Sitecore MVC: Converting Web Forms sublayouts

Sitecore MVC renderings
Converting Web Forms sublayouts
Prepared by: Jason St-Cyr and Nick Allen
November 2014

Converting Sitecore Web Forms to MVC
• Sublayouts to Controller Renderings
• The ViewModel
• The View
• Things to watch out for
Resources

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering
• Create Controller Rendering item (sitecoreLayoutRenderings)
- 1-to-1 Sublayout item to Controller Rendering item
- Many fields are the same (Cache settings, Display Name, Custom
Experience buttons)
- Not necessarily 1-to-1 for .cshtml
• Create Controller method
- Examine presentation logic of ASCX and ASCX.cs
- Determine ‘state’ toggles (Page Editor vs. Normal, Empty Collections,
No Datasource specified)
- Build business logic to load different views for each state
Toronto | Ottawa | New York | Calgary | São Paulo | Florianópolis 3

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering: Controller example
public ActionResult Accordion()
{
var model = DataSourceItem != null ? new AccordionViewModel(this.DataSourceItem) : null;
var viewResult = model != null ? this.View("Accordion/Accordion", model) : this.View("Accordion/Accordion");
if (Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditor)
{
if (model == null)
{
viewResult = this.View("DatasourceMissing", new DatasourceMissingViewModel());
}
else if (!model.AccordionContainer.Panes.Any())
{
viewResult = this.View("Accordion/AccordionNoPanels", model);
}
else
{
viewResult = this.View("Accordion/AccordionPageEditor", model);
}
}
return viewResult;
}

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering: The ViewModel
• Create .cs file to represent the object model
• Should contain all the properties needed for rendering
• Should wrap around data object
• Constructor must take an Item (datasource)
• Migrate ASCX and ASCX.cs logic to ViewModel as needed
• e.g. Code for loading configurations, methods to determine Boolean
conditions, logic to determine ‘active’ classes
• Ensure Controller is instantiating ViewModel

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering: ViewModel Example
using System.Globalization;
using Keystone.SBL.Templates.Components;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
namespace Keystone.MVC.ViewModels.Components
{
public class IFrameViewModel
{
public IFrame Frame { get; set; }
public string Height { get; set; }
public string FrameBorder { get; set; }
public IFrameViewModel(Item dataSource)
{
Frame = new IFrame(dataSource);
Height = !Frame.Height.HasValue ? "500" :
Frame.Height.Value.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
FrameBorder = Frame.ShowFrameBorder ? "1" : "0";
}
}
}

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering: The View
• Create .cshtml file in the “Views” folder
• WebsiteViews<path>
• May need multiple (e.g. Accordion shown earlier).
• Group multiple similar views in folders
• Build markup in View
• Use Sitecore HTML Helper methods for outputting fields
• Associate to ViewModel
• Minimize logic in the View, place in ViewModel class

Sublayouts to Controller Rendering: View Example
@using Keystone.SBL.Templates.Components
@using Sitecore.Mvc
@model Keystone.MVC.ViewModels.Components.PanelViewModel
<div class="panel @Model.StyleCode @Model.Panel.BaseComponent["Additional Styles"]">
<div class="panel-heading">
<h3 class="panel-title">@Html.Sitecore().Field(Panel.FieldIds.Title.ToString())</h3>
</div>
<div class="panel-body">
@Html.Sitecore().Field(Panel.FieldIds.Content.ToString())
</div>
</div>

Things to watch out for
• Placeholder settings
- Need to update to make an MVC component available.
- If building both Web Forms and MVC components in the same build, may have same name in placeholder settings.
- May need separate placeholder settings for MVC vs. Web Forms.
• Insert Options
- Need to have custom insert rules to specify which templates are available to author (MVC or Web Forms).
- This may be driven via path naming convention in the tree, or via a configuration-driven rule.
• Page Templates
- Different Page Templates are required in order to specify an MVC layout and default MVC components.
- Recommendation is to have ‘base’ templates which define all fields, then have presentation templates that specify
only the layout portion.

More things to watch out for
• Post-backs. As in: there are none.
- Use forms and actions to send data to the controller.
- Similar to building an HTTP POST integration
- No more server-control events, use Javascript events and AJAX
• Shared renderings
- If you use RenderPartial, needs to be in the Shared folder.
• Visual Studio syntax highlighting in Views
- Need reference to System.Web.MVC to get rid of the red
squigglies

Sitecore Community Docs
• http://sitecore-
community.github.io/docs/documentation/Sitecore%20MV
C/index.html
• Contains links to online content submitted by the Sitecore
community.
• Key links:
- Anything by Martina Welander
- Creating a Visual Studio Project for Sitecore MVC
- Sample Sitecore MVC project (used in Youtube tutorial videos)

MSDN and others
• ASP.NET MVC Overview:
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/dd381412(v=vs.100).aspx
• Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC 5
- http://www.asp.net/mvc/overview/getting-
started/introduction/getting-started
• PluralSight ASP.NET MVC 5 Fundamentals
- http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/aspdotnet-mvc5-
fundamentals

Lessons Learned
Jason St-Cyr
 Solution Architect and Sitecore MVP, nonlinear digital
 Background in .NET software development and Application Lifecycle
Management
 Contact me: jst-cyr@nonlinear.ca
 Around the web:
 Technical Blog:
http://theagilecoder.wordpress.com
 LinkedIn Profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-st-cyr/26/a73/645
 Nonlinear Thinking:
http://www.nonlinearcreations.com/Digital/how-we-think
 Twitter: @AgileStCyr

Lessons Learned
Nick Allen
 Solution Architect and Sitecore MVP, nonlinear digital
 Background in .NET software development
 Contact me: nallen@nonlinear.ca
 Around the web:
 Technical Blog:
http://sitecorecreative.wordpress.com
 LinkedIn Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickallen80
 Nonlinear Thinking:
http://www.nonlinearcreations.com/Digital/how-we-think
 Twitter: @sitecoretweet

Sitecore MVC: Converting Web Forms sublayouts

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