What is the best way to associate a Nested Content node to an Umbraco Member
<p>My initial thought was to create an <a href="https://umbraco.com/follow-us/blog-archive/2012/12/7/getting-to-know-umbraco-relations/" rel="nofollow">Umbraco Relation</a> and associate the Umbraco Member to the Nested Content node.  Sadly, I found this <a href="https://our.umbraco.org/projects/backoffice-extensions/nested-content/nested-content-feedback/63488-does-nested-content-get-an-id-value" rel="nofollow">form post asking a similar question</a> and as you can see in Matt Bailsford's first response:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Unfortunately nested content can't have an ID value as they don't truely exist</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I did find the <a href="https://github.com/leekelleher/umbraco-nested-content/issues/7" rel="nofollow">issue/feature</a> that was discussed in the forum post; however, it just adds parent information to the <code>DetachedPublishedContent</code> object and doesn't solve my issue.  After reading the form post and the conversations of <a href="https://github.com/Hendy" rel="nofollow">Hendy Racher</a>, <a href="https://github.com/mattbrailsford" rel="nofollow">Matt Bailsford</a> and <a href="https://github.com/leekelleher" rel="nofollow">Lee Kelleher</a> in the <a href="https://github.com/leekelleher/umbraco-nested-content/pull/8" rel="nofollow">github pull request</a>, I still don't understand why Nested Content doesn't <em>create a node in Umbraco</em>.</p>

<p>So basically I need the Nested Content nodes <strong>to be created as Umbraco nodes</strong> and <em>then</em> stored as a JSON string in the property field.  There are a few ways that I see this could be accomplished:</p>

<ol>
<li><p><strong>Create a Custom Property Editor for Umbraco Backoffice</strong> - I would start with a copy of Nested Content and add code to create the node and attach it before saving the node as a JSON string.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Use the <a href="https://our.umbraco.org/documentation/getting-started/backoffice/property-editors/built-in-property-editors/multinode-treepicker" rel="nofollow">Umbraco Multinode Treepicker control</a></strong> - This control was suggested by Hendy and Jeavon in <a href="https://our.umbraco.org/forum/umbraco-7/using-umbraco-7/55537-Multiple-Content-Picker-in-Umbraco-7" rel="nofollow">this forum post</a> as a way to allow a user to select multiple content nodes.  Unfortunately going this route would require the user to create the "nested content" nodes first.  Then they could associate those "nested content" nodes with the original node.  We really like the user experience of the Nested Content control where it allows you to create nodes dynamically in the property editor.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Find a way to associate the Member to the "Nested Content" node</strong> - This option would require that I store an association between the top node and it's respective "nested content" node to a Member in Umbraco.  There are two issues that come to mind when trying to go this route:     </p>

<ol>
<li><em>How should I associate the "nested content" node to the Member in a standard Umbraco way?</em> - I immediately think of creating a link table in the database but, in my understanding, that is not the standard Umbraco way.  I am still fuzzy about the best way to do this inside Umbraco.</li>
<li><em>Is there a way to uniquely identify the "nested content" node?</em> - I realize there is a sort order value being set according to the pull request I found above but if the user reorders the nested content items will it change the "nested content" node to member association?</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

<p>At this point, I am leaning towards going with <strong>option 1</strong>, but I wonder if <em>option 3</em> is a better direction.  In reality, I don't believe this is a new problem that someone hasn't already solved, and I hate to create another custom property editor if there is one just like it out there already.  </p>

<p><strong>So if you know of a better way to solve this problem please let me know.</strong>  </p>