Experience Sitecore !

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);
};