Multiple fields with the same name in Habitat

Question

In Habitat, I defined two templates: _idenity and _footer, and each of them has the same field name but different ID values,for example IDA and IDB.

The start root item inherits both these templates.

So when I use item.Field(IDA) or item.Field(IDB), it always returns the same value. In my case, the field in the _identity template.

When I look deeply in code, the implementation is:

var field = item.Fields[fieldId];
FieldRenderer.Render(item, field.Name)

That means it will get value by name instead of by ID.

Is it possible to get value by ID?

Thanks, Ton

Answer 1

Is it possible to get value by ID? - Yes

Below is the code to get Sitecore Item Field Value by ID:

var fieldValue= item.InnerData.Fields[new ID(fieldId)];

Answer 2

This is an improper implementation in Habitat's FieldRendererService. And another reason why you shouldn't start a new (real) project based on that source code. It's really meant as a demo.

You can pass a stringified ID to the FieldRenderer.Render method, which is what should have been done here:

public static string RenderField(Item item, ID fieldId)
{
    var field = item.Fields[fieldId];
    Assert.IsNotNull(field, "Field with id: " + fieldId + " is null on item " + item.Name);
    return FieldRenderer.Render(item, fieldId.ToString());
}

I would also argue that it's a bit strange that the "field ID" variant checks for the field's existence, whereas the name-based variant does not. If you don't do this check, then Sitecore will silently return an empty string if the field doesn't exist.