Hi,
I was wondering: what is the recommended way to model structured content
in Radiant?
Say, I want to have a list of contact items:
Department #1
Image of Department #1
Name
Adress
E-Mail
Picture
Name
Adress
E-Mail
Picture
(…)
Department #2
Image of Department #2
Name
Adress
E-Mail
Picture
Name
Adress
E-Mail
Picture
(…)
I can think of two possible solutions:
#1 a page for each box with subpages, where each subpage has tabs with
the fields (e.g. description, image).
#2 an extension that overrides the normal body and instead displays a
form for each set, with the ability to add a new set by clicking on a +
button. In this example, there would be two pages with a specific type
(=contact). [somewhat similar to Typo3 XML based Flexible Content
Elements, aka FCE]
Maybe I’m wrong, but to me #1 doesn’t appear very user-friendly,
especially if there are many fields.
Is there an extension that offers features similiar to #2?
Thanks
Tristan
Tristan,
I would recommend something else entirely. If your data is very
field-oriented (not lots of plain text), create an extension with a
model or set of models that more properly map to the problem, create
controllers to administer them, and then create Radius tags to output
their information into a page.
While I have created an extension that does something similar to TYPO3’s
FCE (although Radiant is not a “page builder”-style CMS like TYPO3),
it’s not ready for public consumption yet. The extension essentially
allows you to define a ‘template’ for any given page and use the
template to constrain both the output and the structure of the UI that
is presented to the content editor.
I hate to tease all of you with these vapor-ware extensions, but I
promise I will release them in early January when I have a few days to
clean them up.
Sean
Hi Sean,
Creating an extension with a specific model seems to be a good option,
although I’m very curious about your template extension!
Still, I’m not sure where to put the UI of the controller. It handles
content, so I should be in the Page Tab. But then, I would need to
replace the body from the Page editing UI. Does Shards support this? Or
would you recommend to put the UI in a seperate Tab (like Gallery).
Tristan
Sean C. schrieb:
You can add tabs to the Radiant interface in your extension that point
to the url of your custom controller that handles manages your
structured data. Rather than replacing the interface, you would create
Radius tags that expose the data to a regular page. All of this is
explained extensively in the extensions tutorial on
wiki.radiantcms.org. Have a look!
Sean