Catalog Context

The Catalog context is the most fundamental component to help you build a nice browse flow for your visitors. It will contain a reference to where your visitor are right now and help you make a decision on what to show / query next.

The component is located in the following namespace:

    using Ucommerce.Api;

You can grab a reference to the current instance of CatalogContext using:

    Ucommerce.Api.ICatalogContext catalogContext = ObjectFactory.Instance.Resolve<ICatalogContext>();
    
    

The Catalog Context allows you to grab any part of the catalog your visitor is currently browsing. All of the return types are located under

    using Ucommerce.Search.Models;

Ucommerce.Api.ICatalogContext

CurrentCatalogGroup

• Return type Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalogGroup
  

CurrentCatalog

• Return type Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog
  

CurrentProduct

• Return type Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product
  

CurrentCategory

• Return type Ucommerce.Search.Models.Category
  

CurrentPriceGroup

• Return type Ucommerce.Search.Models.PriceGroup
  

CurrentCategories

• Return type ICollection<Ucommerce.Search.Models.Category>
  

Catalog Context and URLs and the CMS

The nature of how Ucommerce + a CMS works is that every page request needs to two things:

• The page in the CMS that needs to be shown e.g a content page with pure content from the CMS or a content page with data coming from Ucommerce.
• The actual catalog context in Ucommerce e.g:
  • The Product Catalog Group (store)
  • The Product Catalog
  • The categories (one or more depending on the depth of the category structure)
  • The product

Consider all this needs to be translated by a single URL. To achieve this URL redirects needs to be in place. These are powered by your IIS where the rules are defined in web.config. You may find them looking like this (or very similar)

    
    
            <rewrite>
                <rules>
                    <rule name="UcommerceCategoryRewrite">
                        <match url="(.*?)/c/(.+/)*(.*)"/>
                        <action type="Rewrite" url="catalog.aspx?catalog={R:1}&categories={R:2}&category={R:3}"/>
                    </rule>
                    <rule name="UcommerceProductRewrite">
                        <match url="(.*?)/p/(.+/)*(.*)"/>
                        <action type="Rewrite" url="catalog/product.aspx?catalog={R:1}&categories={R:2}&product={R:3}"/>
                    </rule>
                    <rule name="UcommerceVariantRewrite">
                        <match url="(.*?)/v/(.+/)*(.*)/(.*)"/>
                        <action type="Rewrite" url="catalog/product.aspx?catalog={R:1}&categories={R:2}&product={R:3}&variant={R:4}"/>
                    </rule>
                </rules>
            </rewrite>
            
    

What it means in reality is that the URL you paste into your browser is in fact caught by the redirect rules and send to the route seen in the rules above, which needs to match a route that the CMS will translate into a page. The context parameters are passed as query strings that help Ucommerce resolve the right context.

Take the following URL:

http://mywebsite.com/demo-store/c/tops/formal

Will be translated into:

http://mywebsite.com/catalog.aspx?catalog=demo-store&categories=tops/formal

The query string will be used by Ucommerce and the path in the URL will be used by the CMS.

IUrlService

To get URLs for your catalog items, you may use the following interface.

Ucommerce.Search.Slugs.IUrlService

Description

Generates links according to the built in url scheme that support links to

        * a catalog
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store

        * a category or sub category
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store/c/tops/formal

        * a product
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store/p/polo-ralph-lauren

        * a product in one or more categories
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store/p/tops/formal/polo-ralph-lauren

        * a product and a variant
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store/v/polo-ralph-lauren/16-inch-collar-white

        * a product and a variant inside one or more categories
            http://avenueclothing.com/demo-store/v/tops/formal/polo-ralph-lauren/16-inch-collar-white

Methods

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
• Return type string
  

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
  • IEnumerable<Ucommerce.Search.Models.Category> categories
• Return type string
  

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product product
• Return type string
  

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product product
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product variant
• Return type string
  

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
  • IEnumerable<Ucommerce.Search.Models.Category> categories
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product product
• Return type string
  

GetUrl

• Arguments
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.ProductCatalog catalog
  • IEnumerable<Ucommerce.Search.Models.Category> categories
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product product
  • Ucommerce.Search.Models.Product variant
• Return type string