This blog post, as many others, is inspired by a client support request. I've decided to put post it, so others can use the code to create their own sidebar widgets for their custom modules. In this post I am going to sample how you can extend a built in command widget to add new functionality to it, and make it filter by something which is not part of the out of the box functionality. For convenience, please refer to the ProductsCatalogSample module which is distributed with the Sitefinity SDK
Implementing the custom widget
I've decided to extend the DynamicCommandWidget class which allows you to bind a datasource such as collection of categories and display them on the side bar. Then you can filter for your items based on desired filter expression.
Implement the server-side class.
First we need to create our custom widget class. The only difference with the built in one is that we are going to add an extra JavaScript file reference to execute our custom logic:
using
System;
using
System.Collections.Generic;
using
System.Web.UI;
using
Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.Backend.Elements.Widgets;
namespace
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI
{
class
CustomDynamicCommandWidget : DynamicCommandWidget
{
protected
override
Type ResourcesAssemblyInfo
{
get
{
return
typeof
(DynamicCommandWidget);
}
}
public
override
IEnumerable<System.Web.UI.ScriptReference> GetScriptReferences()
{
var widgetInterfaceScript =
new
ScriptReference
{
Assembly =
typeof
(IWidget).Assembly.FullName,
Name = Scripts.IWidget
};
var commandWidgetInterfaceScript =
new
ScriptReference
{
Assembly =
typeof
(DynamicCommandWidget).Assembly.FullName,
Name = Scripts.ICommandWidget
};
var commandWidgetScript =
new
ScriptReference
{
Assembly =
typeof
(DynamicCommandWidget).Assembly.FullName,
Name = Scripts.DynamicCommandWidget
};
//register the custom script
var customCommandWidgetScript =
new
ScriptReference
{
Assembly =
typeof
(CustomDynamicCommandWidget).Assembly.FullName,
Name = Scripts.CustomDynamicCommandWidget
};
return
new
ScriptReference[] { widgetInterfaceScript, commandWidgetInterfaceScript, commandWidgetScript, customCommandWidgetScript };
}
internal
struct
Scripts
{
public
const
string
IWidget =
"Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.SitefinityJS.UI.IWidget.js"
;
public
const
string
ICommandWidget =
"Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.SitefinityJS.UI.ICommandWidget.js"
;
public
const
string
DynamicCommandWidget =
"Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.Backend.Elements.Widgets.Scripts.DynamicCommandWidget.js"
;
public
const
string
CustomDynamicCommandWidget =
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.js"
;
}
}
}
Implement the client-side component
After we have implemented the server-side class we need to add our custom filtering functionality to the client-side component (CustomDynamicCommandWidget.js). There is a built in method which handles item commands and we are simply going to override it:
/// <reference name="MicrosoftAjax.js"/>
/// <reference name="Telerik.Sitefinity.Resources.Scripts.jquery-1.4.2-vsdoc.js" assembly="Telerik.Sitefinity.Resources"/>
Type.registerNamespace(
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI"
);
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget =
function
(element) {
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.initializeBase(
this
, [element]);
}
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.prototype =
{
initialize:
function
() {
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.callBaseMethod(
this
,
"initialize"
);
},
dispose:
function
() {
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.callBaseMethod(
this
,
"dispose"
);
},
_binderCommandHandler:
function
(sender, args) {
var
commandEventArgs =
new
Telerik.Sitefinity.UI.CommandEventArgs(
this
._commandName, {
'filterExpression'
:
this
.getCategoriesFilterExpression() });
//send a filtering command to our grid view to filter by the selected checkboxes
//if there are no selected checkboxes the filtering expression will be empty string showing all items
var
h =
this
.get_events().getHandler(
'command'
);
if
(h) h(
this
, commandEventArgs);
},
getCategoriesFilterExpression:
function
() {
var
selectedItems = jQuery(
"input.sf_binderCommand_filterByCategory:checked"
);
var
expression =
''
;
//get selected checkboxes and construct the filter expression
if
(selectedItems.length > 0) {
for
(
var
i = 0; i < selectedItems.length; i++) {
if
(i == 0)
expression = expression +
'Category.Contains(('
+ selectedItems[i].value +
'))'
;
else
expression = expression +
'OR Category.Contains(('
+ selectedItems[i].value +
'))'
;
}
}
return
expression;
}
}
ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.registerClass(
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget"
, Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.Backend.Elements.Widgets.DynamicCommandWidget, Telerik.Sitefinity.UI.ICommandWidget, Telerik.Sitefinity.UI.IWidget);
Implement grid view extension script
Since we are building a custom type widget we need to explicitly tell the grid view in our backend items list to bind the widget with our datasource (CustomDynamicCommandWidgetExtensionScript.js). We need to get the sidebar and find our widget. Then bind it:
function
OnMasterViewLoaded(sender, args) {
if
(sender.get_sidebar()) {
var
widgetsInSidebar = sender.get_sidebar()._widgets;
if
(widgetsInSidebar) {
for
(
var
i = 0; i < widgetsInSidebar.length; i++) {
if
(Object.getTypeName(widgetsInSidebar[i]) ==
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget"
) {
widgetsInSidebar[i].dataBind();
}
}
}
}
}
Register scripts with the assembly
When we are done with the client-side component and the extension script we need to register them as embedded resources in the AssemblyInfo class of our code library project:
[assembly: WebResource(
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidget.js"
,
"text/javascript"
)]
[assembly: WebResource(
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidgetExtensionScript.js"
,
"text/javascript"
)]
Set the custom module to use the command widget
All configurations of the backend of your modules are done through the module's definition class. We need to register the extension script and our custom command widget. Since we are working with the ProductsCatalogSample project we need to edit the ProductsDefinitions class.
Register the extension script
This is done in the DefineProductsBackendContentView method where the grid view is defined:
#region external scripts
var scripts =
new
Dictionary<
string
,
string
>();
scripts.Add(
string
.Format(
"{0}, {1}"
,
ProductsDefinitions.CustomDynamicCommandWidgetExtensionScript,
typeof
(ProductsModule).Assembly.FullName),
"OnMasterViewLoaded"
);
productsGridView.ExternalClientScripts = scripts;
#endregion
public
const
string
CustomDynamicCommandWidgetExtensionScript =
"ProductCatalogSample.Web.UI.CustomDynamicCommandWidgetExtensionScript.js"
;
Configure the custom dynamic command widget
We need to substitute the built in dynamic command widget definition for filtering by categories with the custom one. Find where the dynamic command widget for categories is registered in the ProductDefinitions class and amend it to be as bellow:
var categoryFilterWidget =
new
DynamicCommandWidgetElement(categoryFilterSection.Items)
{
Name =
"CategoryFilter"
,
CommandName =
"filter"
,
PageSize = 10,
WidgetType =
typeof
(CustomDynamicCommandWidget),
IsSeparator =
false
,
BindTo = BindCommandListTo.HierarchicalData,
BaseServiceUrl = String.Format(
"~/Sitefinity/Services/Taxonomies/HierarchicalTaxon.svc/{0}/"
, TaxonomyManager.CategoriesTaxonomyId),
ChildItemsServiceUrl =
"~/Sitefinity/Services/Taxonomies/HierarchicalTaxon.svc/subtaxa/"
,
PredecessorServiceUrl =
"~/Sitefinity/Services/Taxonomies/HierarchicalTaxon.svc/predecessor/"
,
ClientItemTemplate = @
" <input type='checkbox' class='sf_binderCommand_filterByCategory' sys:value='{{ Id }}'>{{ Title }}</input> <span class='sfCount'>({{ItemsCount}})</span>"
};
Finally build the project and see the result.