Can the list of favorites be extended using a Data Extender?

Question

We have a data extender that displays the Version number of each item in all list views. Clearly "Favorites" is different, since our data extender doesn't work there.

So, can we do a data extender for the Favorites list? If not, what's the alternative to add the version number information to the item for display in the list?

Answer 1

Yes. The Favorites List can be extended through a DataExtender, similar to how most other data structures can be extended. Since favorites are meant to be shortcuts to other items in the Tridion Content Manager data model, they have the same properties available on them.

This is an example of a list of items in my Building Blocks folder:

<tcm:ListItems Managed="10682" ID="tcm:1-1-2" 
               xmlns:tcm="http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0">
    <tcm:Item ID="tcm:1-5-2" Title="Component Templates" Type="2" 
              Modified="2011-11-18T11:09:45" IsNew="false" Icon="T2L0P0" 
              IsPublished="false" Lock="0" IsShared="false" IsLocalized="false" 
              Trustee="tcm:0-0-0" Allow="269085696" Deny="96" Managed="10682" />
</tcm:ListItems>

This is an example of a FavoritesList:

<tcm:ListFavoriteItems xmlns:tcm="http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0">
    <tcm:Item xmlns:tcm="http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0" 
        ID="cme:0-41336414110293-shortcut" Title="Folder" RefID="tcm:1-57-2" 
        Path="\Content Management\Pub1\Building Blocks\Folder" Icon="T2" 
        Created="2012-5-7T14:8:30" HasChildren="false" Allow="24576" />
</tcm:ListFavoriteItems>

So aside from the root element name, this looks pretty similar to other lists you can get back from Tridion in your DataExtender.