Add Export to File Functionality in Sitecore's Search Options

One of our business users was requesting for a listing of items they've already added and have it available in a format that can be opened in a spreadsheet (Excel). My initial thought was to create a blank aspx page and write all the logic to get the data in the code-behind, run it and save the resulting file to a csv then I'm done.

But then it got me to think, it might be a better idea to have this functionality plugged in to Sitecore and made available for everyone to use. 

Sitecore Bucket's Search Options fly-out seemed a good candidate for this feature (See image below). So doing some quick readings I got myself in to the "zone" and started implementing this quick and dirty PoC.

Just to explain what it actually does.

User will basically do a search, (Note that all search options require some filters or search keyword before any of the options can be used) clicks the Export to File, it pops up a dialog to confirm the action and executes, after which a browser-download dialog appears for the user to save the file to his/her local (in this case a CSV file).

Getting down to the details, here's a rundown of what I did:

1. Go to Settings > Buckets > Settings > Search Operations : you will find here all of the search options available; grouped by their own folders. I created my own called User Defined and added the Export To File item (based from Dropdown List template). Put in the Type (more on this later) e.g. bucket:exporttofile. Just by adding this item, this will automatically get added to the Search Option fly out; it does not do anything yet at this point obviously.
   
2. Now, let's hook it up with a processor. To do that, we would need to modify the following file: App_Config/Include/Sitecore.Buckets.config, find the commands section and add your command entry there then Save e.g. 
   
    
3. Create your custom processor. To do that you would need to create a class that inherits from Sitecore.Shell.Frameworks.Commands.Command class and implement the Execute method. This solution uses SC's SheerResponse and ProgressBox as well as the Filestream object for the file handling. Here's the code:

   using System;
   using System.Collections.Generic;
   using System.Collections.Specialized;
   using System.Globalization;
   using System.IO;
   using System.Linq;
   using System.Text;
   using System.Web;
   using Sitecore;
   using Sitecore.Buckets.Util;
   using Sitecore.ContentSearch;
   using Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchTypes;
   using Sitecore.ContentSearch.Utilities;
   using Sitecore.Data.Items;
   using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
   using Sitecore.Globalization;
   using Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.ProgressBoxes;
   using Sitecore.Shell.Framework.Commands;
   using Sitecore.Text;
   using Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer;
   
   namespace YourNamespace.Commands
   {
       [Serializable]
       public class ExportSearchToFile : Command
       {
   
           private string _linkToFile = string.Empty;
           // Methods
           public override void Execute(CommandContext context)
           {
               if (context.Items.Length <= 0) return;
               var item = context.Items[0];
               var parameters = new NameValueCollection();
               parameters["id"] = item.ID.ToString();
               parameters["language"] = item.Language.ToString();
               parameters["version"] = item.Version.ToString();
               parameters["database"] = item.Database.Name;
               var strings = context.Parameters.GetValues("url");
               if (strings != null)
                   parameters["searchString"] = strings[0].Replace("\"", string.Empty);
               Context.ClientPage.Start(this, "Run", parameters);
           }
   
           protected void Run(ClientPipelineArgs args)
           {
               Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");
               if (args.IsPostBack)
               {
                   if (args.HasResult)
                   {
                       var database = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase(args.Parameters["database"]);
                       Assert.IsNotNull(database, "Database \"" + args.Parameters["database"] + "\" not found.");
                       var item =
                           database.Items[args.Parameters["id"], Language.Parse(args.Parameters["language"]),
                               Sitecore.Data.Version.Parse(args.Parameters["version"])];
                       var list = UIFilterHelpers.ExtractSearchQuery(args.Parameters["searchString"]);
                       Assert.IsNotNull(item, "item");
                       var jobName = Translate.Text("Export to File");
                       var title = Translate.Text("Exporting list to file");
                       const string icon = "~/icon/Software/32x32/text_code.png";
                       var parameters = new object[] {item, list, args.Result};
                       ProgressBox.Execute(jobName, title, icon, StartProcess, parameters);
                       SheerResponse.Download(_linkToFile);
                           //Alert(string.Format("Finished exporting all search results. Please click this link to download file: {0}", _linkToFile ));
                   }
               }
               else
               {
                   //create your own XAML -- I reused LayoutDetails for 
                   var str4 = new UrlString(UIUtil.GetUri("control:LayoutDetails"));
                   str4.Append("id", args.Parameters["id"]);
                   str4.Append("la", args.Parameters["language"]);
                   str4.Append("vs", args.Parameters["version"]);
                   SheerResponse.ShowModalDialog(str4.ToString(), true);
                   args.WaitForPostBack();
               }
           }
   
           private void StartProcess(params object[] parameters)
           {
               var str = (string) parameters[2];
               var item = (Item) parameters[0];
               SitecoreIndexableItem indexable = item;
               if (indexable == null)
               {
                   Log.Error("Export to file - Unable to cast current item - " + parameters[0].GetType().FullName, this);
               }
               else
               {
                   var searchStringModel = (List<SearchStringModel>) parameters[1];
                   using (
                       var context =
                           ContentSearchManager.GetIndex(indexable)
                                               .CreateSearchContext())
                   {
                       var count = 0;
                       IQueryable<SitecoreUISearchResultItem> queryable = LinqHelper.CreateQuery(context, searchStringModel, indexable);
                       //var list2 = queryable.Select(item3 => item3.GetItem()).Where(item4 => (item4 != null) && item4.Security.CanWrite(Context.User)).ToList();
                       var list2 = new List();
                       foreach (SitecoreUISearchResultItem item3 in queryable)
                       {
                           var item4 = item3.GetItem();
                           if (item4.Security.CanWrite(Context.User))
                           {
                               list2.Add(item4);
                           }
                       }
                       if (list2.Count > 0)
                       {
                           StreamWriter writer = null;
                           try
                           {
                               var filename = DateTime.Now.ToString("g") + "_Export";
                               var path = "/temp/" + filename + ".csv";
                               var path2 = path.Replace("/", "\\").Substring(1, path.Length-1);
                               var fs = new FileStream(HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath + path2, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
                               writer = new StreamWriter(fs, Encoding.Default);
                               writer.WriteLine("ID,Name,TemplateName,Parent,Version,Last-Modified");
                               
                               foreach (var item5 in list2)
                               {
                                   count++;
                                   if (item5 != null)
                                       writer.WriteLine(string.Format("{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5}",
                                                                  item5.ID, item5.Name, item5.TemplateName,
                                                                  item5.Parent.Name, item5.Version.Number,
                                                                  item5.Statistics.Updated.ToString(
                                                                      CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)));
                               }
   
                               writer.Flush();
                               writer.Close();
   
                               Log.Audit(this, "Export to file details: Exported a total of {0} items",
                                         new string[] {count.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)});
   
                               _linkToFile = path; // @"";
                           }
                           catch (Exception ex)
                           {
                               Log.Error("Exception in Export to File - Search: " + ex.Message, this);
                               _linkToFile = @"An error occurred - please contact Support.";
                               if (writer != null)
                                   writer.Close();
                           }
                       }
                   }
               }
           }
       }
   }
    
   
   

Compile it and make sure your Command type matches with what you put in the config. Then try it out. Happy coding :)