Hello,

I'm lookin for a little sanity check with a implementation of shared content within a site.  The site I'm building has several regions with largely the same content throughout, but some region specific pages and copy as well.

From the root node, I have:

• Shared Content
  • Page 1 Content (Has Actual Content)
• Region #1
  • Page 1 Content (Content Picker to Shared Content)
• Region #2
  • Page 1 Content (Content Picker to Shared Content)

To select the shared content I'm using a content picker on a master document type.  In my master template, I have a razor macro called ContentRenderer:

@inherits umbraco.MacroEngines.DynamicNodeContext
@if (Model.HasValue("UseContentFrom"))
{
    var sharedContent = Library.NodeById(Model.UseContentFrom);
    if (Model.NodeTypeAlias == sharedContent.NodeTypeAlias)
    {
        umbraco.library.RenderTemplate(sharedContent.Id);
    }
    else
    {
    <div class="row">
        <div class="twelve columns">
            <p style="color: Red;">
                The document type of the content your trying to use doesn't match the document type
                of your page.
            </p>
            <p>
                Page Document Type: <strong>@Model.NodeTypeAlias</strong>
                <br />
                Shared Content Document Type: <strong>@sharedContent.NodeTypeAlias</strong>
            </p>
        </div>
    </div>
    }
}

Of note, is the call to RenderTemplate.  Provided the document types match (which I check for), as soon as RenderTemplate is called, the Model node is effectively replaced with that of the shared content.  This is great since I don't have to define new templates, or do any custom coding to spit out shared data.  The downside is it is a little cumbersome to manage through the UI, and links etc end up pointing back to the shared content folder.

I think this is pretty good solution given my requirement, but I'd love to hear from the community to see if there is a better way to achieve this.