Something I have wanted to know how to do for years, but hadn’t bothered to put any thought into… You know that “Folder” tab that appears in the content editor when you create a new folder (using the /Templates/Common/Folder template)? Here’s a screenshot:
I have never known how to get this to appear for my own folder types. Let me see if I can come up with an example… Let’s say I had a Gallery template that allows you to create individual Photo and Video items underneath it. So, I would create my templates, and on the Gallery template’s standard values, I would set the insert options to allow creation of Photo and Video items.
I then create a new Gallery item in the content tree and select it as in the above screenshot, but note – the Content tab is displayed by default!
I just want the same behavior as Sitecore’s “Folder” template… But how is that done? Turns out it is very simple. In the Appearance chunk of the Configure slice of the ribbon, there’s a button named “Editors” – this is the key. If you go look at the standard values for Sitecore’s “Folder” template, and click on the Editors button, you’ll see something like this:
It’s as easy as replicating this setting on my Gallery template’s standard values. After doing that (and adding a couple of photos and a video as children), here’s what my demo gallery looks like now:
Man, that was easy. Don’t know why it took me so long to look into doing it – it will definitely come in useful in the future!
Sitecore comes with some other editors you may find a use for – just experiment. Also, it’s possible to create your own custom editor tabs and make them available for selection in the Custom Editors dialog. I haven’t done it yet, but it’s on my list of things to try out someday. Here’s a link to a blog post Mark van Aalst wrote on the subject: http://www.markvanaalst.com/sitecore/creating-a-item-editor/