Sitecore has a fundamental Assert (Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert) namespace which differs fundamentally from the .NET Debug.Assert that it actually thows an exception if the asserted condition is false. Asserting your code is a fast way of checking that conditions are met in a function before executing it:

void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
  DoStuff(null);
}

private void DoStuff(Item item)
{
  Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, "item"); // Assertion
  Response.Write(item.Paths.FullPath);
}

The example above throws an ArgumentNullException if the item parameter is null, and it even formats the exception message like this:

Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: item

Sitecore contains different Assert statements which thows different exceptions. In the example above I could have used the IsNotNull statement instead:

private void DoStuff(Item item)
{
  Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert.IsNotNull(item, "item");
  Response.Write(item.Paths.FullPath);
}

But I would then return an InvalidOperationException and the exception message would not have been formatted for me, and I would have to write the complete exception message myself:

private void DoStuff(Item item)
{
  Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert.IsNotNull(item, "The parameter 'item' is null");
  Response.Write(item.Paths.FullPath);
}

There are several function to choose from, each of thise returns different exceptions when the condition is not met:

• AreEqual return an InvalidValueException. You have to write the exception message yourself (for example “a is not equal to b”)
• ArgumentCondition, ArgumentNotNull, ArgumentNotNullOrEmpty return an ArgumentException, pre-formatted for you (see the examples above).
• CanRunApplication return an AccessDeniedException if the user does not have access to the application stated in the parameter (this is probably mostly used internally)
• HasAccess also returns an AccessDeniedException if the condition is not met.
• IsEditing returns an EditingNotAllowedException if the item in the parameter is not in editing mode.
• IsFalse, IsNotNull, IsNotNullOrEmpty, IsNull and IsTrue return an InvalidOperationException if the condition is not met. You have to format the exception message yourself.
• ReflectionObjectCreated returns an UnknownTypeException if the condition is not met (also most an internal function I guess).
• Required returns an RequiredObjectIsNullException when condition is not met. You have to format the message yourself.
• ResultNotNull is basically a generic version of ArgumentNotNull returning the message “Post condition failed” when condition is not met.

if you look in the Sitecore source code you will notice that basically every Sitecore function asserts all parameters before executing the function, and so should you.

But remember the exception handling as well. Asserting parameters is good practise, but crashing a page because a simple condition is not met is not. For example, if you use a dictionary to look for text strings in Sitecore, you should assert that the dictionaty item is present in Sitecore before returning a value. But you should handle the exception nicely in your domain code so the entire page does not crash just because a dictionary text is missing.

<employees>
 <employee id="bp">
   <name>Brian</name>
 </employee>
 <employee id="ap">
   <name>Anita</name>
   <position>CEO</position>
 </employee>
</employees>

In the example above I can look for the position element for employee AP, but not for employee BP. Instead of building my exception handling every time I ask for the position element, I have built a set of extension methods that take care of this.

Extension methods 1 and 2: SafeValue and SafeAttribute

The following methods allows me to return a default value if the value of either an element or an attribute is not present:

using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace MyCode.Extensions
{
  public static class XElementExtension
  {
     public static string SafeValue(this XElement element, string defaultValue)
     {
       if (element == null)
         return defaultValue;
       if (element.Value == null)
         return defaultValue;
       return element.Value;
     }

     public static string SafeAttribute(this XElement element, XName name, string defaultValue)
     {
       if (element == null)
         return defaultValue;
       if (element.Attribute(name) == null)
         return defaultValue;
       if (element.Attribute(name).Value == null)
         return defaultValue;
       return element.Attribute(name).Value;
     }
  }
}

Extensions 3 and 4: GetElementFromPath and GetValueFrompath

These extensions are more exotic. They allow me to ask for an element or a value down a path from the current element, returning a default value if the element or value is not present:

public static XElement GetElementFromPath(this XElement element, params string[] path)
{
  if (element == null)
    return null;

  XElement current = element;
  foreach (string s in path)
  {
    if (current != null && current.Element(s) != null)
      current = current.Element(s);
  }
  return current;
}

public static string GetValueFromPath(this XElement element, params string[] path)
{
  if (element == null)
    return string.Empty;

  XElement current = element;
  foreach (string s in path)
  {
    if (current != null && current.Element(s) != null)
      current = current.Element(s);
  }
  return current != null ? current.Value : "";
}

The functions might seem strange, but it’s cool to be able to do this:

element.GetValueFromPath("employee", "position");

Extension 5: Convert XElement to XmlElement

The last extension method is a old goodie. Converting from the LINQ based XElement to the old-fashioned XmlElement class is handy when working with web services or other methods that requires the old XmlElement.

    public static XmlElement ToXmlElement(this XElement element)
    {
      return new XmlService(element).CreateXmlElement();
    }

    #region internal conversion class

    internal class XmlService
    {
      private readonly StringBuilder _sb;
      private readonly XmlWriter _writer;

      private XmlService()
      {
        _sb = new StringBuilder();
        _writer = new XmlTextWriter(new StringWriter(_sb))
        {
          Formatting = Formatting.Indented,
          Indentation = 2
        };
      }

      public XmlService(XNode e) : this()
      {
        e.WriteTo(_writer);
      }

      public XmlService(XmlNode e) : this()
      {
        e.WriteTo(_writer);
      }

      public XElement CreateXElement()
      {
        return XElement.Load(new StringReader(_sb.ToString()));
      }

      public XDocument CreateXDocument()
      {
        return XDocument.Load(new StringReader(_sb.ToString()));
      }

      public XmlElement CreateXmlElement()
      {
        return CreateXmlDocument().DocumentElement;
      }

      public XmlDocument CreateXmlDocument()
      {
        var doc = new XmlDocument();
        doc.Load(new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(_sb.ToString())));
        return doc;
      }
    }
    #endregion

One of the reasons that Sitecore becomes slow, is that some security-releated lookups is done using the Sitecore Fast Query. Fast queries are not always fast, as these queries are non-cached SQL select statements done directly on the database:

Database.SelectItems("fast://*[@__lock='%\"" + Context.User.Name + "\"%']");

Some of the lookups are done merely to enhance the user experience – not to enforce security schemes. So some of the lookups can be disabled using web.config settings. Here are a few of them:

CheckSecurityOnLanguages

This settings enforces security on languages. The settings is TRUE per default and allows you to allow/disallow access to languages. Read this article on how to set up security on languages.

The check is used by Sitecore.Globalization.GetLanguages(), Sitecore.Security.AccessControl.ItemAccess.CanReadLanguage() and Sitecore.Security.AccessControl.ItemAccess.CanWriteLanguage(), and it is also  used by the GetContentEditorWarnings.CanReadLanguage processor.

If your website is not a multilanguage site, or you allow all editors to access all languages, you can disable this check.

ContentEditor.CheckSecurityOnTreeNodes

This settings is also TRUE by default and it will read the security settings on each node to ensure that you have read acces. If not, the node is hidden. If FALSE, every node is displayed in the tree view, and security is enforced when clicking the node. If you don’t care that every editor can see every node in the tree, you may disable this. Security is still enforced when the editor clicks an item.

WebEdit.ShowNumberOfLockedItemsOnButton

This settings applies to the page editor, especially the “My Items” button, which will display how many items you have locked. This lookup is done using Sitecore Fast Query, and can be painfully slow when having lots of users and groups.

Read more about the ShowNumberOfLockedItemsOnButton feature here.

Other resources:

If you are interested in Sitecore performance tweaking, these blogs are worth a visit:

• Read Alex Shybas Sitecore Performance Checklist.
• Optimizing Performance In Sitecore by Sitecore themselves (requires login).
• Sitecore Performance Analysis by navigation arts.
• The Client View by Dan Brown is also a good resource, especially his article on database properties and the article about IIS Expire Web Content caught my attention.

Basically, Text, Rich Text, Image, Link  and fields like that are directly editable. But MultiList fields, checkbox fields and other types are not. This is where the EditFrame comes in.

This is a list of links placed on my website:

List of Links

The list of links is a TreeList field:

TreeList Field

I would like to give the user acces to edit this field from the Page Editor. But using the sc:FieldRenderer only allows the user to edit any field that the treelist points to. So to give access to the TreeList field itself, I need to do the following:

First, I need to create a new Edit Frame Button in the core database.

Go to /sitecore/content/Applications/WebEdit/Edit Frame Buttons and create a new Edit Frame Button Folder. In this folder, create a new Edit Frame Button. In the field “Fields” you type in te names of the fields that this button should give edit acces to:

EditFrame Buttons

Next step is to modify the user control that renders my list of links:

In the rendering that renders the list of links, I must add an EditFrame surrounding my list:

<sc:EditFrame id="editLinks" runat="server" Buttons="/sitecore/content/Applications/WebEdit/Edit Frame Buttons/DocumentLinks">

  // Inside this edit frame is the HTML that renders the list of links.
  <h2>
    Links
  </h2>
  <asp:ListView ID="lvLinks" runat="server" DataSource="<%# Links %>" EnableViewState="false">
    <LayoutTemplate>
      <ul class="LinkList">
        <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="itemPlaceholder" />
      </ul>
      </LayoutTemplate>
        <ItemTemplate>
          <li><a href="<%# Sitecore.Links.LinkManager.GetItemUrl(Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item) %>">
            <sc:FieldRenderer ID="frItemTitle" FieldName="NavigationTitle" runat="server" Item="<%# Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item %>" />
          </a></li>
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:ListView>
  </asp:Panel>

</sc:EditFrame>

The EditFrame has an attribute called “Buttons” that points to the EditFrame Buttons Folder that I created earlier.

The code is now finished.

When the user hover above the Links in Page Edit mode, he will see the edit frame with the “Edit” button:

EditFrame

And clicking the button will open the TreeList field in a seperate window:

Open EditFrame For Editing

Please Note:

In Sitecore 6.5 (maybe also other versions of Sitecore) you need to save the page before the selected fields becomes visible. It is not enough to press the “OK” button in the dialog window.

Other usages

You can also use the EditFrame for fields that are only visible if they are not empty, and for fields that are not visible at all. You can use the Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditor attribute to determine if the current page is in the Page Edit mode, and when so, display a text inside the edit frame:

<sc:EditFrame id="editLinks" runat="server" Buttons="/sitecore/content/Applications/WebEdit/Edit Frame Buttons/DocumentLinks">
  <asp:Panel ID="panNoLinksAndPageEditing" Visible="<%# Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditor %>" runat="server">
    Edit Links
  </asp:Panel>
</sc:EditFrame>

The original code with the links list actually uses the same technique, as the list is hidden if there is no links selected. In this scenario, I add a panel that is only visible if the list is empty and the page is in editing mode:

<sc:EditFrame id="editLinks" runat="server" Buttons="/sitecore/content/Applications/WebEdit/Edit Frame Buttons/DocumentLinks">
  <asp:Panel ID="panNoLinksAndPageEditing" Visible="<%# !HasLinks && Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditor  %>" runat="server" CssClass="Spot SpotLinks">
    <dictionary:literal runat="server" path="/Document/Links" defaulttext="Links" />
  </asp:Panel>
  <asp:Panel ID="panLinks" Visible="<%# HasLinks %>" runat="server" CssClass="Spot SpotLinks">
    <h2>
      <dictionary:literal runat="server" path="/Document/Links" defaulttext="Links" />
    </h2>
      <asp:ListView ID="lvLinks" runat="server" DataSource="<%# Links %>" EnableViewState="false">
        <LayoutTemplate>
          <ul class="LinkList">
            <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="itemPlaceholder" />
          </ul>
        </LayoutTemplate>
        <ItemTemplate>
          <li><a href="<%# Sitecore.Links.LinkManager.GetItemUrl(Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item) %>">
            <sc:FieldRenderer ID="frItemTitle" FieldName="NavigationTitle" runat="server" Item="<%# Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item %>" />
          </a></li>
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:ListView>
  </asp:Panel>
</sc:EditFrame>

The EditFrame is also your shourtcut to upgrade websites that are not Page Editable from the beginning. Although I would recommend that you rewrite your website using the sc:FieldRenderer.

This is Yet Another NameValueCollection parser. It will parse not only query strings, but also other collections. This query string can be parsed:

• id=2&title=hello&subtitle=world
• id = 2
• title = hello
• subtitle = world

But also more complex strings, where your seperators are inside quotation marks can be parsed. For example:

• id=2|title=’hello=world‘|subtitle=’sub|title‘
• id = 2
• title = hello=world
• subtitle = sub|title

Ignoring seperators inside quotes (” and “”) requires more complex code than just calling the Split() function on a string, but the code is not that complex.
This class parses any name/value collection string, ignoring seperators inside quotes (” and “”):

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace PT.MyCode
{
  internal class NameValueCollectionParser
  {
    public NameValueCollectionParser(char innerSeperator, char outerSeperator)
    {
      InnerSeperator = innerSeperator;
      OuterSeperator = outerSeperator;
    }

    public char InnerSeperator { get; private set; }
    public char OuterSeperator { get; private set; }

    public void GetNameValueSet(string nameValueColection, ref Dictionary<string, string> output)
    {
      foreach (string nameValueSet in Split(nameValueColection, OuterSeperator))
      {
        string[] nameValueSetSplitted = Split(nameValueSet, InnerSeperator);
        if (nameValueSetSplitted.Length != 2)
          return;
        output.Add(nameValueSetSplitted[0], nameValueSetSplitted[1]);
      }
    }

    private string[] Split(string values, char seperator)
    {
      var list = new ArrayList();
      bool insidePlings = false;
      int ac = 0;
      int begin = 0;
      CharEnumerator en = values.GetEnumerator();
      while (en.MoveNext())
      {
        if (en.Current == '\'' || en.Current == '\"')
        {
          if (insidePlings)
            insidePlings = false;
          else
            insidePlings = true;
        }
        else if (en.Current == seperator && !insidePlings)
        {
          string s = Trim(values.Substring(begin, ac - begin));
          list.Add(s);
          begin = ac + 1;
        }
        ac++;
      }
      list.Add(Trim(values.Substring(begin, values.Length - begin)));

      return list.ToArray(typeof (string)) as string[];
    }

    private string Trim(string s)
    {
      s = s.TrimStart(',');
      s = s.TrimStart('\'', '\"');
      s = s.TrimEnd('\'', '\"');
      s = s.Trim();
      return s;
    }
  }
}

The class is prepared to be used in an Extension method on the Dictionary class:

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace PT.MyCode
{
  internal static class DictionaryExtension
  {
    public static void AddNameValueCollection(this Dictionary<string, string> dictionary, char outerSeperator, char innerSeperator, string value)
    {
      NameValueCollectionParser parser = new NameValueCollectionParser(innerSeperator, outerSeperator);
      parser.GetNameValueSet(value, ref dictionary);
    }

  }
}

The extension method is now ready to be used:

Dictionary<string, string> attributes = new Dictionary<string, string>();
attributes.AddNameValueCollection('|', '=', "id=2|title=\"hello=world\"|text=\"tell me how|you are doing\"");

This is a simple example on how to use the DMS. This function extracts the full history of which pages the current visitor have clicked:

IEnumerable allVisitedPages = Sitecore.Analytics.Tracker.Visitor.DataContext.Pages.Reverse();

This is the full history. I reverse the list to get the last visited pages at the top. If the user has visited a page twice, it will show up twice. And any page is in the list, also the web site frontpage.

So the list needs to be filtered somehow. This example creates a fictional list of the 10 last product pages the user has visited:

protected IEnumerable GetProducts(int count)
{
  IEnumerable allVisitedPages = Sitecore.Analytics.Tracker.Visitor.DataContext.Pages.Reverse();

  List lastVisitedProducts = new List();
  int ac = 0;
  IEnumerable products = allVisitedPages.Select(GetItem).Where(item => item != null && item.TemplateName == "product" );
  foreach (Item product in products)
  {
    if (!lastVisitedProducts.Exists(p => p.ID == product.ID))
    {
      lastVisitedProducts.Add(product);
      ac++;
    }
    if (ac == count)
      return lastVisitedProducts;
  }
  return lastVisitedProducts;
}

The real gem here is that the user profile is stored in a cookie, so the data is persisted. The next time the user opens the website, the data is still there and you can display the last visited products list.

try
{
  // lots of stuff going on here...
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
  Sitecore.Diagnostics.Log.Error("Some great error message: " + ex.Message, this);
  // more exception handling here...
}

And the exception is written to the log:

6636 13:35:42 ERROR Some great error message: blahblahblah

In previous versions, the Audit log was a seperate log. But now it’s all handled by Apache Log4Net. So writing to the audit log is similar to writing to the log. The following line:

Sitecore.Diagnostics.Log.Audit("DamForSitecore:RemoveAssetFromCache. AssetID=" + assetID, this);

Produces the following log line:

3360 13:56:27 INFO  AUDIT (sitecore\admin): DamForSitecore:RemoveAssetFromCache. AssetID=4848

You can use the AuditFormatter to format items and fields so they appear with the same pattern for all items and fields in the log.
The following line:

Sitecore.Diagnostics.Log.Audit(this, "Do stuff {0}", new[] {AuditFormatter.FormatItem(Sitecore.Context.Item)});

Produces the following log line:

3360 14:06:18 INFO  AUDIT (sitecore\admin): Do stuff: master:/sitecore/content/Home, language: da, version: 2, id: {110D559F-DEA5-42EA-9C1C-8A5DF7E70EF9}

Other articles regarding the subject:

• Write audit logs to a seperate file
• All about logging
• Write log to a SQL database

This is article 3 of 3 articles:

Part 1 – Configuring the index: Using the Sitecore open source AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene indexer
Part 2 – Simple search: Get latest news using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index
Part 3 – Multivalue search: Get items based on Metadata using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index

If you have not read the first article, you should read it, as it explains how to compile the module and how to set up an index that indexes your WEB database.

This is the second-most common Lucene index task: How to get a list of items scattered all over your website based on GUID values in a multilist field. For example, if you use metadata to tag pages, and you need to show a list of all pages with a certain set of metadata.

Here is my scenario: I have a list of metadata categories:

Metadata Categories

These metadata are applied to my pages through the Categories field multiselect box:

Metadata applied to a page

Any page can have 0-n categories. Now I would like to get all pages that have both “Childrens Books” and “Classical Literature” metdata.

My index is already set up so it indexes every field in my solution (read about the configuration of the index here), so I only have to set up a search. And thanks to Alex Shybas AdvancedDatabaseCrawler, this is easy:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.SharedSource.Searcher;
using Sitecore.SharedSource.Searcher.Parameters;

namespace PT.Prototype.Search
{
  public partial class _default : System.Web.UI.Page
  {
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      DataBind();
    }

    public IEnumerable<Item> GetClassicalChildrensBooks()
    {
      // The Refinements are a list of field/value searches that must be performed.
      // My list is simple, as I search in the field "categories" for the GUID of
      // "Childrens Books" and "Classical Literature"
      List<MultiFieldSearchParam.Refinement> refinements = new List<MultiFieldSearchParam.Refinement>();
      refinements.Add(new MultiFieldSearchParam.Refinement("categories", "{4481D164-CF7C-421B-BC98-6189AB754C65}"));
      refinements.Add(new MultiFieldSearchParam.Refinement("categories", "{C813518E-6880-4FBE-A10F-7F8CE51AA52D}"));

      MultiFieldSearchParam searchParam = new MultiFieldSearchParam();

      // The name of the database to search in
      searchParam.Database = "web";
      // The language to return
      searchParam.Language = "en";
      // The AND/OR/NOT condition between fields
      searchParam.InnerCondition = Sitecore.Search.QueryOccurance.Must;
      // The fields to search in
      searchParam.Refinements = refinements;

      // Run the Query on the index called "web"
      QueryRunner runner = new QueryRunner("web");
      IEnumerable<SkinnyItem> items = runner.GetItems(searchParam);

      // Return the items found
      return items.Select(item => Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(item.ItemID));
    }
  }
}

All I need to do now is to create an asp:Repeater and databind it to the function:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="sc" Namespace="Sitecore.Web.UI.WebControls" Assembly="Sitecore.Kernel" %>

<asp:Repeater ID="repClassicalChildrensBooks" DataSource="<%# GetClassicalChildrensBooks() %>" runat="server">
  <HeaderTemplate>
    <ul>
  </HeaderTemplate>
  <FooterTemplate>
    </ul>
  </FooterTemplate>
  <ItemTemplate>
    <li>
      <a href="<%# Sitecore.Links.LinkManager.GetItemUrl(Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item) %>">
        <sc:FieldRenderer ID="FieldRenderer2" FieldName="Title" runat="server" Item="<%# Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item %>" />
      </a>
    </li>
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

If I modify the searchParam.InnerCondition to Sitecore.Search.QueryOccurance.Should, I get an “OR” clause, returning all items with that is tagged with either “Childrens Books” or “Classical Literature” (or both).
If modified to Sitecore.Search.QueryOccurance.MustNot I get a “NOT” clause, returning any item not tagged with the 2 categories.

This is article 2 of 3 articles:

Part 1 – Configuring the index: Using the Sitecore open source AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene indexer
Part 2 – Simple search: Get latest news using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index
Part 3 – Multivalue search: Get items based on Metadata using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index

If you have not read the first article, you should read it, as it explains how to compile the module and how to set up an index that indexes your WEB database.

This example describes one of the most trivial tasks: How to retrieve a sorted list of items that is scattered over the entire website. For example, when you would like to list the latest news articles, it is fast and easy to use an index. This website (Personalestyrelsen, a Danish web site) uses this exact method to list the latest news on the front page.

This is the scenario: I have a news archive where all my news articles are stored:

An example of a news archive

Each news template contains a date field and a title field:

Sample News Article

I would like to use the date field as my sort field, and then display the 3 latest news with the date and title.

My index is already set up so it indexes every field in my solution (read about the configuration of the index here) , so I only have to set up a search. And thanks to Alex Shybas AdvancedDatabaseCrawler, this is easy:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.SharedSource.Searcher;
using Sitecore.SharedSource.Searcher.Parameters;

namespace PT.Prototype.Search
{
  public partial class _default : System.Web.UI.Page
  {
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      DataBind();
    }

    public IEnumerable<Item> GetLatestNews(int numberOfNews)
    {
      SearchParam searchParam = new SearchParam();
      // The name of the database to search in
      searchParam.Database = "web";
      // The language to return
      searchParam.Language = "en";
      // The NewsItem template ID
      searchParam.TemplateIds = "{2983E106-CE47-40B5-8704-D299CA9BFF8F}";
      // The QueryRunner uses the name of the index as constructor.
      // I use the same name as the database name.
      QueryRunner runner = new QueryRunner("web");
      // Call the runner to get the items.
      // Parameters are:
      // - ISearchParam: The search to perform
      // - Sitecore.Search.QueryOccurance: The AND/OR/NOT clause for the search
      // - ShowAllVersions: Get all versions of an item
      // - SortField: The name of the field used as my sort
      // - Reverse: Return items in reverse order (newset first)
      // - Start: Which items to return from the search result
      // - End: Which items to return from the search result
      IEnumerable<SkinnyItem> items = runner.GetItems(searchParam, Sitecore.Search.QueryOccurance.Must, false, "date", true, 0, numberOfNews);
      return items.Select(item => Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(item.ItemID));
    }
  }
}

All I need to do now is to create an asp:Repeater and databind it to the function:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="sc" Namespace="Sitecore.Web.UI.WebControls" Assembly="Sitecore.Kernel" %>

<asp:Repeater ID="repNews" DataSource="<%# GetLatestNews(3) %>" runat="server">
  <HeaderTemplate>
    <ul>
  </HeaderTemplate>
  <FooterTemplate>
    </ul>
  </FooterTemplate>
  <ItemTemplate>
    <li>
      <sc:FieldRenderer ID="FieldRenderer1" FieldName="Date" runat="server" Item="<%# Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item %>" />
      <a href="<%# Sitecore.Links.LinkManager.GetItemUrl(Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item) %>">
        <sc:FieldRenderer ID="FieldRenderer2" FieldName="Title" runat="server" Item="<%# Container.DataItem as Sitecore.Data.Items.Item %>" />
      </a>
    </li>
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

This is article 1 of 3 articles:

Part 1 – Configuring the index: Using the Sitecore open source AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene indexer
Part 2 – Simple search: Get latest news using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index
Part 3 – Multivalue search: Get items based on Metadata using Sitecore AdvancedDatabaseCrawler Lucene index

There are many good reasons to use the new way of indexing, but it also requires you to redo some of your previous work. The old way of indexing was easy to setup and easy to use. The new way is more complex because it lets you do more advanced stuff.

That’s why Alex Shyba wrote an open source module that makes the searching and indexing easier: The Advanced Database Crawler. You can find the module here:

http://trac.sitecore.net/AdvancedDatabaseCrawler/browser/Branches/v2/

I have always felt that open source modules are the best way of implementing other developers unsolvable bugs. But I have tried this module, and it works.

I will now show you how to set up the module, and in 2 later posts, I will show you how to perform the 2 basic tasks that you do with an index: How to get the latest news, and how to get all items with a certain set of metadata categories.

The new indexing applies to newer versions of Sitecore. Sitecore 6.2 revision 5 should do it, but from 6.4 and forward you are certain that it will work.

First you need to compile the AdvancedDatabaseCrawler. When compiled you get some dlls:

• Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.dll
• Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.DynamicFields.dll
• Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchDemo.dll
• Sitecore.SharedSource.Searcher.dll

The Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchDemo.dll is not needed in production, but it implements some test pages (found in /sitecore modules/Web/searchdemo) that you can use to test your index. Copy the DLL’s to your Sitecore /bin/ folder and you are ready to go. Copy the /sitecore modules/Web/searchdemo items to test your index with Alex’s samples.

Now you need to set up an index. I will show you how to set up an index that crawls the WEB database, as I’m going to use the index for frontend indexing.

Create an ???.config file and put it in the /App_Config/Include folder. Add the following

<configuration xmlns:x="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>
    <databases>
      <database id="web" singleInstance="true" type="Sitecore.Data.Database, Sitecore.Kernel">
        <Engines.HistoryEngine.Storage>
          <obj type="Sitecore.Data.$(database).$(database)HistoryStorage, Sitecore.Kernel">
            <param connectionStringName="$(id)" />
            <EntryLifeTime>30.00:00:00</EntryLifeTime>
          </obj>
        </Engines.HistoryEngine.Storage>
        <Engines.HistoryEngine.SaveDotNetCallStack>false</Engines.HistoryEngine.SaveDotNetCallStack>
      </database>
    </databases>
    <search>
      <configuration>
        <indexes>
          <index id="web" type="Sitecore.Search.Index, Sitecore.Kernel">
            <param desc="name">$(id)</param>
            <param desc="folder">web</param>
            <Analyzer ref="search/analyzer" />
            <locations hint="list:AddCrawler">
              <master type="Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.Crawlers.AdvancedDatabaseCrawler,Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler">
                <Database>web</Database>
                <Root>/sitecore/content</Root>
                <IndexAllFields>true</IndexAllFields>
                <fieldCrawlers hint="raw:AddFieldCrawlers">
                  <fieldCrawler type="Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.FieldCrawlers.LookupFieldCrawler,Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler" fieldType="Droplink" />
                  <fieldCrawler type="Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.FieldCrawlers.DateFieldCrawler,Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler" fieldType="Datetime" />
                  <fieldCrawler type="Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.FieldCrawlers.DateFieldCrawler,Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler" fieldType="Date" />
                  <fieldCrawler type="Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler.FieldCrawlers.NumberFieldCrawler,Sitecore.SharedSource.SearchCrawler" fieldType="Number" />
                </fieldCrawlers>
                <!-- If a field type is not defined, defaults of storageType="NO", indexType="UN_TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" are applied-->
                <fieldTypes hint="raw:AddFieldTypes">
                  <!-- Text fields need to be tokenized -->
                  <fieldType name="single-line text" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="multi-line text" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="word document" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="html" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="rich text" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="memo" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="text" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <!-- Multilist based fields need to be tokenized to support search of multiple values -->
                  <fieldType name="multilist" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="treelist" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="treelistex" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <fieldType name="checklist" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                  <!-- Legacy tree list field from ver. 5.3 -->
                  <fieldType name="tree list" storageType="NO" indexType="TOKENIZED" vectorType="NO" boost="1f" />
                </fieldTypes>
              </master>
            </locations>
          </index>
        </indexes>
      </configuration>
    </search>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

A short explanation:

The /sitecore/databases/database items creates a HistoryEngine on the WEB database. This is needed for indexing at all. No HistoryEngine, no index.

The /sitecore/search/configuration/indexes/index is the actual index. This is taken straight from Alex Shyba’s own examples and defines an index called “web” that contains everything (all items, all fields) from the WEB database.

Read more about setting up indexes here.

This it it. You cannot use Sitecore to rebuild the index anymore. You need to either use the /sitecore modules/Web/searchdemo/RebuildDatabaseCrawlers.aspx or write your own simple code:

JobOptions options = new JobOptions("RebuildSearchIndex", "index", Sitecore.Client.Site.Name, "web", "Rebuild");
options.AfterLife = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1.0);
Job job = JobManager.Start(options);

In the following posts I will demonstrate how to get the latest news, and how to get all items with a certain set of metadata categories.

More stuff to read:

• Search Index Troubleshooting
• 8 reasons to use the new search in Sitecore