Umbraco CMS
CloudHeartcoreDXPMarketplace
13.latest (LTS)
13.latest (LTS)
  • Umbraco CMS Documentation
  • Legacy Documentation
    • Umbraco 11 Documentation
    • Umbraco 8 Documentation
    • Umbraco 7 Documentation
  • Release Notes
  • Contribute
  • Sustainability Best Practices
  • Fundamentals
    • Get to know Umbraco
    • Setup
      • Requirements
      • Installation
        • Install using .NET CLI
        • Install using Visual Studio
        • Local IIS With Umbraco
        • Install using Visual Studio Code
        • Installing Nightly Builds
        • Running Umbraco on Linux/macOS
        • Unattended Installs
      • Upgrade your project
        • Version Specific Upgrades
          • Upgrade from Umbraco 8 to the latest version
          • Migrate content to Umbraco 8
          • Minor upgrades for Umbraco 8
          • Upgrade to Umbraco 7
          • Minor upgrades for Umbraco 7
      • Server setup
        • Running Umbraco On Azure Web Apps
        • Hosting Umbraco in IIS
        • File And Folder Permissions
        • Runtime Modes
        • Umbraco in Load Balanced Environments
          • Load Balancing Azure Web Apps
          • Standalone File System
          • Advanced Techniques With Flexible Load Balancing
          • Logging With Load Balancing
    • Backoffice
      • Sections
      • Property Editors
        • Built-in Property Editors
          • Checkbox List
          • Color Picker
          • Content Picker
          • DateTime
          • Date
          • Decimal
          • Email Address
          • Eye Dropper Color Picker
          • File Upload
          • Image Cropper
          • Label
          • List View
          • Markdown Editor
          • Media Picker
          • Media Picker (Legacy)
          • Member Group Picker
          • Member Picker
          • Multi Url Picker
          • Multinode Treepicker
          • Repeatable Textstrings
          • Numeric
          • Radiobutton List
          • Slider
          • Tags
          • Textarea
          • Textbox
          • Toggle
          • User Picker
          • Block Editors
            • Block Grid
            • Block List
            • Build a Custom View for a Block
            • Configuring Block Editor Label Properties
          • Dropdown
          • Grid Layout (Legacy)
            • What Are Grid Layouts?
            • Configuring The Grid Layout
            • Settings And Styling
            • Grid Editors
            • Build Your Own Editor
            • Rendering Grid In a Template
            • Grid Layout Best Practices
            • Add Values Programmatically
          • Rich Text Editor
            • Rich Text Editor Configuration
            • Rich Text Editor Styles
            • Rich Text Editor Plugins
            • Blocks in Rich Text Editor
      • Login
      • Content Templates
      • Infinite Editing
      • Log Viewer
      • Language Variants
      • Settings Dashboards
    • Data
      • Defining Content
        • Default Document Types
        • Document Type Localization
      • Creating Media
        • Default Data/Media Types
      • Members
      • Data Types
        • Default Data Types
      • Scheduled Publishing
      • Using Tabs
      • Users
      • Relations
      • Dictionary Items
      • Content Version Cleanup
    • Design
      • Templates
        • Basic Razor Syntax
        • Named Sections
        • Razor Cheatsheet
      • Rendering Content
      • Rendering Media
      • Partial Views
      • Partial View Macro Files
      • Stylesheets And JavaScript
    • Code
      • Service APIs
      • Subscribing To Notifications
      • Creating Forms
      • Debugging
        • Logging
      • Source Control
  • Implementation
    • Learn how Umbraco works
    • Routing
      • Controller & Action Selection
      • Execute Request
      • Request Pipeline
    • Custom Routing
      • Adding a hub with SignalR and Umbraco
    • Controllers
    • Data Persistence (CRUD)
    • Composing
    • Integration Testing
    • Nullable Reference Types
    • Services and Helpers
      • Circular Dependencies
    • Unit Testing
  • Extending
    • Customize the editing experience
    • Dashboards
    • Sections & Trees
      • Sections
      • Trees
        • Tree Actions
      • Searchable Trees (ISearchableTree)
    • Property Editors
      • Property Value Converters
      • Property Actions
      • Tracking References
      • Declaring your property editor
      • Content Picker Value Converter Example
    • Package Manifest
    • Macro Parameter Editors
    • Health Check
      • Health Check Guides
        • Click-Jacking Protection
        • Content/MIME Sniffing Protection
        • Cross-site scripting Protection (X-XSS-Protection header)
        • Debug Compilation Mode
        • Excessive Headers
        • Fixed Application Url
        • Folder & File Permissions
        • HTTPS Configuration
        • Macro Errors
        • Notification Email Settings
        • SMTP
        • Strict-Transport-Security Header
    • Language Files & Localization
    • Backoffice Search
    • Backoffice Tours
    • Backoffice UI API Documentation
    • Content Apps
    • Creating a Custom Database Table
    • Embedded Media Providers
    • Custom File Systems (IFileSystem)
      • Using Azure Blob Storage for Media and ImageSharp Cache
    • Configuring Azure Key Vault
    • Packages
      • Creating a Package
      • Language file for packages
      • Listing a Package on the Umbraco Marketplace
      • Good practice and defaults
      • Packages on Umbraco Cloud
      • Installing and Uninstalling Packages
      • Maintaining packages
      • Create accessible Umbraco packages
      • Example Package Repository
    • UI Library
  • Reference
    • Dive into the code
    • Configuration
      • Basic Authentication Settings
      • Connection strings settings
      • Content Dashboard Settings
      • Content Settings
      • Data Types Settings
      • Debug settings
      • Examine settings
      • Exception filter settings
      • FileSystemProviders Configuration
      • Global Settings
      • Health checks
      • Hosting settings
      • Imaging settings
      • Indexing settings
      • Install Default Data Settings
      • Keep alive settings
      • Logging settings
      • Maximum Upload Size Settings
      • Models builder settings
      • NuCache Settings
      • Package Migration
      • Plugins settings
      • Request handler settings
      • Rich text editor settings
      • Runtime minification settings
      • Runtime settings
      • Security Settings
      • Serilog settings
      • Tours settings
      • Type finder settings
      • Unattended
      • Web routing
    • Templating
      • Macros
        • Managing macros
        • Partial View Macros
      • Models Builder
        • Introduction
        • Configuration
        • Builder Modes
        • Understand and Extend
        • Using Interfaces
        • Tips and Tricks
      • Working with MVC
        • Working with MVC Views in Umbraco
        • View/Razor Examples
        • Using MVC Partial Views in Umbraco
        • Using View Components in Umbraco
        • Querying & Traversal
        • Creating Forms
    • Querying & Models
      • IMemberManager
      • IPublishedContentQuery
      • ITagQuery
      • UDI Identifiers
      • UmbracoContext helper
      • UmbracoHelper
      • IPublishedContent
        • IPublishedContent Collections
        • IPublishedContent IsHelpers
        • IPublishedContent Property Access & Extension Methods
    • Routing & Controllers
      • Routing requirements for backoffice authentication
      • Custom MVC controllers (Umbraco Route Hijacking)
      • Custom MVC Routes
      • Custom Middleware
      • URL Rewrites in Umbraco
      • Special Property Type aliases for routing
      • URL Redirect Management
      • Routing in Umbraco
        • FindPublishedContentAndTemplate()
        • IContentFinder
        • Inbound request pipeline
        • Outbound request pipeline
        • Published Content Request Preparation
      • Surface controllers
        • Surface controller actions
      • Umbraco API Controllers
        • Umbraco Api - Authorization
        • Umbraco Api - Routing & Urls
    • Content Delivery API
      • Custom property editors support
      • Extension API for querying
      • Media Delivery API
      • Protected content in the Delivery API
      • Output caching
      • Property expansion and limiting
      • Additional preview environments support
    • Webhooks
      • Expanding Webhook Events
    • API versioning and OpenAPI
    • Searching
      • Examine
        • Examine Management
        • Examine Manager
        • Custom indexing
        • PDF indexes and multisearchers
        • Quick-start
    • Using Notifications
      • Notification Handler
      • CacheRefresher Notifications Example
      • ContentService Notifications Example
      • Creating And Publishing Notifications
      • Determining if an entity is new
      • MediaService Notifications Example
      • MemberService Notifications Example
      • Sending Allowed Children Notification
      • Umbraco Application Lifetime Notifications
      • EditorModel Notifications
        • Customizing the "Links" box
      • Hot vs. cold restarts
    • Inversion of Control / Dependency injection
    • Management
      • Models Reference
        • Content
        • ContentType
        • DataType
        • DictionaryItem
        • Language
        • Media
        • MediaType
        • Relation
        • RelationType
        • ServerRegistration
        • Template
      • Services Reference
        • AuditService
        • ConsentService
        • DataTypeService
        • DomainService
        • EntityService
        • ExternalLoginService
        • FileService
        • MacroService
        • MediaService
        • MemberGroupService
        • MemberService
        • MemberTypeService
        • NotificationService
        • PackagingService
        • PublicAccessService
        • RedirectUrlService
        • RelationService
        • ServerRegistrationService
        • TagService
        • TextService
        • ContentService
          • Create content programmatically
          • Publish content programmatically
        • ContentTypeService
          • Retrieving content types
          • Retrieving content types
        • LocalizationService
          • Retrieving languages
        • UserService
          • Creating a user
    • Plugins
      • Creating Resolvers
      • Finding types
    • Cache & Distributed Cache
      • Accessing the cache
      • ICacheRefresher
      • IServerMessenger
      • Getting/Adding/Updating/Inserting Into Cache
      • Examples
        • Working with caching
    • Response Caching
    • Security
      • API rate limiting
      • BackOfficeUserManager and Events
      • Cookies
      • Replacing the basic username/password check
      • External login providers
      • Locking of Users and password reset
      • Reset admin password
      • Umbraco Security Hardening
      • Umbraco Security Settings
      • Sensitive data
      • Sanitizing the Rich Text Editor
      • Setup Umbraco for a FIPS Compliant Server
      • HTTPS
      • Two-factor Authentication
      • Server-side file validation
    • Scheduling
    • Common Pitfalls & Anti-Patterns
    • API Documentation
    • Debugging with SourceLink
    • Language Variation
    • UmbracoMapper
    • Distributed Locks
    • AngularJS
      • Directives
        • umbLayoutSelector
        • umbLoadIndicator
        • umbProperty
      • Services
        • Editor Service
        • Events Service
          • changeTitle
  • Tutorials
    • Overview
    • Creating a Basic Website
      • Getting Started
      • Document Types
      • Creating Your First Template
      • CSS and Images
      • Displaying the Document Type Properties
      • Creating a Master Template
      • Creating Pages and Using the Master Template
      • Setting the Navigation Menu
      • Articles and Article Items
      • Adding Language Variants
      • Conclusions
    • Creating a Custom Dashboard
      • Extending the Dashboard using the Umbraco UI library
    • Creating a Property Editor
      • Adding configuration to a property editor
      • Integrating services with a property editor
      • Adding server-side data to a property editor
    • Creating a Multilingual Site
    • Add Google Authentication (Users)
    • Add Microsoft Entra ID authentication (Members)
    • Creating a Backoffice Tour
    • Creating Custom Database Tables with Entity Framework
    • The Starter Kit
      • Lessons
        • Customize the Starter Kit
        • Add a Blog Post Publication Date
          • Add a Blog Post Publication Date
          • Add a Blog Post Publication Date
        • Add Open Graph
          • Add Open Graph - Step 1
          • Add Open Graph - Step 2
          • Add Open Graph - Step 3
          • Add Open Graph - Step 4
          • Add Open Graph - Summary
        • Ask For Help and Join the Community
    • Editor's Manual
      • Getting Started
        • Logging In and Out
        • Umbraco Interface
        • Creating, Saving and Publishing Content Options
        • Finding Content
        • Editing Existing Content
        • Sorting Pages
        • Moving a Page
        • Copying a Page
        • Deleting and Restoring Pages
      • Working with Rich Text Editor
      • Version Management
        • Comparing Versions
        • Rollback to a Previous Version
      • Media Management
        • Working with Folders
        • Working with Media Types
        • Cropping Images
      • Tips & Tricks
        • Refreshing the Tree View
        • Audit Trail
        • Notifications
        • Preview Pane Responsive View
        • Session Timeout
    • Multisite Setup
    • Member Registration and Login
    • Custom Views for Block List
    • Connecting Umbraco Forms and Zapier
    • Creating an XML Sitemap
    • Implementing Custom Error Pages
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Prerequisite
  • Implementation
  • Property expansion support
Edit on GitHub
Export as PDF
  1. Reference
  2. Content Delivery API

Custom property editors support

Discover how to customize the Content Delivery API's response for your custom property editors.

PreviousContent Delivery APINextExtension API for querying

Last updated 1 year ago

Out of the box, the Delivery API supports custom property editors, ensuring they are rendered alongside the built-in ones in Umbraco. However, if the output generated by your property editor isn't optimal for a headless context, you have the ability to customize the API response. This customization won't impact the Razor rendering, allowing you to tailor the Content Delivery API response according to your specific requirements.

In this article, we'll look into how you can work with the IDeliveryApiPropertyValueConverter interface and implement custom for your custom property editors.

Prerequisite

The examples in this article revolve around the fictional My.Custom.Picker property editor. This property editor stores the key of a single content item and is backed by a property value converter.

We will not dive into the details of creating a custom property editor for Umbraco in this article. If you need guidance on that, please refer to the and articles.

Implementation

To customize the output of a property value editor in the Delivery API, we need to opt-in by implementing the IDeliveryApiPropertyValueConverter interface.

The code example below showcases the implementation of this interface in the property value converter for My.Custom.Picker. Our focus will be on the methods provided by the IDeliveryApiPropertyValueConverter, as they are responsible for customizing the Delivery API response.

Towards the end of the example, you will find the response models that we will be using.

The IsConverter() and GetPropertyValueType() methods are inherited from the PropertyValueConverterBase class, which is covered in the article.

MyCustomPickerValueConverter.cs
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.DeliveryApi;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Models.DeliveryApi;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Models.PublishedContent;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.PropertyEditors;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.PropertyEditors.DeliveryApi;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.PublishedCache;

namespace Umbraco.Docs.Samples;

public class MyCustomPickerValueConverter : PropertyValueConverterBase, IDeliveryApiPropertyValueConverter
{
    private readonly IPublishedSnapshotAccessor _publishedSnapshotAccessor;
    private readonly IApiContentRouteBuilder _apiContentRouteBuilder;

    public MyCustomPickerValueConverter(
        IPublishedSnapshotAccessor publishedSnapshotAccessor,
        IApiContentRouteBuilder apiContentRouteBuilder)
    {
        _publishedSnapshotAccessor = publishedSnapshotAccessor;
        _apiContentRouteBuilder = apiContentRouteBuilder;
    }

    public override bool IsConverter(IPublishedPropertyType propertyType)
        => propertyType.EditorAlias.Equals("My.Custom.Picker");

    public override Type GetPropertyValueType(IPublishedPropertyType propertyType)
        => typeof(Guid?);

    public PropertyCacheLevel GetDeliveryApiPropertyCacheLevel(IPublishedPropertyType propertyType)
        => PropertyCacheLevel.Elements;

    public PropertyCacheLevel GetDeliveryApiPropertyCacheLevelForExpansion(IPublishedPropertyType propertyType)
        => PropertyCacheLevel.Snapshot;

    public Type GetDeliveryApiPropertyValueType(IPublishedPropertyType propertyType)
        => typeof(DeliveryApiCustomPicker);

    public object? ConvertIntermediateToDeliveryApiObject(
        IPublishedElement owner,
        IPublishedPropertyType propertyType,
        PropertyCacheLevel referenceCacheLevel,
        object? inter,
        bool preview,
        bool expanding)
    {
        if (inter is null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        return BuildDeliveryApiCustomPicker(inter, expanding);
    }

    private DeliveryApiCustomPicker? BuildDeliveryApiCustomPicker(object inter, bool expanding)
    {
        if (!_publishedSnapshotAccessor.TryGetPublishedSnapshot(out IPublishedSnapshot? publishedSnapshot) ||
            publishedSnapshot?.Content is null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        if (!Guid.TryParse(inter as string, out Guid id))
        {
            return null;
        }

        return new DeliveryApiCustomPicker { Id = id };
    }
}

public class DeliveryApiCustomPicker
{
    public Guid Id { get; set; }

    public DeliveryApiItemDetails? ItemDetails { get; set; }
}

public class DeliveryApiItemDetails
{
    public string? Name { get; set; }

    public IApiContentRoute? Route { get; set; }
}

The Implementation of the IDeliveryApiPropertyValueConverter interface can be found in the following methods:

  • GetDeliveryApiPropertyCacheLevel(): This method specifies the cache level used for our property representation in the Delivery API response.

  • GetDeliveryApiPropertyValueType(): This method defines the value type of the custom property output for the Delivery API response.

  • ConvertIntermediateToDeliveryApiObject(): This method converts the value from the property editor to the desired custom object in a headless context.

In the given example, the content key (Guid value) is used when rendering with Razor. This is sufficient because Razor provides full access to the published content within the rendering context. In a headless context, we do not have the same access. To prevent subsequent round-trips to the server, we create a richer output model specifically for the Delivery API.

The following example request shows how our custom implementation is reflected in the resulting API response. In this case, our custom property editor is configured under the alias "pickedItem".

Request

GET /umbraco/delivery/api/v2/content/item/blog

Response

{
    "name": "Blog",
    "createDate": "2023-05-25T11:26:52.591927",
    "updateDate": "2023-06-07T12:53:41.339963",
    "route": {
        "path": "/",
        "startItem": {
            "id": "88694917-ac4a-4cfa-aa82-d89a81940126",
            "path": "blog"
        }
    },
    "id": "88694917-ac4a-4cfa-aa82-d89a81940126",
    "contentType": "blog",
    "properties": {
        "pickedItem": {
            "id": "61df413c-02b2-480d-8cb5-8e3c35132838",
            "itemDetails": null
        }
    },
    "cultures": {}
}

Property expansion support

Property expansion allows us to conditionally add another level of detail to the Delivery API output. Usually, these additional details are "expensive" to retrieve (for example, requiring database access to populate). By applying property expansion, we provide the option for the caller of the API to opt-in explicitly to this "expensive" operation. From the caller's perspective, the alternative might be an even more expensive additional round-trip to the server.

In our example, property expansion is implemented within ConvertIntermediateToDeliveryApiObject(). By considering the value of the expanding parameter, we can modify the BuildDeliveryApiCustomPicker() method as follows:

private DeliveryApiCustomPicker? BuildDeliveryApiCustomPicker(object inter, bool expanding)
{
    if (!_publishedSnapshotAccessor.TryGetPublishedSnapshot(out IPublishedSnapshot? publishedSnapshot) ||
        publishedSnapshot?.Content is null)
    {
        return null;
    }

    if (!Guid.TryParse(inter as string, out Guid id))
    {
        return null;
    }

    // Property expansion support
    if (expanding == false)
    {
        return new DeliveryApiCustomPicker { Id = id };
    }

    IPublishedContent? content = publishedSnapshot.Content.GetById(id);
    if (content is null)
    {
        return new DeliveryApiCustomPicker { Id = id };
    }

    IApiContentRoute? route = _apiContentRouteBuilder.Build(content);
    var itemDetails = new DeliveryApiItemDetails { Name = content.Name, Route = route };

    return new DeliveryApiCustomPicker { Id = id, ItemDetails = itemDetails };
}

If the expanding parameter is false, the method returns the same shallow representation of the referenced content item as before. Otherwise, we retrieve the corresponding IPublishedContent and construct our response object accordingly.

To see the expanded output in the API response, we need to add the expand query parameter to our request. We can use either ?expand=properties[$all] to expand all properties or ?expand=properties[pickedItem] to expand the specific 'pickedItem' property.

Request

GET /umbraco/delivery/api/v2/content/item/blog?expand=properties[pickedItem]

Response

{
    "name": "Blog",
    "createDate": "2023-05-25T11:26:52.591927",
    "updateDate": "2023-06-07T12:53:41.339963",
    "route": {
        "path": "/",
        "startItem": {
            "id": "88694917-ac4a-4cfa-aa82-d89a81940126",
            "path": "blog"
        }
    },
    "id": "88694917-ac4a-4cfa-aa82-d89a81940126",
    "contentType": "blog",
    "properties": {
        "pickedItem": {
            "id": "61df413c-02b2-480d-8cb5-8e3c35132838",
            "itemDetails": {
                "name": "Codegarden",
                "createDate": "2023-05-21T00:34:11.513868",
                "updateDate": "2023-06-06T17:46:12.833186",
                "route": {
                    "path": "/codegarden/",
                    "startItem": {
                        "id": "88694917-ac4a-4cfa-aa82-d89a81940126",
                        "path": "blog"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "cultures": {}
}

The itemDetails property of the pickedItem in the JSON response contains the additional details of the selected content item.

GetDeliveryApiPropertyCacheLevelForExpansion(): This method specifies the cache level used for our property representation in the Delivery API response when is applied.

property expansion
Creating a Property Editor
Property Value Converters
Property Value Converters
property expansion