So my first attempt at
manipulating Tag Groups by using Events didn't go so well.
Sure, it created the tags with the correct group, but it also
left the original tags in the csmTags table, and if you went back
and edited the blog entry, the tags would be gone because the Tag
Data Type was ignoring anything that didn't belong to the default
group.
So. Back to the drawing board.
Edit (10/11/2010): The first package download
didn't go so well and failed dismally. I've uploaded a new
version of the package and this time double-tested it, so it should
be all good. Leave a comment if things go awry...
This time I decided to try and tackle the problem at a deeper
level - what if I introduced a new Data Type that could intercept
the tag group and inject the Blog Category instead?
Package Download:
You can download an Umbraco Package to install the Dll that will do
this for you from here. It contains a single Dll that has
a couple of Extensions in it aimed at Blog 4 Umbraco, but is not
dependent on it being installed.
Enter the Blog Tag Data Type.
I didn't want to have to re-create the entire Tag Data Type,
it's Editor Control, or it's Prevalue Editor, so I took advantage
of the fact that almost everything can be extended in Umbraco, and
just derived a new Data Type class:
public class DataType : umbraco.editorControls.tags.DataType
{
#region IDataType Members
private IDataEditor _Editor;
public override IDataEditor DataEditor
{
get
{
if (_Editor == null)
{
var preValues = ((umbraco.editorControls.tags.PrevalueEditor)PrevalueEditor).Prevalues;
int? nodeId = int.Parse(umbraco.helper.Request("id"));
if (nodeId.HasValue)
{
string category = (string)BlogExtensionsLibrary.GetValueRecursively(nodeId.Value, "category");
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(category))
{
if (preValues["group"] == null || (string)preValues["group"] == "default")
preValues["group"] = category;
}
}
_Editor = new umbraco.editorControls.tags.DataEditor(Data, preValues);
}
return _Editor;
}
}
public override string DataTypeName
{
get { return "Blog Tags"; }
}
public override Guid Id
{
get { return new Guid("BD8B240F-0DE3-47E5-A172-2DE212CC30B6"); }
// this was the core umbraco tags datatype GUID.
//get { return new Guid("4023e540-92f5-11dd-ad8b-0800200c9a66"); }
}
#endregion
}
Basically, I stripped out all the stuff I didn't want to
duplicate from the tags DataType class, and overrode the DataEditor
property. A few interesting things to note:
- I could have left the Id property alone and not overridden it.
If had done so, my DataType would have taken over the core
Tags DataType, and you would basically not have to do anything
more. However, I'm trying to be a good Umbraco Citizen and
behave in a right neighbourly fashion.
- The code has been designed so that if the category attribute
doesn't exist in the Document Type or one of it's Ancestors, then
it will not try to inject anything into the group, so it would be
quite safe to replace the Core Tags Control with the new one.
- BlogExtensionsLibrary.GetValueRecursively() is
described in my previous post attempting to deal with Blog
Categories, so not going to go into it here.
Ok, once you have compiled your code and copied the dll into the
bin directory of your Umbraco installation, the remaining steps are
as follows:
Update the Tags Data Type, or alternatively create a new
one.
You will need to go and change the Tags Data Type so that it
uses the new Blog Tags control instead of the Core Tags control.
Note that if you decided not to play nice,
and let the new code override the Core Tags control by using the
old GUID, then essentially you shouldn't need to do anything
here!
Update the Blog Post Document Type
You would only need to change the Blog Post Document Type if you
created a new Data Type instead of modifying the Core Tags Data
Type.