Publishing non-Tridion Binaries in Package

Question

Is there a way to publish binaries in the package that are not Tridion assets? I have a Page Template that creates JSON files and places them into the package of a rendering page.

I would like to have those files created from the Page Template published out into a Tridion Structure Group. However the AddBinary method requires a Component. How can I publish these binaries without splitting them up into separate page outputs.

Our site is fully static. No dynamic content delivery.

Am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

As you noticed, you can add binaries on the fly with AddBinary, however they always need to be variants of a component (although not necessarily a multimedia component). The reason for this relationship is to ensure that the ad hoc binaries are managed ie, they can also be unpublished (when the related component is unpublished).

The simplest way to manage this is to have the JSON created in your Component Template, and use the context component as the related component. Most of the implementations I have worked on that require adhoc binaries (for example a pdf version of the article being published, or some XML data used to provide content resources for a flash movie) - this has made sense. Its difficult from your description to see if this could also make sense for you.

If the binary generation really can only belong in the Page Template then you could consider using dummy component(s) as your related component, however think carefully about the circumstances in which you would want the JSON files to be removed from the webserver and how you would go about this.

Answer 2

You could publish them as a binary variant using one of the AddBinary() methods of the RenderedItem class.

I just knocked a couple of test TBBs: One to create a test JSON file in the package with filename and extension attributes, the other to retrieve such items and publish them out. They work great in Content Manager Preview but I've done limited testing, so use with caution and test well...

I'm not setting a related component for the binary variant (I'm specifying null for the relatedComponent parameter in the AddBinary methods) but depending on your use case you might want to - Setting null as the relatedComponent means that your binary can never be cleaned up by the deployer (e.g. by unpublishing your component/page).

See https://gist.github.com/DavidForster/6455674 for the full set, but here's the main TBB

using System;
using Tridion.ContentManager;
using Tridion.ContentManager.CommunicationManagement;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Templating;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Templating.Assembly;

namespace Test.JsonTemplates
{
    [TcmTemplateTitle("Publish JSON package items as Variants")]
    public class PublishJsonFiles : ITemplate
    {
        public void Transform(Engine engine, Package package)
        {
            //Get all items of unknown type from the package
            var items = package.GetAllByType(ContentType.Unknown);

            //Remove all items that are NOT JSON files
            foreach (var item in items)
            {
                if (!item.Properties[Item.ItemPropertyFileNameExtension].Equals("json", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
                {
                    items.Remove(item);
                }
            }

            //Check the package values for an optional structure group ID to publish to
            var optionalStructureGroupId = package.GetValue("jsonStructureGroup");
            StructureGroup jsonStructureGroup = null;

            //Go get the structure group from Tridion if an Id has been specified
            if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(optionalStructureGroupId))
            {
                var structureGroupTcmUri = new TcmUri(
                    Convert.ToInt32(optionalStructureGroupId),
                    ItemType.StructureGroup,
                    engine.PublishingContext.RenderedItem.ResolvedItem.Item.Id.PublicationId);
                jsonStructureGroup = (StructureGroup)engine.GetObject(structureGroupTcmUri);
            }

            //Publish out the JSON files
            foreach (var item in items)
            {
                var filename = item.Properties[Item.ItemPropertyFileName] + "." + item.Properties[Item.ItemPropertyFileNameExtension];

                //If no structure group has been specified, publish to the default images directory configured for the publication
                if (jsonStructureGroup == null)
                {
                    engine.PublishingContext.RenderedItem.AddBinary(
                        item.GetAsStream(),
                        filename,
                        filename,
                        null,
                        "application/json");
                }
                else
                {
                    engine.PublishingContext.RenderedItem.AddBinary(
                        item.GetAsStream(),
                        filename,
                        jsonStructureGroup,
                        filename,
                        null,
                        "application/json");
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

I don't think it's possible, to do this whilst in the templating / rendering mode, you might be better off creating a custom resolver to include these files into your published zip package.

Is your website dynamic? We've done something similar in the past where the json is encoded as part of a rendered dynamic page (aspx) and exposed it as part of the page request e.g page.asp?outputtype=json&contentid=3-4567

We didn't want to push files to the server as we'd then had no mechanism to remove them, in this scenario we can un-publish content and keep the server tidy.