Sitecore PXM and ODG project (part 2 – non-editable fields)

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

Since we were using as much Sitecore-provided PXM and ODG functionality as possible (and ODG provides pretty much all of the functionality) the first task was to find a way to selectively make specific fields in the documents editable. ODG out of the box makes all text and image fields in the document editable, however images like the company logo, and text like terms and conditions should not be editable by the end user. There are (at least) two ways to go about this:

1. Use security to restrict the user's read/write access to the field
   This is a little risky, down the line when we go to export the document the read/write access may be required to export the text/image field to PDF
2. Create a new template which inherits from the default snippet
   Digging into the Sitecore SPEAK code*, we can see that in ODG the snippets are loaded by doing a query on the template type ('get all child items with the snippet template type'). By extending the existing snippet this query fill filter out new snippet type, so all the non-editable fields can be hidden in here, however when export to PDF is run it's still treated as a snippet and the text is shown. The downside to this is that the custom snippet is not supported by the InDesign connector so even though the snippet will appear in InDesign, making items non-editable (creating the non-editable snippet and dragging items into this snippet) will have to be done in the content editor.

We ended up going with option 2, though option 1 may still work, I did not get a chance to investigate.
So it's easy as finding the P_Snippet template (at /sitecore/templates/Print Studio Templates/Publishing Engine/P_Snippet), and making a custom template which contains that as a base template.

Custom non-editable snippet made from P_Snippet

* View source, and find id="SnippetAccordion". Find the parent id="DesignEditComponent". Search in Sitecore Rocks and find it uses DesignEditComponent.cshtml which includes DesignEditComponent.js.
DesignEditComponent.js function InitPageObjects() which fetches the snippets at line 26 is:

var query = "//*[@@id = '" + pageId + "']//*[@@templatekey='p_snippet']";
var options = { language: applib.contentLanguage, payLoad: "full" };
applib.database.query(query, function (items) {
self.addDesignEdit(shortId, items, self.viewModel.$el, self);
}, options);