How to pass parameters to the Control display template of a Content Search web part?

Question

Using SharePoint 2013 I have a Content Search web part that I'm using to display 5 News Articles using the following display templates:

• Control: List
• Item: Picture on Left, 3 lines on right

And this is working just fine.

What I would like to include is a link after the 5 News Articles that will take the user to a "News Archive" page where it displays all the News Articles.

I'm thinking of creating a custom Control display template based off the OOTB Control_List.js display template. I suppose I could hard code the link to the News Archive in the display template, but I would like to make it reusable. Is there a way I could dynamically pass data to the Control display template?

Any other suggestions on how to approach this?

Answer 1

You should inherit ContentBySearchWebPart, and overload the OnLoad event:

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
    if (this.AppManager != null)
    {
        if (this.AppManager.QueryGroups.ContainsKey(this.QueryGroupName) &&
            this.AppManager.QueryGroups[this.QueryGroupName].DataProvider != null)
        {
            this.AppManager.QueryGroups[this.QueryGroupName].DataProvider.BeforeSerializeToClient +=
                new BeforeSerializeToClientEventHandler(EnhanceQuery);

         }
     }

     base.OnLoad(e);
}


protected virtual void EnhanceQuery(object sender, BeforeSerializeToClientEventArgs e)
{
    DataProviderScriptWebPart dataProvider = sender as DataProviderScriptWebPart;
    dataProvider.Properties.Add("MyProperty", this.MyProperty);
}

Now you can get this property in display template HTML:

<!--#_
    var myValue = ctx.DataProvider.get_properties()["MyProperty"];
_#-->
<div>_#= myValue =#_</div>

Answer 2

I am wondering why you need display template for this at all! You can put a limit of 5 number of result in CSWP and Add a Content Editor web part a the end of page (After CSWP) to guide user to new page.