Naveed's Blog

If you are reading this post, then I can assume you are curios about EPiServer dynamic data store and want to know how to use it. In this post, I am going to do exactly the same. I will create, update and delete from DDS using EPiServer API.

1- Create a new dynamic data store

Imagine you have to dynamically store landing page ids for certain products or sections and then read them back from dynamic data store

private void CreateLandingPageDDS(PageData myPage)
{
//create a propertybag
PropertyBag landingProperties = new PropertyBag();

//add your custom properties
landingProperties.Add("LandingPageKey", myPage.PageLink.ID.ToString());
landingProperties.Add("LandingPageProductName", myPage.PageName);
//add more properties if you like, but there is a limit that you can add upto, or
//create a custom object and add that object

//create a new store for DDS
DynamicDataStore store = DynamicDataStoreFactory.Instance.CreateStore("DDS",   landingProperties.GenerateTypeBag());

//store DDS in database
Identity id = store.Save(landingProperties);

}

pretty simple

2- Get dynamic data store

Now let say you want to query the same DDS and would like to get pageName if you pass in the pageID

public static string GetLandingPageName(string currentPageID)
{
//get the store from database
DynamicDataStore store = (DynamicDataStore)DynamicDataStoreFactory.Instance.GetStore("DDS");

if (store != null)
{
//find all the properties for that key/value pair
IEnumerable<PropertyBag> landingProperties = store.FindAsPropertyBag("LandingPageKey", currentPageID);

//iterate through each property and return only where key matches
if (landingProperties != null)
{
foreach (PropertyBag item in landingProperties)
{
string pageName = item["LandingPageProductName"] as string ?? string.Empty;
return pageName;
}

}

}
return string.Empty;
}

Although pageName is a trivial property, this is just an example how to go about using DDS.

3- Update dynamic data store

Now let say you want to update pageName using pageID

private void UpdateLandingPage(string currentPageID)
{
DynamicDataStore store = (DynamicDataStore)DynamicDataStoreFactory.Instance.GetStore("DDS");

if (store != null)
{
IEnumerable<PropertyBag> landingProperties = store.FindAsPropertyBag("LandingPageKey", currentPageID);

if (landingProperties != null)
{
foreach (PropertyBag item in landingProperties)
{
item["LandingPageProductName"] = "New name";
store.Save(item);
}


}

}
}

4- Delete dynamic data store

That is very strait forward, just use

DynamicDataStoreFactory.Instance.DeleteStore("DDS",true);

5-Important note

If during development, you have to change your dynamic data store by adding more properties to property bag object, it will result in exception.

There are two ways to get round this

1.If you are in development, delete your previous DDS entries and start fresh
2.If you are in production, then you have to re-map/re-link the property bag.

Have fun coding DDS

EPiServer has lots of in-built properties, but one major property that it is missing is ‘radio button list’ , sometimes user wants to select just one option from give 4 or 5 options.

In this post, I will guide you through making a very basic custom property for EPiServer for ‘Radio Button List’

Step1: In your VS project, right-click and new EPiServer custom property control as show below, i will rename this control is ‘PropertyMyPicker’

Add custom property

Step2: Inherit it from ‘PropertyString’ as shown below

Inherit from property string

Step3: This will create two code files in your project as following

PropertyMyPicker.cs

PropertyMyPickerControl.cs

You do not need to do anything in ‘PropertyMyPicker.cs’ class, and all your logic will be implemented in  ‘PropertyMyPickerControl.cs’.

Step4: In this code snippet,  we create 3 radio buttons, if their value is selected, that text is stored in the database and when the page is re-visited/re-loaded the value is read back from the database. Change the code of the ‘PropertyMyPickerControl.cs’ as shown below and make necessary namespace and variable changes. You have overwrite some of the methods and implement your own if necessary.

/// <summary>
/// PropertyControl implementation used for rendering PropertyMyPicker data.
/// </summary>
public class PropertyMyPickerControl : EPiServer.Web.PropertyControls.PropertyStringControl
{
RadioButton radioButton1 = null;
RadioButton radioButton2 = null;
RadioButton radioButton3 = null;
// Value that will be stored in db,
string desc = string.Empty;
// group name for all radio buttons to make them behave as radiobuttonlist
readonly string groupName = "MyPicker";
/// <summary>
/// Gets the PropertyMyPicker instance for this IPropertyControl.
/// </summary>
/// <value>The property that is to be displayed or edited.</value>
public PropertyMyPicker PropertyMyPicker
{
get
{
return PropertyData as PropertyMyPicker;
}
}
/// <summary>
///creates radio button list and pre-select if the value
///has been saved in database
/// </summary>
public override void CreateEditControls()
{
//add radioButton1 radio button
radioButton1 = new RadioButton();
radioButton1.Text = "Radio 1 Text";
radioButton1.GroupName = groupName;
radioButton1.Checked = IsRadioChecked(radioButton1.Text);
//add radioButton2 radio button
radioButton2 = new RadioButton();
radioButton2.Text = "Radio 2 Text"
radioButton2.GroupName = groupName;
radioButton2.Checked = IsRadioChecked(radioButton2.Text);
//add radioButton3 radio button
radioButton3 = new RadioButton();
radioButton3.Text = "Radio 3 Text";
radioButton3.GroupName = groupName;
radioButton3.Checked = IsRadioChecked(radioButton3.Text);

this.Controls.Add(radioButton1);
this.Controls.Add(radioButton2);
this.Controls.Add(radioButton3);

}
/// <summary>
/// Saves it to the database
/// </summary>
public override void ApplyEditChanges()
{
desc = GetMyDescription();
base.SetValue(desc);
}
/// <summary>
/// Get selected radio button text
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
private string GetMyDescription()
{
string selectedMyPicker = string.Empty;

if (radioButton1.Checked)
selectedMyPicker = "Radio 1 Text";
else if (radioButton2.Checked)
selectedMyPicker = "Radio 2 Text";
else if (radioButton3.Checked)
selectedMyPicker ="Radio 3 Text";

return selectedMy;

}
/// <summary>
/// Check if the controls contain value for any of the radio button in database
/// </summary>
/// <param name="name"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
private bool IsRadioChecked(string name)
{
if (this.PropertyData.Value != null)
{
string selectedMy = this.PropertyData.Value.ToString();
if (selectedMy.ToLower() == name.ToLower())
return true;
}
return false;
}

}

Step 5: Next you need to create the property for the page template, you will see your new property in the dropdown list

Step 6: You can use this property as a page string property and output your custom logic

//assuming MyPicker is the page property name
var myPicker = CurrentPage["MyPicker"] as string;

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(myPicker))
{
  //add your custom logic here
}

Thats it, job done!