Collections.md

IPublishedContent Collections

All collections of IPublishedContent are IEnumerable<IPublishedContent>. This means that all c# Linq statements can be used to filter and query the collections.

Collections

.Children

Returns a collection of items just below the current content item

<ul>
	@foreach(var item in Model.Content.Children)
	{
		<li><a href="@item.Url">@item.Name</a></li>
	}
</ul>

.Ancestors

Returns all ancestors of the current page (parent page, grandparent and so on)

<ul>
	@*Order items by their Level*@
	@foreach(var item in Model.Content.Ancestors().OrderBy(x => x.Level))
	{
		<li><a href="@item.Url">@item.Name</a></li>
	}
</ul>

.Ancestor

Returns the first ancestor of the current page

@* return the first ancestor item from the current page *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Ancestor();

@* return the first item, of a specific type, from the current page *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Ancestor<DocumentTypeAlias>();

.AncestorsOrSelf

Returns a collection of all ancestors of the current page (parent page, grandparent and so on), and the current page itself

@* Get the top item in the content tree, this will always be the Last ancestor found *@
var websiteRoot = Model.Content.AncestorsOrSelf().Last();

.Descendants

Returns all descendants of the current page (children, grandchildren etc)

<ul>
	@* Filter collection by content that has a template assigned *@
	@foreach(var item in Model.Content.Descendants().Where(x = x.TemplateId > 0))
	{
		<li><a href="@item.Url">@item.Name</a></li>
	}
</ul>

.DescendantsOrSelf

Returns all descendants of the current page (children, grandchildren etc), and the current page itself

<ul>
	@* Filter collection by content that has a template assigned *@
	@foreach(var item in Model.Content.DescendantsOrSelf().Where(x = x.TemplateId > 0))
	{
		<li><a href="@item.Url">@item.Name</a></li>
	}
</ul>

.OfTypes

Filters a collection of content by content type alias

<ul>
	@* Filter collection by content type alias (you can pass in any number of aliases) *@
	@foreach(var item in Model.Content.DescendantsOrSelf().OfTypes("widget1", "widget2"))
	{
		<li><a href="@item.Url">@item.Name</a></li>
	}
</ul>

---

Filtering, Ordering & Extensions

Filtering and Ordering are done simply with Linq.

Some examples:

.Where

@* Returns all items in the collection that have a template assigned and have a name starting with 'S' *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Descendants().Where(x => x.TemplateId > 0 && x.Name.StartsWith("S"))

.OrderBy

@* Orders a collection by the property name "title" *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Children.OrderBy(x => x.GetPropertyValue<string>("title"))

.GroupBy

Groups collection by content type alias

@{
  	var groupedItems = Model.Content.Descendants().GroupBy(x => x.DocumentTypeAlias);
  	foreach (var group in groupedItems)
  	{
   		<h2>@group.Key</h2>
   		foreach(var item in group)
   		{
   			<h3>@item.Name</h3>
   		}
   	}
}

.Take(int)

Return only the number of items for a collection specified by the integer value.

@* return the first 3 items from the child collection *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Children.Take(3);

.Skip(int)

Return items from the collection after skipping the specified number of items.

@* Skip the first 3 items in the collection and return the rest *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Children.Skip(3);

HINT: You can combine Skip and Take when using for paging operations

@* using skip and take together you can perform paging operations *@
var nodes = Model.Content.Skip(10).Take(10);

.Count()

Returns the number of items in the collection

int numberOfChildren =  Model.Content.Children.Count();

.Any()

Returns a boolean True/False value determined by whether there are any items in the collection

bool hasChildren =  Model.Content.Children.Any();

Filtering Conventions

Some filtering and routing behaviour is dependant upon a set of special naming conventions for certain properties. See also: Routing Property Conventions

.IsVisible()

If you create a checkbox property on a document type with an alias umbracoNaviHide then the value of this property is used by the IsVisible() extension method when filtering.

IEnumerable<IPublishedContent> sectionPages =  Model.Content.Children.Where(x => x.IsVisible());

Use case: When displaying a navigation menu for a section of the site, following this convention gives editors the option to 'hide' certain pages from appearing in the section navigation. (hence the unusual umbracoNaviHide property alias!)