Sitecore PXM and ODG project (part 5 – PXM InDesign custom task)

1. Introduction
2. Non-editable fields
3. Architecture
4. Customising ODG email
5. PXM InDesign custom task

For the final post on this project I will run through how we can add some custom functionality to InDesign, as we have previously created a custom (non-editable) snippet which can be used in InDesign, however there is no way to create one except through Sitecore.

The plan is to create a custom PXM task that can be executed in InDesign, so that when a Page item is selected (in the project panel) and we execute our task, a Non-editable Snippet item will be created under that Page.

There are only a couple of posts that I've seen on how to create a custom task, however it's more than enough to go off for our scenario which is not terribly complex.  Those posts cover how to create a custom task, so follow along and set up your custom task.  As is mentioned in the posts, our task is passed a dictionary of various values from InDesign; in our case the only relevant one is the ID of the item selected in the project panel, which is ci_projectPanel.  Once we know that we can get the relevant item, check that it is a Page, and create a new item beneath it.  Simple :)

I've also created  a gist for the full class, in a more legible format.  This code is untested but should work as described.

public string ExecuteTask(Dictionary<string, object> dictionary)
{
  Item page = Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(new ID(dictionary["ci_projectPanel"].ToString()));
  if (page.TemplateID != new ID("{6BFA47BA-F73C-48DB-9170-C0CC94179EC7}"))
  {
    return "Please select a page under which to add the non-editable snippet";
  }

  page.Add("Non-Editable", new TemplateID(new ID("{C0FD5401-A2A5-4205-831D-DF06120B389E}")));
  return $"Created custom snippet under page {page.Name}.";
}