Sitecore Wildcard Nodes

So here I was, doing a bit of late Friday afternoon catching up on the Sitecore Forums. I come across this post, in which a fairly common question is being asked, for which there are quite a number of possible solutions.

 

What got my attention was the reply by Kern, who mentions something called a “wildcard item”.

 

This is one of those humbling experiences. Having worked with Sitecore for over 3 years now, been involved directly and indirectly with a very large number of Sitecore Solution Partners, being certified, for a while had an office space right next to where certification training is being conducted in the UK; heck even going out for Friday night beers with one of the most experienced Sitecore Trainers in the UK….

 

And I’ve never ever heard of “wildcard items” before.

 

I asked around between everyone I could find online on MSN (with Sitecore experience), and although they all did offer various guesses – none knew the answer.

 

Best… Kept… Secret… Ever… LOL ;-)     Or maybe it just never came up.

 

But I find it so very useful, that I’m now going to do my bit to spreading the word.   Once again, it is proof that the really true gems in the Sitecore blogosphere tend to come from Lars Nielsen’s blog.

 

Sitecore – Avoiding query string in dynamic URL

 

I’ll just bring a quick snippet from the full article here, to give you some sort of idea of what it’s all about. Lars talks at length about how you can implement and use wildcard items in XSLT, and I find it in a way “drowns” the underlying real message – how you can use wildcard items in your day-to-day solutions.

 

Anyway, give it a look. And have a good weekend :-)

 

Snippet: