I am working on a large multilingual website with several dozens of thousands pages are available in numerous languages. It also features news being released on a daily basis by tens of news editors under plenty of nested categories. Thus it was matter of time for me to be asked to implement an adequate RSS Feed solution to expose all the possible data.

Luckily, Sitecore has built-in RSS Feed feature, but unfortunately it has very limited implementation by data driven using Sitecore Queries, obviously this is quite a legacy feature was added into Sitecore way before version 7.0 with its revolutionary Content Search API. 

What is wrong with this old-fashioned Sitecore Query:

• it is limited in its applicable functionality
• has complicated synthax
• isn't easy to debug and troubleshoot, especially on complex conditions
• is slooooooow (even fast query is slow!)
• talks to database and generates cache for touched items

I made this 22-minutes long video in order to demonstrate how one can create a preview environment by creating a new publishing target on an example of vanilla Sitecore 9.3.

Adding new publishing target is very helpful when you:

1. would allow content authors to demonstrate the content being not in a final state
2. want to demonstrate that content to an audience without access to your Sitecore instance

This demo shows how to create a publishing target database, assign it to a designated hostname and then also to create an index for a given preview database. It also demonstrates the difference between publishing content in non-final-state into both live and preview databases.

Hope it helps!

Introduction

Currently, in order to run Sitecore in docker locally, one has to pull the code from a GitHub repository, build it (if not done yet, or pull already built images from a Docker registry), set the license file, and say "up" to docker-compose. Not to say the prerequisites required. If dealing with a cloud, then the deployment into Kubernetes is required, which also demands adequate skills.

Imagine an ideal situation where you don't need to do all the things, but just pull a "managing" image from a remote registry, and this image itself will care about running "all the things" internally, such as prerequisites, pulling the dependent images, preparing the environments, network and dependencies, doing alternative steps to docker-compose and much more.

Or going far beyond that: shipping is as a traditional GUI installer for non-technical people or deploying that same image into a cloud, any cloud, ready to use, does not that look as such desirable? What if I tell you this technology is already available and you can use it? Please welcome the new universal spec for packaging distributed apps created by Microsoft and Docker:

Cloud-Native Application Bundles or simply CNAB

Firstly, what the heck is CNAB at all? Using Cloud Native Application Bundle, a developer has an option of deploying the app either locally at his dev. machine, or in a public cloud as it bolts together containers and services into a seamless whole, placing a strong focus on standardization. It is an open-source specification that aims to facilitate the bundling, installing, and managing of containerized apps. With this bundle, users can define resources that can then be deployed to a number of run-time environments, such as Docker, Azure, Kubernetes, Helm, automation services (such as those used by GitOps), and more.

At a first glance, that task is supposed to be solved by Docker itself. However, when dealing with largely scaled hybrid infrastructures, its standard features become insufficient. Thus, CNAB is an attempt of standardizing the process of packaging, deployment, and lifecycle management of distributed apps on a basis of Kubernetes, Helm, Swarm, and others by using a unified JSON-based package format. 

Tooling

And of course, Docker App is a CNAB builder and installer that leverages the Docker Compose format to define your applications. To facilitate developer-to-operator handover, you can add metadata and run-time parameters. These applications can easily be shared using existing container registries. Docker App is available as part of the latest Docker release.

{ 
   "credentials":{ 
      "hostkey":{ 
         "env":"HOST_KEY",
         "path":"/etc/hostkey.txt"
      }
   },
   "custom":{ 
      "com.example.backup-preferences":{ 
         "frequency":"daily"
      },
      "com.example.duffle-bag":{ 
         "icon":"https://example.com/icon.png",
         "iconType":"PNG"
      }
   },
   "definitions":{ 
      "http_port":{ 
         "default":80,
         "maximum":10240,
         "minimum":10,
         "type":"integer"
      },
      "port":{ 
         "maximum":65535,
         "minimum":1024,
         "type":"integer"
      },
      "string":{ 
         "type":"string"
      },
      "x509Certificate":{ 
         "contentEncoding":"base64",
         "contentMediaType":"application/x-x509-user-cert",
         "type":"string",
         "writeOnly":true
      }
   },
   "description":"An example 'thin' helloworld Cloud-Native Application Bundle",
   "images":{ 
      "my-microservice":{ 
         "contentDigest":"sha256:aaaaaaaaaaaa...",
         "description":"my microservice",
         "image":"example/microservice:1.2.3"
      }
   },
   "invocationImages":[ 
      { 
         "contentDigest":"sha256:aaaaaaa...",
         "image":"example/helloworld:0.1.0",
         "imageType":"docker"
      }
   ],
   "maintainers":[ 
      { 
         "email":"matt.butcher@microsoft.com",
         "name":"Matt Butcher",
         "url":"https://example.com"
      }
   ],
   "name":"helloworld",
   "outputs":{ 
      "clientCert":{ 
         "definition":"x509Certificate",
         "path":"/cnab/app/outputs/clientCert"
      },
      "hostName":{ 
         "applyTo":[ 
            "install"
         ],
         "definition":"string",
         "description":"the hostname produced installing the bundle",
         "path":"/cnab/app/outputs/hostname"
      },
      "port":{ 
         "definition":"port",
         "path":"/cnab/app/outputs/port"
      }
   },
   "parameters":{ 
      "backend_port":{ 
         "definition":"http_port",
         "description":"The port that the back-end will listen on",
         "destination":{ 
            "env":"BACKEND_PORT"
         }
      }
   },
   "schemaVersion":"v1.0.0",
   "version":"0.1.2"
}

Recently I was trying to build docker images from the main Sitecore repository, and got quite a weird message.

hcsshim::PrepareLayer - failed failed in win32 : Incorrect function. (0x1)

This message is not self-explanatory and it fired up when the actual build for the first image took place, in my case that was SQL server 2017. Some other details: quite fress and new instance of Windows 10 x64 build 1909, using Hyper-V, no docker / images previously been utilized at thtis computer.

After few hours long googling, I came to understanding that was caused by c:\windows\system32\cbfsconnectnetrdr2017.dll referenced by autorun. There is one halpful tool that helps out troubleshoouting such issues - Sysinternals Autoruns. Here is the output generated by Autoruns for my system:

What is that DLL and how did it get to my machine? CBFSConnect is a known library for creating and managing virtual filesystems for cloud storage providers such as such as Box, Dropbox etc., and this DLL is a kernel mode system drive. Sometimes it may be a leftover from a previously installed software, that was not uninstalled fully and properly.

Depending no your system you may see this DLL as either:

• C:\Windows\system32\cbfsconnectnetrdr2017.dll  - for newer systems, or
  
• C:\Windows\System32\drivers\cbfs6.sys

Why not to run Docker containers from within a Hyper-V virtual machine? 

Well, when you are trying to install Docker Desktop for Windows, it installs correctly. But running it will prompt you about Hyper-V is required for Docker to work.

Programs and Features on its turn shows you that Hyper-V is greyed out, so you cannot install it from there

Not everyone knows, but Hyper-V in fact allows having nested virtual machines. That means running docker is also possible from within a VM. All you need is just running one PowerShell command from outside of your container:

Set-VMProcessor -VMName _YOUR_VM_NAME_TO_ENABLE_ -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

What it does - just adds virtualization features into a virtual processor of outer VM, similar to those you got at you physical CPU. Thus you need to run this command of the VM switched off.

Once done, Sitecore perfectly builds and work if Docker running within a virtual machine. For those who are total beginner and scary to mess the things around their host machines - this could be an option. However there is of course a performance penalty from double virtualization.

Finally, the main trick! Just because you've added virtualization extensions into a virtual processor of your VM, you may run docker in process isolation mode, relatively to the build number of VM's operation system. Will explain it on the following example: imagine, your host machine runs Windows 10 build 1809, but got no problems of running Windows 10 build 1909 in a Hyper-V machine there. Now, you after you enable virtualization extensions to that virtual machine (that runs 1909), you will be able to install docker within that virtual machine, and run 1909-built images in process isolation, natively to that VM: 1909-built images run on 1909- machine! But at the same time you will be able to run those same images only in hyper-v mode on the (outer) host machine, because it has 1809 and cannot run non-matching images in process isolation mode.

Hope this helps!

Great news for me!

Just got an email saying I was awarded Sitecore Most Valuable Professional Technology Award for the oncoming year.

I feel very excited and carry on plenty of brave plans for the 2020. My main efforts will be applied in two main areas: containers and JSS, at least as I see that now. Apart from will take all of my best to get selected as a speaker for a big audience conference and keep going developing Sifon, as it is quite promissing tool (unfortunately it is so tought with finding and allocation long timeslots for it).

In any case, I am pleased to stay as MVP and hope to meet you at the events later this year.

Every year I create a special Christmas postcard to congratulate my readers with a new oncoming year, full of changes and opportunities. Wish you all the best in 2020!

UPDATE 23/12/2019: There has much been done since this post originally, Sifon is now working on remote machines as well as it supports Sitecore Commerce. The main news, however, is that it now got a website with documentation, demos, roadmap, and other project-related items. Thus, it would be best to refer to it - https://Sifon.UK.

Do you love PowerShell as much as I do?

Along the time, Sitecore gains more and more new features, its architecture obtains some existing features split out into microservices. Maintenance becomes even more complicated and time-consuming. Just as an example, a few years back in time we had only 3 databases coming with the platform, while now there are more than 15. 

Luckily, PowerShell as a scripting technology comes us with assistance, providing the console-based API to most of the OS and platform management features. Now it becomes possible to automate quite complex procedures just by scripting them out. Take a look at Sitecore XP installer for example, or at even depicting the complexity - an installer script for Sitecore Commerce with almost a hundred steps. How long did it take you to run it all? That confirms the statement on how PowerShell became an inevitable part of developers' lives.

But here we come to another problem. The number of scripts we have grows quite quickly, as the number of standard tasks grows. And at some moment I start noticing that something goes wrong with it. Those who read my blog from time to time may have noticed, that I am kind of a productivity maniac, and being such a person, I start thinking and analyzing where the productivity bottlenecks are while working with PowerShell. What do you think they are?

Firstly, scripting means typing. Typing means typos. Typing means forgetting the syntax. Regardless of how one is perfect as a typist, interaction with a keyboard has its own expenses. The good news is that PowerShell addresses these issues by providing interactive help and autocompletion. But it still consumes your time, compared to the UI operations (of course, those with proper UX and well-designed).

Secondly, we have more ready-to-use scripts and we need them all to be stored somewhere. Somewhere on a filesystem, of course. Those smart and best use GitHub gists (they can be also secret, not only public), and since recent ones can have also private GitHub accounts, so what I know few people do is just create private repositories of their entire scripts libraries. The benefits are clear - if these libraries are well organized and properly structured - it gives immediate access to some specific script one may need to find and access. The principal criteria here is time-to-access and the GitHub repo provides that for sure, of course, you may use any other version control hosting providers, subject to velocity.

Thirdly, sensitive information. Scripts call, other scripts, that in turn call another script (modules) that in turn call APIs - that similar nesting we typically have with our OOP languages. The issue comes from those outer-level scripts that contain some sensitive parameters, such as usernames, passwords, secrets, tokens, and similar. You don't store all of the above at external source control hostings, even if that's a private repo, do you? If you do, I can recommend you a few really worthy courses on information security. Of course, a developer can parametrize all sensitive information and bubble it up to an external script, so that it comes to input parameters. But then we face a bottleneck issue I described first. Not just one has to provide parameters but need to type them manually and to store the values somewhere, which turns in a payload of accessing those values. Still not good. 

In any case, the reality is that plenty of such scripts are bloated across the hard drive, which still comes to all the issues described above.

Finally, when it comes to sharing those puter scripts, we meet the same story of separating sensitive data and environmental-specific values from pure business logic.

Of course, developers do value their time and try to find compromises. I am not exclusive and decided to go my own developer's way, which you may guess means developing something bespoke. So please welcome Sifon - a must-have tool for any Sitecore developer, to simplify most of your day-to-day DevOps activities.

But before going ahead - a bit of intro. Without a deep understanding of all the requirements, I still made an early prototype of a given tool to address some of my problems somewhere back in November 2018. Greatly impressed by Sitecore Instance Manager (also known as SIM) I decided to return a graphical installer to Sitecore, which was missing out by those days. That of course was achieved, however, the most valuable feature was the ability to back up the entire Sitecore instance state, clean up the web folder and databases and restore it back from a folder. All that in just a minute time, which seemed to be nothing comparing even to installation with SIF. Something extremely helpful, when you develop with Helix principles and often need to create rollback points before trying some complicated PoCs or for example to a clean just installed version of Sitecore, in order to perform deployment on a clean instance.

That software start saving my time significantly, right from the moment of its creation! Later I added a few more frequently used functions into it, such as installing modules, Solr, rebuilding indexes and full republish, adding HTTP bindings to an instance, and moving its SSL certificates into trusted storage. I shared this PoC with a few of my colleagues working on the same project saving their time as well. 

But I could not share it with the entire Sitecore community, to my regret. Firstly, due to unstable code coming out of PoC sitting on top of another PoC and so on, turning Proof of Concept into the Proof of Hell. Secondly not just a project architecture was put under a big question mark, but also the whole concept should be revised. 

I wanted it not just to be well maintainable, but extendable. Saying that I mean the ability of each individual working with this program to easily create their own plugins and extensions, addressing some specific task that is shareable or publically open-sourced. Multiplied by Sitecore community efforts that may become an unprecedently helpful tool for all of us, I know you folks are very creative!

So once again, please welcome Sifon. But first of all, what the word Sifon means? 

Sifon is a simplified casual term for a whipping siphon that is used to create carbonated water, often with some fancy tastes. It requires cartridges of gas, also known as chargers, to pressurize the chamber holding the liquid. That very roughly explains the architecture of Sifon tool I am presenting to you today.

In my case, Sifon is a nicely developed PowerShell host with numerous features that allow "playing" any custom PowerShell or C# code in form of plugins. That comes as a curious metaphor - the host itself serves as a siphon body, where plugins stand as an analog for charger cartridges. The main screen looks quite minimalistic:

Features:

• stores credentials and environmental parameters in one place called profile, passing them as the parameters into the code
• supports multiple profiles for many environments with immediate switching between them by one click
• "backup-remove-restore" routine comes as built-in and is available immediately after setting up the first profile 
• profile editor allows the testing connection few basic parameters auto detections but will be extended with more features
• runs in multithread, responsively updating the progress along with the rest of the corresponding feedback

From the feature list, as for a user, it offers these benefits:

• keep all your frequently used scripts at the same place, organizing them by nested folders as preferred
• separate scripts from sensitive parameters, allowing sharing and publishing them open source
• because of the above, one may create own repository and clone scripts directly into Sifon's plugins directory 

The first thing one needs to do after installation is to set up a profile. As I mentioned above, a profile is an easy-to-switch-between set of parameters applicable to a specific environment. As simple, these parameters from a currently selected profile will be passed over to any script executed, regardless of whether that passed into a built-in feature, PowerShell script, or DLL plugin. It is expected that both mentioned are accepting these parameters, so please refer to the provided example in order to build your own plugins. 

Important! In order for Sifon to function, you must create at least one profile that has a SQL Server connection set up. Otherwise, most of its functions will be greyed out, until required profile data is submitted.

Now, let's take a look at Sifon's built-in "backup - remove - restore" routine. Making backup comes as easy as:

All you need to do is specify the folder to put the backups into, select which instance to backup (you may have many) and decide whether you want to backup databases (select which exactly), web folder, or both.

As you might know, it is always better to deploy Helix-based solutions into a clean environment, so you may want to clean the existing webroot before restoring it into that folder. It is done in a similar manner - from dropdown select which instance to remove and it will prompt you with a webroot folder and installed databases. You just need to check/uncheck what you'd like to remove. Please note that databases can be deleted individually, and by selecting "manual entry" you can list all the databases from all the instances to be selected for removal.

Not to say that restoring looks and also works similar to mentioned above. Simply select a folder with a corresponding backup and select what to restore. If the folder contains only webroot or just databases, you'll be able to restore only what you've got. 

Creating a capsule plugin requires you to write PowerShell in a specific manner, but the two important points to mention are:

1. accepting parameters. Just attach this to the top of your script, and you'll get these parameters auto-provided

param(
    #Comes from profile
    [string]$ServerInstance,
    [string]$Username,
    [string]$Password,
    [string]$instanceName,
    [string]$instanceFolder,
)

2. reporting the progress by write-progress. This is done by the following syntax

Write-Progress -Activity "This is the name of current operation" -CurrentOperation "Step 1" -PercentComplete 10
start-sleep -milli 500
Write-Progress -Activity "This is the name of current operation" -CurrentOperation "Step 2" -PercentComplete 20

You may run test-progress.ps1 script and review its code as it demonstrates how progress output works with PowerShell

Have you ever noticed a light-blue progress bar when installing Sitecore with SIF (as below)?

That's it! It also means plenty of SIF functions can be converted to work with Sifon and will support displaying progress natively. Few of them will be provided upon the release.

List of plugins (capsules) that will be provided upon release through GitHub:

• all types of package installation: traditional, update-packages and web deploy WDP modules
• creating an SSL certificate and adding it to the trusted storage
• enable SPE remoting for a selected instance and further execution of plugins in their context
• install Solr service, both as single and in-parallel running to already existing service (ie. various versions)

This is the first publically released beta and it is downloadable from this blog post. In the future, it will be distributed from own website along with the documentation, but there will be an easier way of installing it:

choco install sifon

Future plans

• execute PowerShell scripts in the context of a remote machine by WSMAN (that's already supported, but no UI for it yet)
• add support microservices of Sitecore, such as xConnect, Identity Server, and Publishing Service
• in addition to the above, add full support for Commerce, its microservices, and databases
• be fully compliant with Sitecore 9.2, including official installer script (SIF script coming out of the box)
• extend custom OutputFormatters to plugins, allowing presenting more friendly console output (currently works at Sifon itself)
• community plugins available through the GitHub repository
• once becomes matured, releasing Sifon itself open source

You can download the beta by clicking this link (please download from Sifon website instead). It will already be able to do backups and restore your instances. The samples of capsule plugins are also available through this GitHub. Just compile DLL or drop PowerShell into Scripts folder to get them available via the menu.

Hope you enjoy that and looking forward to your feedback.

brThis trick saves me lo-o-o-ot of time, especially working on large Helix/SXA solution.

Typically you have a treelist that looks like this:

Now tell me what actions do you take when there is a necessity to look up what are one or few of these templates? How you achieve that?

I assume you raw copy GUID, paste into search, inspect and then return back. Clumsy, isn't it?

LET'S REVIEW THE OPTIONS

1. Browser user script. I recently wrote about implementing browser user script in order to enhance your productivity while working with Sitecore content management. This approach has

• Pros:

  • leaves server untouched
  • user can easily adjust the flow right in the nice code editor provided by the extension

• Cons:

  • applies only on a specific browser on your client machine
  • sometimes relies on browser extensions ie. TapmerMonkey

2. Serverside script alteration is an opposite option for achieving the goal. I recently blogged about developing Expand / Collapse all editor sections implementing this approach. In order to do so, I need to modify <web_root>\sitecore\shell\Applications\Content Manager\Content Editor.js file within my sitecore instance.

• Pros:

  • applies to all users with all browsers using your Sitecore instance

• Cons:

  • served by a back-end and risks interfering with other serverside code
  • business logic needs to be placed into Sitecore instance, whether by deployment or manually

Anyway, you may pick up either of the solutions depending on your preferences, it's better to have a choice. Let's turn to the implementation.

IMPLEMENTATION

1. Browser user script. The way Sitecore Desktop functions is dynamically loading iframes for specific features, so it is not as easy to use selectors with it due to not just elements but even documents not yet loaded into DOM. 

To address this implementation I picked Mutation. It allows you creating handlers for whatever mutation occurs in your DOM, one may also specify what types of events to handle:

// handing a mutation occured
var mutationObserver = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) {
  mutations.forEach(function(mutation) {
    console.log(mutation);
  });
});

// starts listening for changes in the root HTML element of the page.
mutationObserver.observe(document.documentElement, {
  attributes: true,
  characterData: true,
  childList: true,
  subtree: true,
  attributeOldValue: true,
  characterDataOldValue: true
});

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Multilist and Treelist values lookup
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  When working with multilist / treelist items in Sitecore, simply hit ENTER on right-hand side selected item in order to preview it in new tab
// @author       Martin Miles
// @match        */sitecore/shell/default.aspx*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function () {
    'use strict';

    const settings = { mutation: { attributes: true, characterData: true, childList: true, subtree: true, attributeOldValue: true, characterDataOldValue: true } };

    var mutationObserver = new MutationObserver(function (mutations) {
        mutations.forEach(function (mutation) {

            if (mutation.type == "attributes" && mutation.target.id.startsWith("startbar_application_") && mutation.target.className == "scActiveApplication") {
                var iframe = getIframeFromActiveTab(mutation.target);
                if (iframe) {
                    internalMutationObserver(iframe);
                }
            }
        });
    });

    mutationObserver.observe(document.documentElement, settings.mutation);

    function internalMutationObserver(iframe) {
        var innerObserver = new MutationObserver(function (innerMutations) {
            innerMutations.forEach(function (m) {

                var _el = m.target;
                if (_el.className == 'scEditorFieldMarkerBarCell') {

                    var labels = _el.parentElement.querySelectorAll('.scContentControlMultilistCaption');
                    labels.forEach(function (label) {
                        if (label.innerHTML == 'Selected') {
                            label.innerHTML = label.innerHTML + ' (hit ENTER on selected item for preview in a new tab)';
                        }
                    });

                    var selects = _el.parentElement.querySelectorAll('select');
                    selects.forEach(function (select) {
                        select.addEventListener("keypress", keyPressed);
                    });
                }
            });
        });

        // wire up internal mutation
        innerObserver.observe(iframe.contentDocument, settings.mutation);
    }

    function getIframeFromActiveTab(element) {
        let frameName = element.id.replace('startbar_application_', '');
        let iframe = document.querySelectorAll('iframe#' + frameName);
        if (iframe.length > 0) {
            return iframe[0];
        }

        return null;
    }

    function keyPressed(e) {
        if (e.keyCode == 13) {

            var selsectedValue = e.target.options[e.target.selectedIndex].value;

            var url = getUrl(selsectedValue);
            if (url) {
                openInNewTab(url);
            }

            return false;
        }
    }

    function getUrl(selsectedValue) {

        let guid;
        var parts = selsectedValue.split("|");
        if (parts.length === 2) {
            guid = parts[1];
        }
        else if (isGuid(selsectedValue)) {
            guid = selsectedValue;
        }

        return !guid ? guid : '/sitecore/shell/Applications/Content Editor?id='
            + guid + '&vs=1&la=en&sc_content=master&fo='
            + guid + '&ic=People%2f16x16%2fcubes_blue.png&he=Content+Editor&cl=0';
    }

    function isGuid(stringToTest) {
        if (stringToTest[0] === "{") {
            stringToTest = stringToTest.substring(1, stringToTest.length - 1);
        }
        var regexGuid = /^(\{){0,1}[0-9a-fA-F]{8}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}(\}){0,1}$/gi;
        return regexGuid.test(stringToTest);
    }

    function openInNewTab(url) {
        var win = window.open(url, '_blank');
        win.focus();
    }
})();

2. The serverside approach considers modifying some serverside component, in a given case, it is quite simple - just modifying <web_root>\sitecore\shell\Applications\Content Manager\Content Editor.js file by adding few functions at the bottom of it:

scContentEditor.prototype.onDomReady = function (evt) {
    this.registerJQueryExtensions(window.jQuery || window.$sc);
    this.addMultilistEnhancer(window.jQuery || window.$sc);
};

scContentEditor.prototype.addMultilistEnhancer = function ($) {
    $ = $ || window.jQuery || window.$sc;
    if (!$) { return; }

    $('#MainPopupIframe').load(function () {
        $(this).show();
        console.log('iframe loaded successfully')
    });

    $(document).on("keypress", "select.scContentControlMultilistBox", function (e) {
        if (e.keyCode == 13) {

            var selsectedValue = e.target.options[e.target.selectedIndex].value;

            var url = getUrl(selsectedValue);
            if (url) {
                openInNewTab(url);
            }

            return false;
        }
    });

    function getUrl(selsectedValue) {

        let guid;
        var parts = selsectedValue.split("|");
        if (parts.length === 2) {
            guid = parts[1];
        }
        else if (isGuid(selsectedValue)) {
            guid = selsectedValue;
        }

        return !guid ? guid : '/sitecore/shell/Applications/Content Editor?id='
            + guid + '&vs=1&la=en&sc_content=master&fo='
            + guid + '&ic=People%2f16x16%2fcubes_blue.png&he=Content+Editor&cl=0';
    }

    function isGuid(stringToTest) {
        if (stringToTest[0] === "{") {
            stringToTest = stringToTest.substring(1, stringToTest.length - 1);
        }
        var regexGuid = /^(\{){0,1}[0-9a-fA-F]{8}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}\-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}(\}){0,1}$/gi;
        return regexGuid.test(stringToTest);
    }

    function openInNewTab(url) {
        var win = window.open(url, '_blank');
        win.focus();
    }
};

Invalidate browser cache and refresh the page. I am not including a demo record as it works identical to the demo above for the first approach.

// you cannot have multidelegate onDomReady here, so share all calls within one handler
scContentEditor.prototype.onDomReady = function (evt) {
    this.registerJQueryExtensions(window.jQuery || window.$sc);
    this.addMultilistEnhancer(window.jQuery || window.$sc);
    this.addCollapser(window.jQuery || window.$sc);
};

Objective.

Initially I've had a template called Blog, and several pages of it which are actual blog posts. Now I have created a page called Blog Index, implementing template, partial and page designs of the same name. The obvious purpose of given page is to show the list of blog posts, being able to filter this out by certain criteria, including a new custom one - series. Content authors want to group these blogs posts into series, so that's a grouping by a logical criteria. They also want to to display the most recent higher, but give readers an option to select an order, as well as page size.

Implementation plan

1. Switch to SXA "Live mode" (optional)
2. Create taxonomy categories
3. Create Series interface template
4. Use interface template and update blog posts
5. Create search scope for page template
6. Create computed field
7. Publish, redeploy and re-build indexes
8. Create facets
9. Create filter datasources
10. Make rendering variant for search filters
11. Make rendering variant for search results
12. Place component to partial design
13. Configuring Search Results component
14. Enjoy result!

IMPLEMENTATION

1. Before start, switch web to master, this can be done at /sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Settings/Site Grouping/Platform at Database field by setting it to master (dont't forget to publish that particulat item however). Once done, it will use not only master database at published site, but also master indexes.

2. Firstly, let's create Series taxonomy folder under Taxonomy (/sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Data/Taxonomy) and populate it with actual series-categories that will be used for filtering:

3. Now I can create interface template to implement series selection. This template will be later used with not just Blogs but also few other page types, that's why I make it an interface and put into shared - /sitecore/templates/Project/Tenant/Platform/Interfaces/Shared/_Series.

Make sure the Source column has correctly set datasource, so that you later will be able to pick up right category under site's Data/Taxonomy/Series folder, as on example below:

Datasource=query:$site/*[@@name='Data']/Taxonomy/Series&IncludeTemplatesForDisplay=Taxonomy folder,Category&IncludeTemplatesForSelection=Category

4. Once done, add _Series interface template to actual page template (Blog in my case). Then one can go to existing blog posts and assign them into series (best with Sitecore PowerShell):

$rootItem = Get-Item master:/sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform;
$sourceTemplate = Get-Item "/sitecore/templates/Project/Tenant/Platform/Pages/Blog";  
$selectedSeries = "{1072C536-0EC2-4EAB-8D98-DC9BF441F30A}";

Get-ChildItem $rootItem.FullPath -Recurse | Where-Object { $_.TemplateName -eq $sourceTemplate.Name } | ForEach-Object {  
        $_.Editing.BeginEdit()
        $_.Fields["Series"].Value = $selectedSeries;
        $_.Editing.EndEdit()
}

Now selecting an item displays which series it belongs to:

5. Create scope under /sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Settings/Scopes, call it Blogs and set its field Scope Query to filter out by Blog template ID:

6. Create computed field contentseries at you project to store actual name of Series into index that's in addition to another field in index called series so that automatically indexed by template and stores GUID for series. This is how I implemented it in Platform.Website.ContentSearch.config:

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>
    <contentSearch>
      <indexConfigurations>
        <defaultSolrIndexConfiguration>
          <fieldMap>
            <fieldNames>
              <field fieldName="contentseries" returnType="stringCollection" patch:after="*[0]" />
            </fieldNames>
          </fieldMap>
          <documentOptions>
            <fields hint="raw:AddComputedIndexField">
              <field fieldId="{ID-of-Series-field-within-_Series_template}" fieldName="contentseries" returnType="stringCollection" patch:after="*[0]">
                Tenant.Site.Website.ComputedFields.CategoriesField,Tenant.Site.Website
              </field>
            </fields>
          </documentOptions>          
        </defaultSolrIndexConfiguration>
      </indexConfigurations>
    </contentSearch>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

7. Publish this configuration into webfolder, then clean up (you can run PS script below) and rebuild indexes.

stop-service solrServiceName
get-childitem -path c:\PathTo\Solr\server\solr\Platform*\Data -recurse | remove-item -force -recurse
start-service solrServiceName
iisreset /stop
iisreset /start

8. When computed field comes into index, the next step sould be to create Series facets. Please note that facet name should be different from the field name as the one got by template and then facet overwrites it

• For Series - under /sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Settings/Facets. The most important field here is Field Name, the value would be contentseries that matched name of field we've created at the previous step
• Also create one for Published date that relies on already existing published_date_tdt field, which is a custom date field presenting in all of my content page templates.

9. Create new datasource items:

• checklist filter called Series under /sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Data/Search/Checklist Filter folder and assign its first field to point Series facet created at previous step
• an item for Publication Date under /sitecore/content/Tenant/Platform/Data/Search/Date Filter/Publication Date.

10. Implement Search Filter rendering variant that will contain actual filters. I create that under my custom component Search Content, make two columns and also component variant field into each of them. Assign Filter (Checklist) into first and Filter (Date) into second. Reference datasource items from previous step for each component correspondingly:

11. Implement Search Result rendering variant that will define presentation for each item shown/found:

Noticed Series reference field? That switches context to the item references by Series field, so that I can get a value of actual category under Taxonomy folder.

12. In partial design for Blog Index, drop the following renderings into the canvas: Search content, Sort Results, Page Size and Search Results.

13. Finally, for Search Results component, go to Edit component properties, under SearchCriteria section assign Search results signature to search-results and also select Search scope to match Blogs.