sccreate

Update 5/12/2023

Creating new renderings and updating the datasource is a pain. Creating the template is fine and is where the architect can make some interesting choices. The "this thing displays this" isn't interesting.

sccreate was created to make this part of it automatic. And in the future it will be expanded to more things to make the entire process of creating a new website quicker.

This only works on ascx projects at the moment because that is what I needed it for, but I will need it for MVC in the near future.

Features

sccreate can take a Sitecore template ID and a second template id (for the parent folder template id which will contain the data items for this template), create the rendering in Sitecore, and create the code files in your project.

sccreate -c config.json -t "[template id]" -f "[folder template id]"

Configuration

sccreate takes a json file (default: config.json) with the following configuration settings

connectionString - db connection string to master db

protobufLocation - for Sitecore 10, the location of the items stored in protobuf format

templatePath - this is reserved for future use

renderingPath - places to create new renderings

datasourcePath - if specified, will just point the rendering datasource location here

datasourceQuery - if specifed, will set the rendering datasource location to a query. this can use template syntax

markupPath - the place to save new markup code files. this can be cshtml or ascx, and in mvc is usually different from backend path

backendPath - the place to save new backend code files

namespace - the namespace to use for new code files

codeStyle - ascx or mvc

templates - a list of files to process for generating code. each template includes the template path (.txt), the output filename (this can use template syntax), and the type it is, either markup or backend

Example Configuration

    "connectionString": "Master db connection string" ,
    "protobufLocation": "../WebSite/App_Data/items/master/items.master.dat",

    "templatePath": "/sitecore/templates/User Defined/",
    "renderingPath": "/sitecore/layout/Sublayouts/Education",
    "datasourceQuery": "query:/sitecore/content/Content Folder/*[@@templateid='{{.FolderTemplateId}}']",
    "markupPath": "..\\WebSite\\layouts\\MySite\\Components\\",
    "markupReferencePath": "/layouts/Education/Components/",
    "backendPath": "..\\WebSite\\layouts\\MySite\\Components\\",

    "namespace": "MySite.layouts.Components",
    "codeStyle": "ascx",

    "templates": [
        {
            "templateFilename": "tmpl/ascx/ascx.txt",
            "outputFilename": "{{.CleanName}}.ascx",
            "type": "markup"
        },
        {
            "templateFilename": "tmpl/ascx/ascxcs.txt",
            "outputFilename": "{{.CleanName}}.ascx.cs",
            "type": "backend"
        },
        {
            "templateFilename": "tmpl/ascx/designer.txt",
            "outputFilename": "{{.CleanName}}.ascx.designer.cs",
            "type": "backend"
        }
    ]
}```