Sitecore – Custom Text Field

In this blog I will describe how to create a very simple Custom Text field in Sitecore. I have based this off the example of a custom checkbox field that can be found in the Sitecore website from here.

I have found that this example is far too complicated. I tried to create a Custom control by inheriting Sitecore.Web.UI.HtmlControls.Control but I could not get it working properly initially (I find the Custom check box control that Sitecore has used as an example is far too complicated) I was sent a better example by sitecore and I will make the same custom control by inheriting this class in the near future when I find the time. However, because of current time constraints I had to take an alternative approach.

The control I have made is inheriting Sitecore.Shell.Applications.ContentEditor.Text directly and then overriding the HandleMessage event.

I needed to create a Custom Text field which behaves the same way as Sitecore’s Text field but I needed some extra menu items. Basically I needed to allow my authors to add some extra text Macron characters e.g. Ā

Here is the Sitecore Field Type item I have created (this should be implemented following the Sitecore example) Base Template is Sitecore>Templates>System>Templates>Template Field Type:

This is the Macron menu item I will be using as an example:

This is the end result I am trying to achieve (A regular text box with extra drop down menu items in Authoring mode):

Here is the Code MacroText.cs. As you may notice only the Clear field and the actual macron menu functions are currently working:
Note: I also had to chuck a space where it says ‘& #256;’ between the & and the #256; because otherwise this blog seems to keep converting it to “Ā’ within the code!!

I have uploaded this code to another blog that actually retains the indentation here

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Xml;
using System.Web.UI;

namespace Datacom.FieldTypeExtensions
{
class MacroText : Sitecore.Shell.Applications.ContentEditor.Text
{

#region Constructor
public MacroText()
{
this.Class = “scContentControl”;
base.Activation = true;
}
#endregion

#region Overrides

public override void HandleMessage(Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer.Message message)
{

if (message["id"] == this.ID)
{
string messageText;
if ((messageText = message.Name) == null)
{
return;
}

switch (messageText)
{
case “macrotext:copy” :
break;
case “macrotext:paste”:
break;
case “macrotext:clearfield”:
this.Value = String.Empty;
break;
case “macrotext:capitalAMacro”:
this.Value = this.Value + “& #256;”;
break;
}
}

base.HandleMessage(message);

}
#endregion
}
}

Here is my Sitecore web.config entry (the name of my assembly is ‘Datacom.FieldTypeExtensions’, this can be edited via the properties of your .NET project as can be seen in next image below):

<controlSources>
<source mode=”on” namespace=”Datacom.FieldTypeExtensions” assembly=”Datacom.FieldTypeExtensions” prefix=”fieldTypeExtension”/>

My project structure:

Hopefully someone finds this helpful!