Duplicate urlname popup fix using custom script

I had a requirement recently to make a module in which the “Title” and “UrlName” were set based on a date field.  This is done in the DynamicContent Updating event automatically.  So if the user typed “Bob” in as the title of a new content item it would really be changed to “2018-03-01-05-10AM” on save… physically impossible for the user to make it anything but the date.

So from there the users were to Actions->Duplicate each item and change the dates for each new years content item.

So I encountered a problem in that on duplicate the title and urlname come down EXACTLY as they are on the old item, no appending a 1 or 2 or anything.  So when the user changes their date and hits save, they get a nice popup saying “This content item already exists” (because the UrlName is already taken by the item it’s copied from).

If telerik is reading this… maybe please fix this logic :)

So the UrlName field is mirrored automatically to the Title, and you can change this to really be any text field, but the DATE isn’t a test field and will crash if you set the mirror to it.

The fix I came up with is this:

• Add script to the Duplicate view for the content item
• Script polls the urlname field until it sees a value (callback worked)
• Script then uses the MSAjax (🤮) to find the control and invisibly change it’s value

Here is the script

You link it to the specific view by going to /Sitefinity/Administration/Settings/Advanced/ContentView then drilling down to

• TheContentType
• Views
• TheContentTypeBackendDuplicateView
• Scripts

Then simply add a new script and tell it where it lives and the method name to call after its available (I love that feature, thx guys)

So obviously this is just one use-case but fundamentally you can run anything you want in any view, Insert, Edit, etc.

Please note this will (afaik) only work in the CURRENT < v10.2 Sitefinity, obviously the MSAjax (🤮) $find will not work in the new angular 2 system; docs aren’t out on that yet.