Retrieving content on MVC sites

The following section provides examples on how you can retrieve Kentico data in MVC applications. You can work with the following Kentico objects:

• Pages
• Page attachments
• Form records
• Custom table items
• Custom module classes
• Media library files

To retrieve content from page, form, custom table, and custom module class objects, we recommend generating classes for these objects and using the generated code in your application.

Retrieving pages

To work with pages, you need to use generated strongly typed classes for page types.

The following example uses a generated code for the DancingGoat.Article page type. You can use the generated providers when retrieving individual pages.

// Gets the specified articles using the generated provider
IEnumerable<Article> articles = ArticleProvider.GetArticles()
    .OnSite("MySite")
    .Culture("en-US")
    .Path("/Articles/", PathTypeEnum.Children);

// Gets the published version of a single article using the generated provider
Article article = ArticleProvider.GetArticle(nodeGuid, "en-US", "MySite");

By default, the generated code returns published version of pages. If you need to retrieve the latest edited version of a page, use the following approach:

// Gets the latest version of a single article using the generated provider
Article article = ArticleProvider.GetArticle(nodeGuid, "en-US", "MySite")
    .LatestVersion()
    .Published(false);

To filter the retrieved pages, you can use any of the query parameters for a single page type listed in Working with pages in the API.

Working with retrieved page data

You can access the data of a retrieved page using the TreeNode.GetValue() method. There are two types of page data that you can access:

• Form data – the data that is editable on a page’s Form tab
• Metadata – data like the page title and page keywords

Accessing page form data

The fields available on a page’s Form tab are specific to its Page type. You can see the fields that each page type uses:

• In Pages types (application) -> edit page type -> Fields tab.
• In the CONTENT_<document_type> database table.

We recommend accessing the specific fields of a specific page in the following way as code completion will provide you the relevant fields that you can use:

// Retrieves a specific page
News news = NewsProvider.GetNews(nodeGuid, "en-US", "MySite");

// Accesses the 'Title' field
string title = news.Fields.Title;

// Accesses the 'Text' field
string text = news.Fields.Text;

@Html.Raw(Model.<Rich text field content>)
@Html.Kentico().ResolveUrls(Model.<Rich text field content>)

Accessing page metadata

Page metadata are stored the same way as Form data (in the TreeNode object), but aren’t provided in the generated classes. This means that you need to use the GetValue method to access page metadata.

All the metadata fields you can access are defined in the CMS_Document database table.

// Retrieves a specific page
News page = NewsProvider.GetNews(nodeGuid, "en-US", "MySite");

// Accesses the 'DocumentPageTitle' metadata field
page.GetValue("DocumentPageTitle");

// Accesses the 'DocumentPageKeywords' metadata field
page.GetValue("DocumentPageKeywords");

Retrieving page attachments

For information on retrieving page attachments, see Working with page attachments in MVC applications.

Retrieving form data

The following example requires the classes generated for the ContactUs form included in the solution.

// Gets all form items
IEnumerable<ContactUsItem> items = BizFormItemProvider.GetItems<ContactUsItem>();

// Gets a single form item for a given form item ID
ContactUsItem item = BizFormItemProvider.GetItem<ContactUsItem>(1);

Retrieving custom table data

The following example requires the classes generated for the SampleTable custom table included in the solution.

// Gets all custom table items
IEnumerable<SampleTableItem> items = CustomTableItemProvider.GetItems<SampleTableItem>();

// Gets a single custom table item for a given custom table item ID
SampleTableItem item = CustomTableItemProvider.GetItem<SampleTableItem>(1);

Retrieving custom module class data

The following example requires the classes generated for the Office custom module class included in the solution.

See the Creating custom modules page for information on creating custom module classes and generating code to work with them in your application.

// Gets all custom module class items
IEnumerable<OfficeInfo> items = OfficeInfoProvider.GetOffices();

// Gets a single custom module class item for a given class ID
OfficeInfo item = OfficeInfoProvider.GetOfficeInfo(1);

Retrieving media library data

For information on retrieving media files from media libraries, see Working with media libraries on MVC sites.