Overview

We wanted a standard reusable way to implement vCards across our Sitecore implementations. To achieve this, we created a reusable API. This vCard implementation supports the vCard 3.0 standard.

The API consists of a vCard object with properties that represent the data in the vCard file. Calling .ToString() on the object takes all of the data within the properties and returns a string that represents the vCard file in the proper format. The fields from the Sitecore item that represents a person can be programmatically mapped to the properties on the vCard object. An ORM/Mapper can be used to make the mapping easier. The resulting string can then be returned in a way that is compatible with the implementation. A Sitecore Web Form implementation may return the data differently than an MVC implementation.

We hope this implementation saves time when implementing vCards.

Please see the related Blog Post

Usage

Here is a Sitecore MVC example of how to use OneNorth.VCards. This example assumes that a person object is being used and Glass Mapper is used to map the data.

public class PersonController : SitecoreController
{
    ISitecoreContext _context;

	public PersonController() : this (new SitecoreContext())
	{
	}

	public PersonController(ISitecoreContext context)
	{
		_context = context;
	}
	
	[HttpGet]
    public HttpResponseMessage GetVCard()
    {
        var person = _context.GetCurrentItem<Person>();
        var vCard = GetVCard(person);

        var response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)
        {
            Content = new StringContent(vCard.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/vcard")
        };
        response.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment")
        {
            FileName = person.Name + ".vcf"
        };
        return response;
    }
    
	private VCard GetVCard(Person person)
    {
        var vcard = new VCard
        {
            Organization = person.Organization,
            FirstName = person.FirstName,
            MiddleName = person.MiddleName,
            LastName = person.LastName,
            Title = person.Title
        };

        vcard.EmailAddresses.Add(person.BusinessEmail);

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(person.BusinessPhone))
        {
            var phone = new PhoneNumber { PhoneNumberType = PhoneNumberTypes.WORK, Number = person.BusinessPhone };
            vcard.PhoneNumbers.Add(phone);
        }

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(person.BusinessFax))
        {
            var fax = new PhoneNumber { PhoneNumberType = PhoneNumberTypes.FAX, Number = person.BusinessFax };
            vcard.PhoneNumbers.Add(fax);
        }
        
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(person.MobilePhone))
        {
            var cell = new PhoneNumber { PhoneNumberType = PhoneNumberTypes.CELL, Number = lawyer.MobilePhone };
            vcard.PhoneNumbers.Add(cell);
        }
  
        var deliveryAddress = new DeliveryAddress
        {
            DeliveryAddressType = AddressTypes.WORK,
            Street = person.Street.Replace("\r\n", " ").Replace("\r", " ").Replace("\n", " "),
            Locality = person.City
        };

        if (person.State != null)
            deliveryAddress.Region = person.State.Name;

        if (person.Country != null)
            deliveryAddress.Country = person.Country.Name;

        deliveryAddress.PostalCode = person.PostalCode;

        vcard.Addresses.Add(deliveryAddress);
        
        return vcard;
    }
}

License

The associated code is released under the terms of the MIT License