When Smartling captures visual context from your Sitecore site, it constructs a URL for each page. You can append custom query string parameters to these URLs using the Smartling.Context.CustomQueryString setting. This is useful for controlling how your site renders during context capture, such as forcing a specific site definition with sc_site.

Why use a patch file

The Smartling.Context.CustomQueryString setting is defined in the connector's own config file (Smartling.Connector.Remote.config). Editing this file directly works, but the change is lost whenever the connector is upgraded, because the installer overwrites the file.

The recommended approach is to use a Sitecore config patch file. Patch files are stored separately from the connector package, so they survive upgrades without any manual re-configuration.

Creating the patch file

1. In your Sitecore instance, create a subfolder inside App_Config\Include\. Use your company or project name, for example:

   App_Config\Include\YourCompanyName\

   Sitecore loads subfolders after all root-level Include files, so your patch will always override the connector's default value.

2. Create a new file in that folder, for example Smartling.Context.Custom.config.

3. Paste the following content, replacing YOUR_VALUE_HERE with your desired query string:

   <configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/"
                  xmlns:set="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/set/">
     <sitecore>
       <settings>
         <setting name="Smartling.Context.CustomQueryString"
                  set:value="YOUR_VALUE_HERE" />
       </settings>
     </sitecore>
   </configuration>

   For example, to force a specific site definition during context capture:

   <setting name="Smartling.Context.CustomQueryString"
            set:value="sc_site=mysite" />

4. Save the file. No application restart is required in most Sitecore versions.

5. Verify the setting took effect by browsing to:

   http://[your-host]/sitecore/admin/ShowConfig.aspx

   Search for Smartling.Context.CustomQueryString and confirm that patch:source points to your new file.

How sc_site interacts with ContextSite

If you use sc_site in your custom query string, be aware of how it interacts with the connector's ContextSite setting:

Reserved parameters

The following query string parameters are reserved and cannot be overridden via CustomQueryString:

• sc_itemid
• sc_lang
• sc_version
• sl_impr