Display field value in Drop Link field

Question

I have a requirement where I need to display "Title" field value of the items in the DropLink field instead of the item display names. How do I do it?

Answer 1

1) Create a custom drop link field in the core database. In a newly created field, make control field empty.

2) Include the following code in your project and give the assembly name and class name of the following code in a newly created custom drop link field item.

public class FieldDropLink : Sitecore.Shell.Applications.ContentEditor.LookupEx
{

    protected override string GetItemHeader(Sitecore.Data.Items.Item item)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.FieldName)
          || item[this.FieldName].StartsWith("@",StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) // don't impact default usage
        {
            return base.GetItemHeader(item);
        }

        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(item[this.FieldName]))
        {
            return item.DisplayName;
        }

        return item[this.FieldName];
    }

    protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnPreRender(e);

        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(this.Source)
          || !this.Source.Contains("="))
        {
            return;
        }

        NameValueCollection args = Sitecore.Web.WebUtil.ParseUrlParameters(
          this.Source);

        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(args["field"]))
        {
            this.FieldName = args["field"];
        }

        this.Source = args["source"] == null ? String.Empty : args["source"];
    }
}

3) Select newly created drop link in your template and give your datasource followed by &field=yourfiledname

For example: source=/sitecore/content/home&field=title

Answer 2

You can do this, but you would then change the behaviour of all your DropLink fields.

Switch to the "core" database and navigate to /sitecore/system/Field types/Link Types/Droplink

Add FieldName=Title to Parameters.

If you don't want this to be the default for ALL your Droplink fields, I suggest you make a Duplicate of this field type and update your templates as required.

Additional reading: https://community.sitecore.net/technical_blogs/b/sitecorejohn_blog/posts/display-a-field-value-in-a-droplink-with-the-sitecore-asp-net-cms