Property Actions

Guide on how to implement Property Actions for Property Editors in Umbraco

Property Actions are a built-in feature that provide a generic place for secondary functionality for property editors.

Property Actions appear as a small button next to the label of the property, which expands to show the available actions. They are defined and implemented in the Property Editor, making it open as to what a Property Action is.

Data Structure of Property Actions

Property Actions are an array of objects defining each action. An action is defined by the following properties:

{
    labelKey: 'clipboard_labelForRemoveAllEntries',
    labelTokens: [],
    icon: 'trash',
    method: removeAllEntries,
    isDisabled: true
}

We use labelKey and labelTokens to retrieve a localized string that is displayed as the Actions label. See localization for more info.

isDisabled is used to disable an Action, which change the visual appearance and prevents interaction. Use this option when an action wouldn't provide any change. In the example above, the action remove all entries would not have any impact if there is no entries.

Implementation

The implementation of Property Actions varies depending on whether your Property Editor is implemented with a Controller or as a Component.

Controller Implementation

When your Property Editor is implemented with a Controller, use the following approach for the Property Action:

angular.module("umbraco").controller("My.MarkdownEditorController", function ($scope) {

function myActionExecutionMethod() {
    alert('My Custom Property Action Clicked');
    // Disable the action so it can not be re-run
    // You may have custom logic to enable or disable the action
    // Based on number of items selected etc...
    myAction.isDisabled = true;
};

var myAction = {
    labelKey: 'general_labelForMyAction',
    labelTokens: [],
    icon: 'action',
    method: myActionExecutionMethod,
    isDisabled: false
}

var propertyActions = [
    myAction
];

this.$onInit = function () {
    if ($scope.umbProperty) {
        $scope.umbProperty.setPropertyActions(propertyActions);
    }
};


});

Component Implementation

Follow this guide if your Property Editor is implemented as a Component. The Component must be configured to retrieve an optional reference to umbProperty. The requirement must be optional because property-editors are implemented in scenarios where it's not presented.

See the following example:

angular.module('umbraco').component('myPropertyEditor', {
    controller: MyController,
    controllerAs: 'vm',
    require: {
        umbProperty: '?^umbProperty'
    }
    …
});

See the following example for implementation of Property Actions in a Component, notice the difference is that we are parsing actions to this.umbProperty.setPropertyActions(...).

var myAction = {
    labelKey: 'general_labelForMyAction',
    labelTokens: [],
    icon: 'action',
    method: myActionExecutionMethod,
    isDisabled: false
}

var propertyActions = [
    myAction
];

this.$onInit = function () {
    if (this.umbProperty) {
        this.umbProperty.setPropertyActions(propertyActions);
    }
};