Master/Detail Dilema: Wildcard items vs Sitecore Pipeline for Virtual Items or any better idea?

Question

I used to implement listing/detail scenarios using wildcard items, meaning that, for the sake of URL, I create a regular item to display the list and then under that node, I create a wildcard item to represent all possible detail pages, like:

/news/*  

(i generate a friendly name by code to replace wildcard and produce the full URL such as: mywebsite.com/news/the-meeting-press-release)

Then I create a folder or a bucket of content items somewhere else as my repository. Then I assign same datasource to listing node and wildcard node to give them same repository of content items.

Main reason I want to do this is to use datasources and make navigational nodes (which generate actual pages and URLs) to be separate from Content folder structure. In other words, separation of concerns: navigational items as presentation nodes and content items as my data repository.

This is an easy way to work around master/detail requirements but I always feel guilty about this, it feels like this technique breaks integrity (sitecore links table on database) and design pattern in Sitecore back-end.

For example when I look at Analytics, I get * as name of items, clearly the it feels like aliens to back-end system.

I know this is not a new topic. I have seen threads like this or ideas like Sitecore Pipeline Processor for Virtual Items to implement such requirements.

Is there any best practice about this? Have anyone good example of what is most sitecore-friendly way to implement such pipeline processor? How do you address this issue with wildcards on Analytics?

Answer 1

I was previously in the same boat as you are. The are few issues with wildcard items, like resolving datasources or disability to run a page in Page(Experience) Editor or nested wildcards. Regardless of that, I have used wildcard few times and they do their job.

I've managed to resolve datasources properly, based on URL (see blog post: Automatically resolving correct Datasources for wildcard items based on URL), still did not sort the rest others.

Update: Richard suggests the way of implementing Page Editor below, you may find this helpful

Thus, my answer would be:

I would recommend you to keep classical approach of having a page item for each news item, rather than using wildcards. Content authors would use habitual approach (and page editor) rather that editing datasources somewhere on the content tree in Content Editor. If you configure that properly with templates and standard values - there would minimal hassle to create new news article.

In case if you worry about potential raise of number of news articles - use Buckets along with it (or suggest manual strategy to group them into folders).

Answer 2

I'm going to go a different way to Martin here. I have successfully used Wildcards many times for the exact purpose you are suggesting (For an example have a look at http://www.atpworldtour.com/news - all news articles are items in a bucket with a wildcard to resolve the url).

There are 2 options to enabling the page editor.

1. The news article item becomes the page. In this way, you need a new processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline that resolves the url to the item and then sets Sitecore.Context.Item to the current item. IIRC you do this by setting one of the pipeline argument properties. This will work fine in the page editor as the context item - the one being edited - is the news article. And then other renderings on the page can just use data sources as needed.

2. The news article resolves to a Datasource. I have also tried this method. To do this, you need a custom Datasource resolver. I sill used a processor in the httpRequestBegin pipeline so that I didn't have to resolve the Url multiple times for each rendering that needed the datasource. But then in the RenderRendering pipeline I had a processor that detected if I wanted a wildcard Datasource and used the item that had been resolved in the httpRequestBegin processor.

There are pros & cons for each method.

Option 1 is nice and simple. It means that you could use a single wildcard to resolve different "types" of page item as the presentation is on the page item and not the wildcard item, also each item can have its own custom presentation, so Datasources set in the page editor would be unique to an article. That is also a disadvantage in someways. A/B testing becomes more difficult with main article text etc... You are limited to testing article versions.

Option 2 is more flexible in the testing area - you can easily test/personalize parts of the article by changing the Datasource. But you are more limited as the presentation must be set on the wildcard. So renderings that are not part of the main article will have the same content/settings across all news articles.