Conversation of my Mind to my Heart

Mind : I know you’re hurting badly but that’s affecting me a lot now and I cannot function properly

Heart : I’m sorry but I can’t help myself

Mind : For our sake, forget her and move on

Heart : I’ve tried to but it’s out of my control

Mind : Just do what it takes to stop this madness

Heart : Alright, I’ll have to stop beating then

Mind : No, you know I cannot exist without you

Heart : …and I cannot live without her

Mind : We’re both screwed then!
.
.
.
Soul : Don’t worry guys, when the two of you are long gone, I’ll use the memories of the Mind to cherish the love of the Heart and immortalise your existence 

EPiServer Dynamic Content not Rendering on page

After spending like 4hrs trying to find out why a dynamic property was not being loaded properly on a webpage, I finally stumbled upon a website with such an easy solution. Basically we had a custom dynamic property which was supposed to output some data but EPiServer was not rendering the control properly.

In the source code, I expected to find :

<a style=”” href=”/Video/Vimeo/60255727/” class=”trigger-video” data-trackingid=”&lt;a href=”><span></span>
<img src=”/Global/PersonalCover-Screengrab.jpg” alt=”Personal cover” />
</a>

…but here’s what I saw instead:

<div data-classid=”b30218a7-77fc-43dd-a844-81935aa9b35e” data-dynamicclass=”Video Plugin” data-state=”VgBpAGQAZQBvAEkAZAA=&amp;NgAwADIANQA1ADcAMgA3AA==|VAByAGEAYwBrAGkAbgBnAEkAZAA=&amp;PABhACAAaAByAGUAZgA9ACIAIgAgAG8AbgBjAGwAaQBjAGsAPQAiAF8AZwBhAHEALgBwAHUAcwBoACgAWwAnAF8AdAByAGEAYwBrAEUAdgBlAG4AdAAnACwAIAAnAFYAaQBkAGUAbwAnACwAIAAnAFAAbABhAHkAJwAsACAAJwBQAGUAcgBzAG8AbgBhAGwAQwBvAHYAZQByACcAXQApADsAIgA+AFYAaQBkAGUAbwAgAGwAaQBuAGsAIABoAGUAcgBlADwALwBhAD4A|SQBtAGEAZwBlAFUAcgBsAA==&amp;LwBHAGwAbwBiAGEAbAAvAFAAZQByAHMAbwBuAGEAbABDAG8AdgBlAHIALQBTAGMAcgBlAGUAbgBnAHIAYQBiAC4AagBwAGcA|SQBtAGEAZwBlAEEAbAB0AA==&amp;UABlAHIAcwBvAG4AYQBsACAAYwBvAHYAZQByAA==|QQBsAGkAZwBuAFIAaQBnAGgAdAA=&amp;” data-hash=”jpJE7dVU4KCYCarsF+2bNaNENaNdJwG1niTwbyZc7CY=” contentEditable=”false” class=”epi_dc”><div class=”epi_dc_h”><div class=”epi_dc_l”><div class=”epi_dc_title”>Video Plugin</div></div><div class=”epi_dc_t”><a href=”#” class=”epi_dc_editBtn”>.</a><a href=”#” class=”epi_dc_previewBtn”>.</a></div></div></div>

EPiServer was not rendering the control properly but was just outputting the string.

The fix is really easy. All I had to do was change the way the dynamic content is being output in code.

So instead of this:

<%= CurrentPage.MyDynamicContent %> // wrong

I used this:

<EPiServer:Property runat=”server” PropertyName=”MyDynamicContent” />

Note that this is the way to render dynamic content in EPiServer but there’s a way you can force the literal output as well to work.