                return true;

            }

        }

        #endregion

    }

 

 

This code plus the post from nibble should get you a long way. If you need any extra help with the code just ask :)

 

 

 

Wow, thank you that is great information! You are right, I think that will get me really far down the road. I have used that pattern for custom IActions only once before, so I am glad that you reminded me about all of those details.

Thanks!

Justin

Good to know, Remember when you create your own iAction with some name to translate it in the language config in Umbraco/Config/Lang to remove the brackets.

You can create custom icon for the section, just put it in the /Umbraco/Images/Tray folder.

In my custom section I implemented custom examine indexer for the custom data so it can be searchable, if you need that kind of a code let me know.

 

 

 

is working on a reply...