Reuse umbraco grid with custom viewmodel

Question

I'm new to the new umbraco grid functionality and I have a question about it.

I have a page with an article where I use the grid functionality to show some image and text besides that image. This is working fine.

In the properties of that page I have put a checkbox for saying that the article is for sale or not, when checked the product should automatically appear on a for sale page.

I can get the product that is for sale on that page, but now I also want to show the image and text on that page. I've created a List with a custom viewmodel to hold the content for every product that is for sale. The problem is with providing the JObject to the GetGridHtml function. This function wants a string and I'm providing the property which results in an error.

What is the best way to get the content for the grid to show on that separate page?

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoTemplatePage
@{
     var home = CurrentPage.Site();

     List<ForSaleItemsViewModel> forSaleItemsVM = new List<ForSaleItemsViewModel>();

     if(home.Children.Any())
     {        
         foreach(var childPage in home.Children)
         {
             if(childPage.Children.Any())
             {
                 foreach(var child in childPage.Children)
                 {
                     if(child.HasProperty("ForSale") && child.ForSale)
                     {
                           forSaleItemsVM.Add(new ForSaleItemsViewModel
                                            {
                                                ID = 1,
                                                Content = child.Content,
                                                Sold = child.Sold
                                            });
                     }
                }
            }
         }
    }
}

<div class="container">
    @foreach(var item in forSaleItemsVM)
    {
        if (item.Sold)
        {
            <span>SOLD!</span>
        }
        CurrentPage.GetGridHtml(item.Content.ToString(), "bootstrap3");
    }
</div>

Jurgen Vandw Jurgen Vandw · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-18T17:53:38

According to the Umbraco forum it is not possible to do this. I got this answer:

If you see the documentation for best pratices for the grid layout https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Using-Umbraco/Backoffice-Overview/Property-Editors/Built-in-Property-Editors-v7/Grid-Layout-Best-Practices there is a chapter about the limitations for the grid layout https://our.umbraco.org/Documentation/Using-Umbraco/Backoffice-Overview/Property-Editors/Built-in-Property-Editors-v7/Grid-Layout-Best-Practices#Limitations. And of the limitions of using the grid layout is that it´s not for reused content.

It says - There is no managed api to drill into the grid content and target specific cell content - so a grid layout is not a recommended storage of reusable content - it simply wasn't designed for this scenario. If you wish to reuse content in multiple pages, it is still recommended that you store these pieces of content as seperate content nodes, so they can be stored, cached and queried as usual.

Reuse umbraco grid with custom viewmodel

1 Answers