Indexing Blocks with EPiServer Search, part 2

While back I blogged about indexing blocks with EPiServer Search. Last week someone told me it might be useful to republish the pages containing the Block automatically when a Block is updated, so the search index will also be updated.

To do this, just add another event handler that responds to a Block being published.

public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context)
        {
            DataFactory.Instance.PublishingPage += this.OnPublishingPage;
            DataFactory.Instance.PublishedContent += this.OnPublishedContent;
        }

In the attached handler, get all references to the Block that was published, and (re)publish all pages that contain the Block.

public void OnPublishedContent(object sender, ContentEventArgs e)
        {
            // Check if the content that is published is indeed a block.
            BlockData blockData = e.Content as BlockData;

            // If it's not, don't do anything.
            if (blockData == null)
            {
                return;
            }

            // Get the softlink repository.
            ContentSoftLinkRepository linkRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ContentSoftLinkRepository>();

            // Get the references to this block
            List<ContentReference> referencingContentLinks = linkRepository.Load(e.ContentLink, true).Where(link =>
                                link.SoftLinkType == ReferenceType.PageLinkReference &&
                                !ContentReference.IsNullOrEmpty(link.OwnerContentLink))
                            .Select(link => link.OwnerContentLink)
                            .ToList();

            // Loop through each reference
            foreach (ContentReference referencingContentLink in referencingContentLinks)
            {
                StandardPage parent;
                DataFactory.Instance.TryGet(referencingContentLink, out parent);
                
                // If it is not a standard page, do nothing
                if (parent == null)
                {
                    continue;
                }

                // Check if the containing page is published.
                if (!parent.IsPendingPublish)
                {
                    // Republish the containing page.
                    DataFactory.Instance.Save(parent.CreateWritableClone(), EPiServer.DataAccess.SaveAction.Publish);
                }
            }            
        }

Don’t forget to remove the handler when uninitializing.

public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context)
        {
            DataFactory.Instance.PublishingPage -= this.OnPublishingPage;
            DataFactory.Instance.PublishedContent -= this.OnPublishedContent;
        }

The rest of the code can stay the same.

Hope this helps.