Implement a comment system using EPiServers datastore by using Paul Smith's DynamicDataStoreSession class

Hi!

First I would want to start this post by thanking Paul Smith for taking the time to point out the mistakes I had done in the last post I did about this, I learned a lot how to use the datastore in a correct way from his help! Thanks Paul!

This post is about how we can use Paul Smith's DynamicDataStoreSession class with very little code to implement a comment system for our EPi pages using the EPiServer datastore.

The idea is that I will create an Usercontrol that I can place on a page where I want people to be able to comment the content.

I start off with creating my entity class:

     public class Comment
    {
        public Identity Id { get; set; }
        [EPiServerDataIndex]
        public Guid PageGuid { get; set; } 
        public string UserName { get; set; }
        public string Location { get; set; }
        public string UserComment { get; set; }
        public DateTime Date { get; set; }
    }

Note that my PageGuid property has the attribute [EPiServerDataIndex], it will tell the DDS to map the property to an indexed database column, which will speed up retrieving the data.

I then make a factory class were I will add my datastore methods:

     public static IEnumerable<Comment> GetComments(Guid pageGuid)
        {
            var session = new DynamicDataStoreSession<Comment>();
            return session.Find().Where(p => p.PageGuid).Equals(pageGuid).Go().OrderByDescending(p => p.Date);
        }

        public static void SubmitComment(string comment, Guid pageGuid)
        {
            var store = new DynamicDataStoreSession<Comment>();
            var newComment = new Comment
            {
                Id = Identity.NewIdentity(Guid.NewGuid()),
                UserName = Membership.GetUser().UserName,
                Location = "Stockholm, Sweden",
                UserComment = comment,
                Date = DateTime.Now,
                PageGuid = pageGuid
            };
            store.Save(newComment); 
           

        }

My usercontrol looks like this:

<asp:Repeater ID="repComments" runat="server">
                <ItemTemplate>
                   <tr>
                   <td><%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "UserName")%> (<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Location")%>) </td>
                   <td><br /><%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "UserComment")%></td><br /><br />
                 </tr> 
                </ItemTemplate>
                </asp:Repeater>

and in the code behind:

  protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
           repComments.DataSource = ArticleComment.GetComments(CurrentPage.PageGuid);
           repComments.DataBind();
       }

        protected void btnComment_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (tbComment.Text == "")
                return;
            ArticleComment.SubmitComment(tbComment.Text, CurrentPage.PageGuid);
            repComments.DataSource = ArticleComment.GetComments(CurrentPage.PageGuid);
            repComments.DataBind();
            tbComment.Text = "";
        }

I hope you had fun and found this post useful :)