Better FieldRenderer usage with CDM

We’ve been using CompiledDomainModel for several projects now. And we keep inventing new ways to make things even better.

Yesterday I was brainstorming with some colleagues about a better way of using the Sitecore FieldRenderer in combination with CDM. I found a very neat new way of doing this. But I’d like to share some of the different options, so that you can choose the best one for you.

Traditional FieldRenderer without CDM:

• Simple implementation
• Spelling errors result in not displaying anything instead of an error
• Not wrapped, so no custom functionality can be placed on the item

Use CDM without FieldRenderer:

• Easy implementation
• Typed access
• The rendering pipeline is not used, so the page editor will not make this output editable

Traditional FieldRenderer with CDM (currently the most used with CDM):

• A bit of a pain to unwrap the Sitecore item every time
• Spelling errors result in compilation errors, which is great!
• The FieldName can refer to a field from an entirely different type (though this is not a very common mistake)

Custom FieldRenderer with CDM:

• The same as the previous one, but without the need to unwrap the Sitecore item every time
• You need to use a non-standard control

Custom FieldRenderer with CDM and lambda expression:

• The best possible type-safety
• Only usable in .NET 4
• You need to use a non-standard control

The last one is the nicest one in my opinion. You can use it as if you are not using a field renderer at all, and still get all the benefits of a fieldrenderer (use of the rendering pipeline and editable in the page editor).

It works by using the expression tree of the passed-in lambda expression and reflection to determine the name of the field. It shouldn’t be too hard to create similar controls for sc:Link and sc:Image. Here’s the code:

Good luck!

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