Custom control in Sitecore

Although Sitecore has provided most of the features out of box, yet sometime we need custom control to be created as per project need. In the given example, we will create a custom control "Pubish with media". Purpose of this custom button is to publish the content including media associated with it.

Follow the mentioned steps to make custom control.

Step1:
Create a cs file in your project and name it as "PublishWithMedia.cs". Open the file and write the code. In this example,  we are showing code for publishing media with content item.

using System;

using System.Collections.Specialized;

using Sitecore;

using Sitecore.Data;

using Sitecore.Data.Items;

using Sitecore.Diagnostics;

using Sitecore.Globalization;

using Sitecore.Links;

using Sitecore.Publishing;

using Sitecore.Shell.Framework;

using Sitecore.Shell.Framework.Commands;

using Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer;

using Sitecore.Workflows;

namespace MyProject.CustomControl

{

    /// <summary>

    /// Represents the Publish Item command.

    /// </summary>

    [Serializable]

    public class PublishWithMedia : Command

    {

        /// <summary>

        /// Checks the workflow.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="args">The arguments.</param>

        /// <param name="item">The item.</param>

        /// <returns>The workflow.</returns>

        private static bool CheckWorkflow(ClientPipelineArgs args, Item item)

        {

            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");

            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item");

            if (args.Parameters["workflow"] == "1")

            {

                return true;

            }

            args.Parameters["workflow"] = "1";

            if (args.IsPostBack)

            {

                if (args.Result != "yes")

                {

                    args.AbortPipeline();

                    return false;

                }

                args.IsPostBack = false;

                return true;

            }

            IWorkflowProvider workflowProvider = Context.ContentDatabase.WorkflowProvider;

            if (workflowProvider == null || (int)workflowProvider.GetWorkflows().Length <= 0)

            {

                return true;

            }

            IWorkflow workflow = workflowProvider.GetWorkflow(item);

            if (workflow == null)

            {

                return true;

            }

            WorkflowState state = workflow.GetState(item);

            if (state == null)

            {

                return true;

            }

            if (state.FinalState)

            {

                return true;

            }

            args.Parameters["workflow"] = "0";

            object[] displayName = new object[] { item.DisplayName, state.DisplayName };

            SheerResponse.Confirm(Translate.Text("The current item \"{0}\" is in the workflow state \"{1}\"\nand will not be published.\n\nAre you sure you want to publish?", displayName));

            args.WaitForPostBack();

            return false;

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Executes the command in the specified context.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="context">The context.</param>

        public override void Execute(CommandContext context)

        {

            if ((int)context.Items.Length == 1)

            {

                Item items = context.Items[0];

                NameValueCollection nameValueCollection = new NameValueCollection();

                nameValueCollection["id"] = items.ID.ToString();

                nameValueCollection["language"] = items.Language.ToString();

                nameValueCollection["version"] = items.Version.ToString();

                nameValueCollection["workflow"] = "0";

                Context.ClientPage.Start(this, "Run", nameValueCollection);

            }

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Queries the state of the command.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="context">The context.</param>

        /// <returns>The state of the command.</returns>

        public override CommandState QueryState(CommandContext context)

        {

            if ((int)context.Items.Length != 1)

            {

                return CommandState.Hidden;

            }

            return base.QueryState(context);

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Runs the specified args.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="args">The arguments.</param>

        protected void Run(ClientPipelineArgs args)

        {

            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");

            string item = args.Parameters["id"];

            string str = args.Parameters["language"];

            string item1 = args.Parameters["version"];

            if (!SheerResponse.CheckModified())

            {

                return;

            }

            Item currItem = Context.ContentDatabase.Items[item, Language.Parse(str), Sitecore.Data.Version.Parse(item1)];

            Database targetDB = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase("web");

            if (currItem == null)

            {

                SheerResponse.Alert("Item not found.", new string[0]);

                return;

            }

            if (!PublishWithMedia.CheckWorkflow(args, currItem))

            {

                return;

            }

            string[] strArrays = new string[] { AuditFormatter.FormatItem(currItem) };

            Log.Audit(this, "Publish item: {0}", strArrays);

            Items.Publish(currItem);

            ItemLink[] itemLinks = currItem.Links.GetValidLinks();

            foreach (ItemLink link in itemLinks)

            {

                Item itm = link.GetTargetItem();

                if (itm != null)

                {

                    if (itm != null && itm.Paths.IsMediaItem)

                    {                       

                        PublishItem(itm, targetDB);

                    }

                }

                count++;

            }

        }

        private void PublishItem(Item item, Database targetDB)

        {

            PublishOptions options = new PublishOptions(item.Database, targetDB, PublishMode.SingleItem, item.Language, DateTime.Now);

            options.RootItem = item;

            options.Deep = false;

            new Publisher(options).Publish();

        }

    }

}

Build the project to check if any errors.

Step2:
Open "Commands.config" file in App_Config folder. Click on "View all files" in Visual studio if App_Config folder is not there.

Copy the line in Commands.config file somewhere in the middle.

<command name="contenteditor:publishwithmedia" type="MyProject.CustomControl.PublishWithMedia,MyProject.CustomControl"/>

Note: Change the namespace and class name if you kept the names different.

Step3:
Open Sitecore instance and switch to "Core" database. Click on Database icon on bottom right corner of website for switching to Core database.

Open Sitecore-> Content Editor and Expand the tree to
sitecore -> content -> Applications -> Content Editor -> Ribbons -> Chunks -> Publish

Copy the existing item and create a new one. Rename it to "Publish with media". Open newly created item and in Data section of it fill mentioned information.

Header information will be displayed as Custom control name on main UI. In click section, we have mentioned "contenteditor:publishwithmedia" which is command name we added in commands.config file.

Save the item and switched back to master database as shown in start of Step 3.

Step4:
Open Sitecore -> Content Editor. Click on Publish menu and you will see custom button appearing on it.

Click on button to check the functionality. Select any item and publish with custom button, it will publish the item and media associated with item to.

Please provide your valuable comments.