Unfortunately, Sitecore does not support queries in the Data Source field for renderings out-of-the-box but I have found a blog that describes how a pipeline processor can be created to enable queries. However, the blog post is limited to WebForms implementations so I spent a bit of time making this feature available for all MVC friends out there.
Processor code
All we need is a RenderRenderingProcessor:
public class QueryableDatasourceProcessor : RenderRenderingProcessor
{
public override void Process(RenderRenderingArgs args)
{
string dataSource = args.Rendering.DataSource;
if (dataSource.StartsWith("query:"))
{
string query = dataSource.Substring("query:".Length);
Item queryItem = args.PageContext.Item.Axes.SelectSingleItem(query);
if (queryItem != null)
{
args.Rendering.DataSource = queryItem.Paths.FullPath;
}
}
}
}
Configuration
Following best practises we create a patch file for the configuration change:
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
<sitecore>
<pipelines>
<mvc.renderRendering>
<processor patch:before="*[@type='Sitecore.Mvc.Pipelines.Response.RenderRendering.ExecuteRenderer, Sitecore.Mvc']"
type="Swissworx.Web.Sitecore.Pipelines.QueryableDatasourceProcessor, Swissworx.Web"/>
</mvc.renderRendering>
</pipelines>
</sitecore>
</configuration>
Content Editor
Now we can use Sitecore queries in the Data Source field:
