Friendly names for presentation details renderings/sublayouts

The Page editor is no doubt superb however some people (not just developers believe it or not) prefer to build up pages of renderings/sublayouts using the Device Edtior (via the Presentation Details popup) from the Content Editor.

Does this not really bug you though? I mean, what are all these controls with the same name?

In a matter of minutes we can update the Device Edtior Form enabling us to do this:

(Just add the FriendlyName parameter to show the text you specify)

...and here's how:

1. Use ILSpy or reflector to decompile your Sitecore.Client.dll and search for DeviceEditorForm. (It lives at Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.DeviceEditor)

   

2. Create a new class in your project and copy the DeviceEdtiorForm code from ILSpy into it. Update the namespace and give the class a new name e.g MyCustomDeviceEditorForm.

3. There are a number of references to DeviceEditorForm which you need to remove e.g:

   LayoutDefinition layoutDefinition = DeviceEditorForm.GetLayoutDefinition();
   

   becomes

   LayoutDefinition layoutDefinition = GetLayoutDefinition();
   

   (Basically remove DeviceEditorForm.)

4. Locate the RenderRenderings() method. Update the following code:

   if (item != null)
   {
       xmlControl["ID"] = uniqueID;
       xmlControl["Icon"] = item.Appearance.Icon;
       xmlControl["Header"] = item.DisplayName;
   

   becomes:

   if (item != null)
   {
       xmlControl["ID"] = uniqueID;
       xmlControl["Icon"] = item.Appearance.Icon;
       string displayName = item.DisplayName;
       if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(renderingDefinition.Parameters))
       {
           var parameters = WebUtil.ParseUrlParameters(renderingDefinition.Parameters);
           string friendlyName = parameters["FriendlyName"];
           if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(friendlyName))
           {
               displayName = string.Format("{0} ({1})", displayName, 
                            System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlDecode(friendlyName));
           }
       }
       xmlControl["Header"] = displayName;
   

5. The last thing to do is to open /sitecore/shell/Applications/Layouts/DeviceEditor/DeviceEditor.xml.

   Update:

   <CodeBeside Type="Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Layouts.DeviceEditor.DeviceEditorForm,Sitecore.Client"/>
   

   to point to your new class.

6. Build your solution and give it a test :-). You could easily extend this and get really creative - perhaps automatically showing the datasource name against the rendering.