SUG Bangalore - GlassMapper with Sitecore

SITECORE USER GROUP BANGALORE

SPONSORED BY

30th May 2015

Glass.Mapper for Sitecore with Anindita Bhattacharya

GLASS.MAPPERORM FOR SITECORE

ANINDITA BHATTACHARYA

What is Glass.Mapper?

Glass is home to the #1 ORM for Sitecore and Umbraco. Glass.Mapper is the easiest way to map data from your Sitecore or Umbraco solution to your code.

http://www.glass.lu/

Extensive tutorials available at: http://www.glass.lu/en/Mapper/Sc/Tutorials

Glass.Mapper can definitely be used without serializing sitecore items, but its benefits are best leveraged in tandem with one, such as Hedgehog’s TDS (Team Development for Sitecore)

Models: Enabling Glass CodeGen with TDS• Codegen includes

• Models

• Template Properties

• Item properties

• Files added to your solution on nuget package installation

• dlls – castle, glass, webactivator

• Config – App_Config/Include

• Code – in App_Start

• Codegen template files to be added to TDS project

• When does codegen happen?

• Version Control (TFS) sync issues - regenerate

Models: Customizing T4 Templates in Glass.Mapper

Why would we need to?

• Adding Template Id to the Model classes

• Adding System templates to the model – namespace conflict

• Conflicting predefined field on template• Eg. Name field on CommerceConnect products.

Views: Common Html Helpers in Glass and Page Editor Support

• @Editable()

• @RenderImage()

• @RenderLink()

• @BeginRenderLink()

• @BeginEditFrame()• Core item

• Corresponding view code

Views: Creating Custom Html Helpers in Glass

• Add support for possible Redirect Link? • RenderItemLink()

• BeginRenderItemLink()

• RenderResponsiveImageAttributes()

• RenderResponsivePicture()

• Possible embedding of EditFrame too

Other Benefits of using Codegen

• Template Guids not manually hardcoded (Index searches etc)

• Accessing dictionary items with codegen

• Field names – available as properties

• Folder / Page Guids for search / target redirect

Scalability

• Current limitation: Single Model file per TDS project

• Keep an eye on the size of your model file.

• Split your TDS projects if necessary

• Only generate code for items that you NEED to use in your code

• Especially itempaths.tt - codegen

• Remember – child items inherit the code generation property from parent!

Multisite Solution

• Scenario: Site specific templates in different TDS projects to limit template codegen file size / clean template organization, separate web projects (eg. sharedweb, site1web, site2web)

• Shared templates required in each TDS project – to allow field inheritance.

• Extend shared templates in sharedweb only – and reference shared templates from the sharedweb in all siteweb projects.

Tips on Glass.Mapper Usage

• Use Glass generated models wherever you possibly can

• Always add null checks before rendering item fields.

• Your glass.mapper model and version control (TFS) merge issues

• Solution - regenerate

• Keep your data clean – avoid mapping exceptions! (deleted items)• Ensure your Broken Links Report is clean

• Keep page editor support in mind at all times!

Questions?

For the next SUG Bangalore Session

July / August 2015

• Usability of a Content Management System with Chetan Karnam, Sr. QA Engineer @ Verndale

• Slot open for ideas / requests!?

Mail us at: sitecoreusergroup.bangalore@gmail.com

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