# How can I use Radiant to structure content **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [June 12, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633 "2007-06-12T17:09:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/1 "2007-06-12T17:09:04Z")
I want to be able to do the following: 1. Create a view template in Radiant (e.g., Products) 2. Allow an administrator to input, using a standard form (not necessarily validated) the various product fields (e.g., Product Name, SKU, Price, Description), attach images, etc… 3. Allow an administrator to add stories about a product under a category “Stories” so that when someone visits the Products page they can see the product stories. Ideally, I’d like to be able to make it so that when an administrator adds a new product, the Stories sub category for that product is automatically defined. Is there a standard way to do something like this using Radiant, or should I be expecting to make lots of modifications to the CMS? Thank you in advance for any help or advice you can offer. J.Brandhorst ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/2 "2007-06-12T17:24:12Z")
Sounds like a really simple Rails application, but the changes needed to make Radiant support that might be more than you want to tackle. If you want assistance with building a Rails application, we can point you to a bunch of resources. That said, if your application requires a lot of content management outside the scope of this product thing, a custom extension or RadiantOnRails may be the best solution. Sean ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/3 "2007-06-12T18:45:47Z")
> Sounds like a really simple Rails application Yes, but I need content management for a number of content types outside of the scope of the Product example. I’m beginning to think that it may be easier just to build a custom CMS from scratch that is tailored for my purposes rather than trying to adapt RadiantCMS to fit my particular requirements. > RadiantOnRails Thanks. Do you know of any open source projects using RadiantOnRails with Radiant that I could reference? ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/4 "2007-06-12T19:03:37Z")
On Jun 12, 2007, at 11:45 AM, www-data wrote: > I’m beginning to think that it may > be easier just to build a custom CMS from scratch that is tailored for > my purposes rather than trying to adapt RadiantCMS to fit my > particular > requirements. you may also want to look at the comatose plugin. comatose handles basic cms framework for a standard rails app. ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/5 "2007-06-12T19:29:14Z")
Oliver B. wrote: > www-data wrote: > > > > Sounds like a really simple Rails application > > > > Yes, but I need content management for a number of content types outside > > of the scope of the Product example. I’m beginning to think that it may > > be easier just to build a custom CMS from scratch that is tailored for > > my purposes rather than trying to adapt RadiantCMS to fit my particular > > requirements. > > I maintain a modified version of Radiant (called Shiny) that supports > arbitrary models/types as content, like an image, a form, etc. or a > product in your case. It maintains all of Radiant’s features but allows > you to move away from pages when you do not need them. Maybe it is > similar to what you are looking for. You can check it out at > [http://hytek.org/shiny/](http://hytek.org/shiny/). > > Cheers, > Oliver Thanks Oliver. Your Shiny mod looks like it might be what I’m looking for. Do you have any open sourced example sites using Shiny? I’ll be reading your blog and scanning your source in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/6 "2007-06-12T18:56:35Z")
www-data wrote: > > Sounds like a really simple Rails application > > Yes, but I need content management for a number of content types outside > of the scope of the Product example. I’m beginning to think that it may > be easier just to build a custom CMS from scratch that is tailored for > my purposes rather than trying to adapt RadiantCMS to fit my particular > requirements. I maintain a modified version of Radiant (called Shiny) that supports arbitrary models/types as content, like an image, a form, etc. or a product in your case. It maintains all of Radiant’s features but allows you to move away from pages when you do not need them. Maybe it is similar to what you are looking for. You can check it out at [http://hytek.org/shiny/](http://hytek.org/shiny/). Cheers, Oliver ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/7 "2007-06-12T20:00:14Z")
www-data wrote: > Thanks Oliver. Your Shiny mod looks like it might be what I’m looking > for. Do you have any open sourced example sites using Shiny? Other than my blog nothing else at the moment unfortunately. I am, however, working on two other sites right now. I also used to have a commenting facility on my blog as another example of a custom content type. It was really simple and unfortunately got immediately spammed so I turned it off until I implement some sort of filter. With respect to the software design each content model is primarily treated as hierarchically organized content, just like pages, images, but at the same time a traditional relational association between them should be possible as well. For example like “Store” has many “Products” while “Products” are also content organized hierarchical in folders. I have not tested that very much, but one of my extensions does something similar with meta tags. Please let me know if you are interested or have any questions. Cheers, Oliver ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/8 "2007-06-12T22:01:43Z")
Oliver B. wrote: > www-data wrote: > > > Thanks Oliver. Your Shiny mod looks like it might be what I’m looking > > for. Do you have any open sourced example sites using Shiny? > > Other than my blog nothing else at the moment unfortunately. I am, > however, working on two other sites right now. > > I also used to have a commenting facility on my blog as another example > of a custom content type. It was really simple and unfortunately got > immediately spammed so I turned it off until I implement some sort of > filter. > > With respect to the software design each content model is primarily > treated as hierarchically organized content, just like pages, images, > but at the same time a traditional relational association between them > should be possible as well. For example like “Store” has many “Products” > while “Products” are also content organized hierarchical in folders. I > have not tested that very much, but one of my extensions does something > similar with meta tags. > > Please let me know if you are interested or have any questions. > > Cheers, > Oliver Do you have a public svn for your blog source? What’s your eventual direction for Shiny? Could this eventually be made to be an extension of Radiant? When I started looking for Rails CMSs, I was hoping to find something like Drupal. Maybe your CMS will help bridge the gap. ---
**Author:** ![Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/58956e/32.png) [@Jeroen\_Brandhorst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jeroen_Brandhorst)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-use-radiant-to-structure-content/106633/9 "2007-06-13T05:18:09Z")
On 12/06/07 05:01 PM, www-data was heard to say: > Do you have a public svn for your blog source? The code base of the blog is what is in the Shiny SVN ([http://hytek.org/shiny/svn/shiny/trunk/](http://hytek.org/shiny/svn/shiny/trunk/)). The relevant Radius code is the same as for any stock Radiant version and the additions are straight forward. > What’s your eventual direction for Shiny? Could this eventually be made > to be an extension of Radiant? I don’t want to interfere too much with the Radiant development, though I am still optimistic that some of the ideas will eventually make it into Radiant. A problem with that is that I am a slacker and too lazy to write proper unit tests. At the moment I don’t consider Shiny as a fork but more as a branch of Radiant. However, I am also not planning to turn Shiny into an extension for Radiant. At least not at the moment. Radiant development is not very fast, such that I can keep up with merging changes into Shiny. I have thought before about turning it into an extension, but it goes fairly deep into the internals of Radiant, such that an extension would in fact turn around most of the Radiant code and change Radiant’s default database schema. This, I think, would not be a good idea. Alternatively, it could be turned into an extension parallel to Radiant’s default content model. That way it would setup it’s own tables etc. and attempt to disable Radiant’s page implementation. > When I started looking for Rails CMSs, I was hoping to find something > like Drupal. Maybe your CMS will help bridge the gap. Maybe, though I get the shivers hearing that (for various reasons). Cheers, Oliver