Opening a custom dialog instead of DocumentManager from within LinkManager

HOW TO

Open a custom dialog from within LinkManager dialog in order to select an item to be linked.

DESCRIPTION

In some scenarios the users might want to be able to select a file to be linked not using DocumentManager but using a custom pattern - for example an image from a custom gallery. This can be achieved by modifying the built-in LinkManager dialog to open a custom dialog window.

SOLUTION

In order to modify the built-in Link Manager of RadEditor, register the external dialogs. After that open the EditorDialogs/LinkManager.ascx file, locate the following code:

<td style="padding-left: 4px;">
    <tools:StandardButton runat="server" ToolName="DocumentManager" id="DocumentManagerCaller" />
</td>

and modify it as follows:

<td style="padding-left: 4px;">
    <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Browse" OnClientClick="showCustomDialog();return false;" Width="70" />
</td>
<td style="padding-left: 4px; display:none;">
    <tools:StandardButton runat="server" ToolName="DocumentManager" id="DocumentManagerCaller" />
</td>

The style="display:none" inline attribute will hide the existing button that opens DocumentManager and will insert a custom button that will open the custom dialog by executing the following javascript function

<script type="text/javascript"> 
function showCustomDialog()
{
    var argument = {};

    //a callback function to be executed when the RadWindow is closed
    var callbackFunction = function(sender, args)
    {
        var oTextBox = $get("LinkURL");
        oTextBox.value = args;
    }
    //get reference to the dialogOpener
    var dialogOpener = Telerik.Web.UI.Dialogs.CommonDialogScript.get_windowReference().get_dialogOpener();

    //open the dialog window
    dialogOpener.openUrl("CustomDialog.aspx", argument, 728, 542, callbackFunction, null, "CustomLinkItems", true, 36, false, true);
}
</script>

This Javascript function will open a custom dialog from CustomDialog.aspx file by executing the openUrl() method of dialogOpener.

In the sample project attached to this article you will find a CustomDialog.aspx dialog containing RadFileExplorer used to navigate to a file that will be linked.