What's the most efficient way to get Library Items with associated metadata from a taxonomy?

Question

I have a site that's running Ektron v8.7 sp2. There is a taxonomy that has library items, and those library items have metadata assigned to them. I've been trying to find an efficient way that I can get all library items and their associated metadata from a particular taxonomy.

1. The ContentManager class in the FrameworkAPI does not return Library Items.
2. The LibraryManager class in the FrameworkAPI has two methods for getting individual items, but these would require an API call for each item in the taxonomy, which does not seem very efficient.
   
   • LibraryManager.GetItem() - returns LibraryData with MetaData (Ektron.Cms.ContentMetaData[]) and Taxonomies (Ektron.Cms.TaxonomyBaseData[]) populated
   • LibraryManager.GetLibraryItemByContentId() - returns LibraryData but MetaData and Taxonomies are both null
3. The LibraryManager class also has a GetList() method, but it doesn't meet my needs:
   • its criteria parameter does not allow specifying a taxonomy id.
   • if i already have a list of library item ids, there is no way of specifying that i want the method to return metadata (like there is on the ContentManager).

I'd prefer a way to get the data via the Framework API, but I'd also appreciate anything that uses Ektron's legacy APIs. The data is there, and I can get it, but I'm looking for an efficient way to do so.

Answer 1

Sticking with the APIs, I'm not sure there is an efficient way to mesh all of that data together.

This is another argument, though, for using the DMS and not the Library. The DMS will treat the files as content and allow you to use the ContentManager in all its glory. The Library is a simple tool for simple management, the DMS / ContentManager is much stronger for what you are trying to achieve.