An educational organization managing multiple public-facing websites and microsites across its academic departments needed to deliver a more customizable search experience. Each department required the ability to tailor search results—adjusting titles, filtering content types, and applying different facets—without relying on developers for each variation. The challenge was to empower editors with full control while keeping the solution maintainable and strongly typed within Sitefinity's .NET Core Renderer.
While Sitefinity provides strong out-of-the-box search capabilities, building a dynamic, reusable search widget introduced several complexities. The configuration required multiple nested layers—search labels, allowed content types, facets, and default filters—all of which had to be adjustable by editors through the widget designer.
To meet this challenge, Visus implemented a solution using Sitefinity's complex object property type within the widget designer.
Key elements of the solution included:
- A nested configuration model defined the entire structure for search settings—titles, content types, facet definitions, and filters.
- Editors used a clean, visual designer interface to configure search behavior with dropdowns, checkboxes, and dynamic lists, eliminating the need for code.
- The complex object handled data serialization and deserialization automatically, ensuring structured configurations were stored correctly and mapped to strongly typed models at runtime.
- Razor views used this configuration to generate dynamic search queries and display relevant facets and results on each page.
The outcome was a highly flexible and scalable search widget. Editors across departments could independently configure search functionality tailored to their specific needs—without developer intervention. Microsites and landing pages could launch quickly, with customized search behavior driven entirely by business requirements.
Key takeaway:
By leveraging complex object configurations in Sitefinity, organizations can create powerful, editor-driven widgets that eliminate redundant development, reduce maintenance overhead, and adapt easily to evolving content needs. It’s a smart path toward scalable, user-friendly solutions in multi-site environments.