Duplicate Items In Specific Languages

Question

Is there an efficient way to copy a subtree of items but only keep language versions from the original items that a user chooses? Currently I have a process which duplicates items and then removes the unwanted language version but it is multiple steps. I use Item.CopyTo(Item item, string name) and then loop through the result removing language versions. Then I find what languages to remove and loop through the new items. For each language to remove I get the item in that language and use myItem.Versions.RemoveAll(false).

Answer 1

I would use PowerShell for this. The simplest way is to use a similar approach to what you're doing now (but in a few less steps):

Copy the item:

Copy-Item -Path $source.ItemPath -Destination $destination.ItemPath -Recursive

Them remove language versions:

Get-ChildItem $destination -Recurse | 
    Remove-ItemLanguage -Language "fr-CA"

However, you could make this a different way by only copying the language versions you want. I'm not sure how you'd do this in PowerShell off the top of my head - but you could do it with some code (you'd need to add some looping to traverse, add items and copy but hopefully this will give you the idea):

void Copy(Sitecore.Data.Items.Item sourceItem, Sitecore.Globalization.Language sourceLanguage,
        Sitecore.Data.Items.Item targetItem, Sitecore.Globalization.Language targetLanguage)
    {
        Sitecore.Data.Database masterDB = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase("master");

        targetItem = masterDB.Items[targetItem.ID, targetLanguage];
        sourceItem = masterDB.Items[sourceItem.ID, sourceLanguage];

        if (targetItem == null || sourceItem == null || sourceItem.Versions.Count == 0)
            return;

        using (new Sitecore.SecurityModel.SecurityDisabler())
        {
            try
            {
                if (targetItem.Versions.Count == 0)
                {
                    targetItem = targetItem.Versions.AddVersion();
                }
                targetItem.Editing.BeginEdit();
                sourceItem.Fields.ReadAll();
                foreach (Sitecore.Data.Fields.Field field in sourceItem.Fields)
                {
                    if (!field.Shared && !field.Name.StartsWith("__") && field.Name.Trim() != "")
                    {
                        targetItem.Fields[field.Name].SetValue(field.Value, true);
                    }
                }

                targetItem.Editing.EndEdit();
                targetItem.Editing.AcceptChanges();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                targetItem.Editing.CancelEdit();
                Response.Write(ex.Message);
            }
        }

    }

(The above method taken from here)

Which of these is most efficient probably depends upon the sort of data you're copying (depth of the tree, number of languages, quantity of items etc).

If it's a process you need to do often as a developer I'd recommend PowerShell. If you need content editors to do it - I'd recommend wrapping it all in a tool (highly recommend Sitecore Sidekick for this).

Hope that helps you find the right solution!