Experience Sitecore !

In the first part of this story I demonstrated how to create an extra search pipeline processor to search by plain GUIDs (those without dashes and curly braces). Now it a good time to achieve the same functionality by another approach.

So, how actually values are coming into search pipeline? While debugging I came across the method TreeSearch_Click - the one was top method from backend call stack (Sitecore.Client.dll) so I tried to find where on frontend it is being called from.

It was called from <WEB_ROOT>/sitecore/shell/Applications/Content Manager/default.aspx file, right by inline script:

javascript:if(event.keyCode==13){var result = scForm.postEvent(this,event,'TreeSearch_Click',true);scContent.fixSearchPanelLayout();return result;}

That code runs by hitting enter on search textbox, there's also similar handler for clicking magnifier icon:

javascript:var result = scForm.postEvent(this,event,'TreeSearch_Click',true);scContent.fixSearchPanelLayout();return result;

In both cases we are POST-ing javascript this that refer to a calling element. So, obviously, if somehow intercept that value - it will be possible to do manipulation on it right on the DOM, and changes would be reflected by UI immediately. That is something missing at part one of this story. Doing that before call to postEvent will post already updated value.

So I ended up with modifying default.aspx by adding a pre-post function to check whether the value is a plain GUID and format it appropriately in that case (I admit I am not the best frontend developer in the world so that implementation could be way better):

onkeydown="javascript:if(event.keyCode==13){ verifyPlainGuid(this); var result = scForm.postEvent(this,event,'TreeSearch_Click',true);scContent.fixSearchPanelLayout();return result;}"

and for icon handler

onclick="javascript:verifyPlainGuid(this); var result = scForm.postEvent(this,event,'TreeSearch_Click',true);scContent.fixSearchPanelLayout();return result;

calling the following javascript function as defined:

function verifyPlainGuid(parameter)
{

    if (parameter & amp; & parameter.className == "scSearchButton") {

        var input = parameter.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.children[0].children[0];
        substituteRegexIfMatches(input);
    }

    if (parameter.id == "TreeSearch")
    {
        substituteRegexIfMatches(parameter);
    }

    function substituteRegexIfMatches(inputElement) {

        var shortGuidRegexPatterns = '[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}';

        if (inputElement.value.match(shortGuidRegexPatterns))
        {

            var plainGuid = inputElement.value;

            inputElement.value = "{" + plainGuid.substring(0, 8) + "-" + plainGuid.substring(8, 12) + "-" + plainGuid.substring(12, 16)
            + "-" + plainGuid.substring(16, 20) + "-" + plainGuid.substring(20, 32) + "}";
        }
    }
}

That's it - all the changes and it works even better. So, let's compare part 2 against part 1:

Pros:

• does not modify either \bin folder or configuration, there's no app pool recycle happening
• no inclines into pipelines, GUID transformation logic runs only when indeed required, not on each run
• runs at frontend and do not interfere backend
• modified GUID is reflected at searchbox immediately

Cons:

• required modification of original sitecore-shipped file (default.aspx)
• this file tends to changes rather frequently

For all updates (versions) of Sitecore 8.2 - download a package. 

If you're on Sitecore 8.1, you may need to manually substitute default.aspx located at <WEB_ROOT>/sitecore/shell/Applications/Content Manager folder:

Sitecore 8.1 update 3 - link
Sitecore 8.1 update 2 - link
Sitecore 8.1 update 1 - link
Sitecore 8.1 initial release - link

P.S. What can be done even better? I think, Sitecore should add this functionality to their future versions, as it covers one of the quite frequently used case for us. Ideally, while searching by short GUID it should return Direct Hit result if the item with such ID exists, along with other results from content search.