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Check out my first four Modules now in the Sitecore Marketplace
While delivering some recent training sessions I provided for a customer, I covered many of the areas where Sitecore is both customizable and extensible. And, if you are like me and like to explore all the new features that are released with each Sitecore version, you probably also found it absurd that getting to some of these features was too much of a manual process. At least I did.
Since I am preparing some larger modules for release on the Sitecore Marketplace, I found a few things that I know I have used over and over for numerous customers and felt it was time to package and share.
This has got to be the most frequently requested feature from anyone who has ever used Sitecore and it works with practically all versions of Sitecore a Publishing Context Menu for the Content Editor:
Publishing Content Editor Context Menu
I have manually created this feature too many times. There are numerous blog posts about implementing different levels of this functionality and even one other Marketplace offering (Publish item in Context) that only opens the normal Publish dialog. From just the one menu itemPublish by Aboo Bolaky back in 2009 to the one written back in 2012 by Mike Reynolds. I went ahead and implemented the full Publishing menu by including the Publishing Viewer (allowing you to see if an item has been scheduled to publish/unpublish at a specific time).
The number two most needed and asked for feature is the ability to see the other users that are signed in to the Sitecore Desktop:
Sitecore Users Online Shortcut
Easy access to see who is currently logged in to Sitecore Desktop and even kick them if necessary. Most customers have licenses that limit the number of users that can be logged in to the Sitecore Desktop at any one particular time. Plus, this is information comes in very handy prior to deploying or making certain content changes. It is already provided Sitecore, this just makes it easy to get to.
For Sitecore 7.0 and newer:
Linq Scratch Pad Shortcut
This is one awesome tool for developers to prototype 7.0+ ContentSearchManager code and I was tired of manually typing in the Url.
For Sitecore 7.1 and newer:
Sitecore Launch Pad Shortcut
With Sitecore 8 it becomes super easy to access, but between 7.1 – 7.5 you have to either manually enter the Url or remember to click the right button/option on the Sitecore Login screen.
Here are just a few of the other resources I found if you are looking at doing your own Context Menus within the Content Editor – from the basics to the insanely awesome:
http://blog.navigationarts.com/creating-a-custom-context-menu-item-in-sitecore/
http://sitecorejohn.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/add-a-command-to-the-sitecore-item-context-menu/
http://sitecorejunkie.com/2013/03/25/copy-sitecore-item-field-values-to-your-clipboard-as-json/