Yes, as you said. The data rule required a data folder. So you cannot get child contents through data rule. You need to use ContentService API to get sub contents. The definition for get sub contents suck like:
ContentService.GetSubContents(parentContentId, schemaName, queryStatement, orderBy, queryValues, startIndex, pageSize, cacheTime)
ContentService.GetSubContents(parentContentUUID, schemaName, queryStatement, orderBy, queryValues, startIndex, pageSize, cacheTime)
For example:
var contents = ContentService.GetSubContents(contentId, "subschema", "","", new NameValueCollection(), 1, 20, null)
Regards,
Jifeng Huang
Kooboo Team
Microsoft ASP.NET MVP