In this blog post I look at how other Sitecore ORMs can be integrated with Glass.Mapper so that you can request items that work with these frameworks via Glass.Mapper.

For this blog post I will be using the Diamond project as the ORM I will be integrating with Glass.Mapper. The process should be very similar if you want to integrate it with one of the other Sitecore ORMs.

The technique is useful if you want to migrate between different ORMs or you there are features of another ORM you want to leverage with a Glass.Mapper solution.

The Configuration Task

The first step is making Glass.Mapper aware that a Diamond type has been requested. The first stage of this is to create a Configuration Resolver Task. The code for this is:

    public class DiamondConfigurationTask : IConfigurationResolverTask
    {
        public void Execute(ConfigurationResolverArgs args)
        {
            if (args.Result == null && typeof(Diamond.Items.IStandardTemplate).IsAssignableFrom(args.RequestedType))
            {
                args.Result = new SitecoreTypeConfiguration();
                args.Result.Type = args.RequestedType;
            }
        }
    }


We first check that no other result has been set and then we check if the requested type can be casde to the IStandardTemplate. All classes in Diamond inherit the IStandardTemplate. If a Diamond class has been requested we create a very basic SitecoreTypeConfiguration to represent the requested type. Notice that we aren't looking in Glass.Mapper's cached type list, it is much easier just to create this config on the fly.

The Construction Task

The second step on the process is to create the Object Construction Task which will be responsible for creating the Diamond type. This is again is a very simple class:

    public class DiamondConstructionTask : IObjectConstructionTask
    {
        public void Execute(ObjectConstructionArgs args)
        {
            if (args.Result == null && typeof (IStandardTemplate).IsAssignableFrom(args.Configuration.Type))
            {
                var scContext = args.AbstractTypeCreationContext as SitecoreTypeCreationContext;
                args.Result = scContext.Item.AsStronglyTyped();
            }
        }
    }

Again we ensure that no other task has already set a value and then we check that the type request in the configuration is assignable from IStandardTemplate. This configuration was set by our Configuration Resolver Task. If everything looks of we then get the Sitecore Creation Context and then uses Diamonds Item extension method AsStronglyType to create the appropriate type for use.

Register The Tasks

The tasks now need to be registered with the Castle IOC container used by Glass.Mapper, you can do this in the GlassMapperScCustom class that is added to your project when you download Glass.Mapper from Nuget:

    public static  class GlassMapperScCustom
    {
		public static void CastleConfig(IWindsorContainer container){
			var config = new Config();

		    container.Register(
                Component.For<IObjectConstructionTask>().ImplementedBy<DiamondConstructionTask>(),
                Component.For<IConfigurationResolverTask>().ImplementedBy<DiamondConfigurationTask>()
		        );

			container.Install(new SitecoreInstaller(config));
		}

Testing It Out

Now we have everything setup we can test this out. I have created my Diamond classes using Code Generation in TDS and I have a template called BasicTemplate that looks like this:

	[TemplateID("4ae36baf-b618-4cff-aa6f-a9de40fecefc")]
	public partial class BasicTemplate : StandardTemplate, IBasicTemplate
	{
		public static ID SourceTemplateID 
		{
			get { return new ID("4ae36baf-b618-4cff-aa6f-a9de40fecefc"); }
		}

		public BasicTemplate(Item innerItem) : base(innerItem) { }

		private TextProperty _title;
		public TextProperty Title 
		{
			get { return _title ?? (_title = new TextProperty(this.GetField("fcb08f69-4ba3-4331-b582-8bb7c3700d75"))); }
		}

	} // end class

Within my subkayout I can request this template using the SitecoreContext class:

    Model = context.GetCurrentItem<BasicTemplate>();

Here we are now mixing and matching both Glass.Mapper and Diamond into a single solution. Another great way about how Glass.Mapper has been setup means that I can also use my new Diamond classes on my Glass.Mapper models. For example I can create the following Glass.Mapper model that gets all the children as Diamond classes:

   public class MyGlassModel{
    
      public virtual IEnumerable<BasicTemplate> Children { get; set; }

   }

Summary

Hopefully this has shown you how easy it is to mix Glass.Mapper with other ORMS and extend the functionality you get from the solution. Allowing you to migrate or mix and match as you see fit.

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