Thread: V9 - Current Entity ID for xmlpackage

I am currently in the process of upgrading to V9 of ML64 from version 7.x. I am developing in Windows 7 64-bit w/Visual Studio 2008.

We use a tweaked rev.categories.xml.config package for some left navigation in v7. However, the same does not work in v9 of the store. It needs the NumObjects parameter (which I have figured out how to add back in to the entityhelpers section) and the current categoryid (if the user is looking at a category page). I have debugged the xmlpackage somewhat and can see a few key differences in the runtime xml document that gets generated from v7 and v9. First, the PageName node in v7 for a category is showcategory.aspx whereas in v9 it is c-entityid-entityname.aspx. Second, most likely because of the first, there are no longer any query strings from the page -

i.e. - a page with category 59 called books would have the query strings categoryid=59 and sename=books.

These are no longer present in v9, and I'm just wondering if there is a reason why? All I really need is for the current entityid to be represented in the xml without having to parse the PageName to get it.

Hi, we also discovered this when upgrading to v9. I also think the cookies such as 'lastviewedentityinstanceid' may no longer be written.

All is not lost though, we simply wrote a custom XSLT extension to parse the new Page Name and return the correct entity ID and entity Name.

This also writes cookies based on the page being viewed, so you can use '/root/Cookies/lastviewedcategoryid' for example to get the ID of the last category page viewed, even if you are on a product page.

This also works for manufacturers, distributors, sections etc.

Although v9 no longer has these features, it really shows the power of the Product and API that it can be extended so quickly.

Get in touch if you'd like a copy of this XML library.
Adam