This little helper class is something we use internally. If like us, you sometimes still like to use usercontrols when creating sites and want to have a nice easy way to grab nodes like you can in Razor - then this should be right up your street (You could in fact use this in your Razor files too)

Features

You now have access to all of the below. These all return 'DynamicNodeList' apart from GetRootNode(), GetCurrentNode() & GetNodeByUrl() which return 'DynamicNode'.

public static RazorLibraryCore Library


public static DynamicNode GetRootNode()


public static DynamicNodeList GetNodesByDocTypeAlias(string docTypeAlias, int? startNodeId)


public static DynamicNode GetCurrentNode()


public static DynamicNodeList GetChildNodes(int? parentNodeId, bool getGrandChildrenToo = false)


public static DynamicNodeList GetNodesByName(string nodeName, int? startNodeId)


public static DynamicNodeList GetNodesFromCsv(string csv)


public static DynamicNodeList GetNodesByPropertyValue(string propertyName, string propertyValue, int? startNodeId)


public static DynamicNodeList GetNodesByXpath(string xpath)


public static DynamicNode GetNodeByUrl(string url)

Important

If you are keen on performance, then we strongly suggest you always try to pass in a 'startNodeId' when its an option to try and filter down the amount of nodes it has to go through. If you don't then the method will work out the root of your site and query over the entire XML, and just like with XSLT this can start to take a few seconds if you have 10K+ nodes.

nQuery.GetRootNode()

Description: This helper tries to get your home page, it does not get the actual root (-1). If you want to get the root node just use the NodeById() Library method.

Example:

var node = nQuery.GetRootNode();
node.Name;

nQuery.GetNodesByDocTypeAlias(string docTypeAlias, int? startNodeId)

Description: Returns all nodes with a specific doctype, either pass in null to find all from your home page down - Or pass in a start/parent node id.

Example:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetNodesByDocTypeAlias("MyDocTypeAlias", null);
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
   sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

nQuery.GetCurrentNode()

Description: Says what it does on the tin ;)

Example:

var node = nQuery.GetCurrentNode();
node.Name;

nQuery.GetNodeByUrl(string url)

Description: Gets the node from a specified url

Example:

var node = nQuery.GetNodeByUrl("/my-cool/url/");
node.Name;

nQuery.GetChildNodes(int? parentNodeId, bool getGrandChildrenToo = false)

Description: Gets child nodes from either a parent node or uses current page (Pass in null if no parentNodeId needed), getGrandChildrenToo Optional: pass in true to get all child nodes regardless of level

Example:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetChildNodes(null, true);
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
    sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

nQuery.GetNodesByName(string nodeName, int? startNodeId)

Description: Find names with a specific nodename, it does part match so you can put in the first few letters and it will find any that contains them.  startNodeId Optional: Starting node id, will start from root if not supplied

Example:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetNodesByName("Contact", null);
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
    sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

nQuery.GetNodesFromCsv(string csv)

Description: Pretty self explanatory, just pass in a valid CSV of node ids and get them back as DynamicNodes

Example:

const string csv = "1084,1085,1078,1156";
var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetNodesFromCsv(csv);
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
    sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

nQuery.GetNodesByPropertyValue(string propertyName, string propertyValue, int? startNodeId)

Description: Searches all nodes by a property value, either starting at root or passed in start/parent node id. Examples of use would be getting a node by a string in bodyText or by another string value - Its also case insensitive too.

Example:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetNodesByPropertyValue("bodyText", "the", null);
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
    sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

nQuery.GetNodesByXpath(string xpath)

Description: Pretty self explanatory again, just pass in XPATH and get nodes returned

Example:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
var nodes = nQuery.GetNodesByXpath("//*");
foreach (DynamicNode node in nodes)
{
    sb.AppendFormat("<p>{0}</p>", node.Name);
}
Response.Write(sb.ToString());

Also…

You have access to the Library helper too that's used in the Umbraco Razor files, so you can use the Get Media and Get Node methods like you do in a razor file.

nQuery.Library.MediaById()

Description: This is the standard get media call, just exposed so you can use it in your usercontrols.

Example:

var media = nQuery.Library.MediaById("YourMediaId");
var mediaUrl = media.umbracoFile;

nQuery.Library.NodeById()

Description: Again, this is just the standard dynamic get node by id call exposed so you can use it in your usercontrols.

Example:

var dNode = nQuery.Library.NodeById("YourNodeId");
var myPropertyNameValue = dNode.MyPropertyName;

This helper class just wraps up the 'DynamicNode' class and 'RazorLibraryCore' class to give you some time saving helpers, hope its useful to everyone else - We'd love to hear some feedback below.

Use It

All you need to do is download the DLL below, unzip it and dump it in your bin folder.