is there a way to programmatically add categories to a blog post - Extending Umbraco and using the API

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Elton Xavier 3 posts 83 karma points

Jun 25, 2018 @ 10:41

Is there a way to programmatically add categories to a blog post?

Hi guys

I've managed to create blog posts programmatically, I just can't find a way to set its categories. Any ideas how to go about this?

    var articlesPostsNodeId = 1550;
    var blogPostNodeId = 1559; // existing blog post
    var blogPostNode = Umbraco.TypedContent(blogPostNodeId);
    var categories = blogPostNode.GetPropertyValue("postCategories") as IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>; // just to see how existing categories look like
    foreach (var post in blogPosts)
    {
        var newBlog = contentService.CreateContent(post.Title, articlesPostsNodeId, blogPostNode.DocumentTypeAlias, 0);

        if (newBlog != null)
        {
            // Set values for the document
            newBlog.SetValue("pageSummary", post.Title.ToNullSafeString());
            newBlog.SetValue("bodyText", post.BodyText.ToNullSafeString());
            newBlog.SetValue("postDate", post.PublishDate.ToNullSafeString());
            newBlog.SetValue("postCategories", categories); // ### This line fails ###
        }

        if (contentService != null)
        {
            var result = contentService.SaveAndPublishWithStatus(newBlog, 0, true);
        }
    }

BTW I'm really liking Umbraco 7.10! Well done =)

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Frans de Jong 550 posts 1862 karma points MVP 4x c-trib

Jun 25, 2018 @ 14:00

0

What datatype are you using for categories?

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Elton Xavier 3 posts 83 karma points

Jun 25, 2018 @ 14:22
0
Its called Blog Category Page (alias: USNBlogCategoryPage).

The structure is:
```
> Articles (blog landing page)
  > Categories (folder)
    - Accountancy (blog category page)
    - Business (blog category page)
    - etc.
> Posts (folder)
  > 2018 (folder)
    > June (folder)
      - My post (Standard blog post page)
```
When I create a blog post, I can add multiple categories to it using an Umbraco.MultiNodeTreePicker2 property that lists the pages in the Categories folder. Does that make any sense?
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Frans de Jong 550 posts 1862 karma points MVP 4x c-trib

Jun 25, 2018 @ 14:49

Umbraco does't store IPublishedContent for a multinode treepicker but a comma seperated list of GuidUdi's. For example:

umb://document/9c4dffe2201541998576fdf7120c861d,umb://document/cb88aaa910a942fbac7be3e993d493f5,umb://document/e09253c015204aac802390742b6180dc

To get this string you can do something like:

var categories = blogPostNode.GetPropertyValue("postCategories") as IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>;
IEnumerable<GuidUdi> udiList = categories.Select(x => new GuidUdi("document", x.GetKey()));
    string udiString = string.Join(",", udiList);

And than this should work:

newBlog.SetValue("postCategories", udiString);

Please let me know if this works.

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Elton Xavier 3 posts 83 karma points

Jun 25, 2018 @ 14:59

0

Ohhhh man you don't exist!

Thank you so much, it worked like a charm =)

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Frans de Jong 550 posts 1862 karma points MVP 4x c-trib

Jun 25, 2018 @ 18:20

2

No problem. Glad I can give back to the community ;P

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