Can I insert a Component TEMPLATE Link in the Tridion GUI? - templates

In Tridion, similar to how a field in a schema or metadata schema can either be text, embedded schema, or component link... is there a way to allow the field to be an item select like a component link, but select different types of Tridion objects instead of components?
I'd like the user to be able to select a Compound Component Template or a Page object via selecting it through the interface instead of typing in the tcm into a text field and reading that value.
Is this possible?

No. Links to Component Templates are not handled by the Tridion GUIs. The Tridion Content Manager back-end can handle links to Component Templates in some situations, which is why (for example) you can see the Component Templates show up in the WhereUsed dialog of a Page.
Most people end up using a regular text field for holding such a Component Template link and then use something like Bart's Item Selector to provide an input aid.

You must be careful by creating links to other types than components because they might not be content portable and you will get issues after porting those fields from one environment to another.
Basically the tcm uris won't be resolved by content porter.

This would have to be achieved by building a custom CME (GUI) extension.

Related

How can I display a specific Edit Form based on the current View?

I have a few custom Edit forms I've created in SharePoint Designer for the same content type. Is there any way to bind a specific edit form to each list view or user group natively in SharePoint, or will I have to write something to handle the logic?
Modifications through javascript can be bound to content types or list templates through elements.xml (farm solution) however to set custom forms (application pages), you will have to do this through a script (powershell).
You should be able to loop through the lists and just set the URL for the edit-form. There is a EditFormUrl parameter on the SPContentType object and an equivalent will exist for powershell of course.

Sitecore Conditional Showing of Fields

So I am rather new to sitecore, and it's a topic that wasn't covered during my training. My questions is just to help point me to the correct term, or documentation on a method to do the following.
I have a definition item, with a ton of field groups, what I want to do is something like:
if Value of Field X is "yes" then collapse/hide Field X or Field Group X.
Does that make sense? Is it a validation rule? or some other kind of rules, is it a workflow I need to attach? Do you place it on just the field I want to hide, or the field that triggers the action?
I appreciate any guidance.
There is nothing out-of-the-box in Sitecore to achieve what you want but there is no reason you cannot create a composite custom field type to do this. The following articles will help you achieve this:
Creating a custom Sitecore Field
Getting to Know Sitecore: Custom Fields, Part 1
Create a new control, inheriting either from Droplist (if the comparison of the value is to be text based) or Droplink (for comparison of ID). You could add a parameter in the Source field of the control to specify what the values that trigger the hide should be.
The underlying control in the Content Editor is just a standard HTML select element. Add onchange events to the control and add your Javascript handler to hide the other controls. Since I could not find a way of adding additional custom css classes to the Sitecore controls, it would be best/easiest to hide all other controls in the same collapsible group after you control. This would mean you would need to group your controls better (or logically at least).
The Javascript will be something like this (the Content Editor uses the Prototype JS framework):
if ($(this).getValue() == 'no') {
// find the parent container of this control and then hide all the next siblings in the same group
$(this).up('.scEditorFieldMarker').nextSiblings('.scEditorFieldMarker').invoke('hide');
}
You can test this by running the above in the console, change out the keyword this with the id of your field, e.g. $('FIELD2292054').
What I am not sure about is how to trigger the hide on initial load, i.e. when someone returns to an existing item, it may be possible by adding to one of the pipelines, but would be better using a JS solution if possible. I'll have a think about this and get a proper code sample up over the next few days.
EDIT: You can add an event handler to sc:contenteditorupdated to handle the content editor being rel-oaded.
document.observe("sc:contenteditorupdated", myFunction);
I wrote up a blog post and put the code on GitHub if you are interested.
Not sure if you have come across Andy Uzick's this blog post.
He wisely talks about hiding fields in the Content Editor and has also created a Sitecore Module called Hide Field Template Extension which is hosted on the Sitecore Marketplace with the full source code to extend.
After reading through and trying the extension, I do feel that it will not completely resolve your issue (how you have described it in the question).
But it will give you:
A mid-term solution to hide a few unnecessary field that some content editors would not like to view.
Fields that are only required by administrators for admin purpose - to de-clutter these fields could be hidden.
Just one thing to bear in mind that it mentions in the requirements Sitecore 6.5 & 6.6. I have not tested it in Sitecore 7. If you are using Sitecore 7, which I think you are, one could modify the source code and make it work for Sitecore 7.
Have a look and share your findings.
Happy Sitecoring!

joomla component to module

I want to convert component to module apart from using plugin is ther any process to handle it.
(or)
whether we should code somethimg to make my mvc component to module .
(or)
is there any possibility to make my component to be placed at desired module position in my template
Regards,
noble
You can't convert a component to a module. A component, module and plugin are all 3 different things. Obviously if your component was something like a simple upload form, then this could be turned into a module but I doubt very much it is.
Nor can you place the component in a module position.
Judging by what you're asking, I am assuming that this is your own custom component, in which case, you should have had a little think and done a little research before you made it and brainstormed your exact requirements.
1st thing You can't convert a component to a module. You have to understand the difference between them
Components are the largest and most complex extensions of them all; they can be seen as mini-applications. Most components have two parts: a site part and an administrator part. Every time a Joomla page loads, one component is called to render the main page body. For example, Content (com_content) is the component which handles the display of content; users can view at the frontend of your site and, as an administrator, you can edit the content. Components are the major portion of your page because a component is driven by a menu item and every menu item runs a component.
Examples: Content (com_content), Banners (com_banners), Contact (com_contact), News Feeds (com_newsfeeds) and Web Links (com_weblinks)
Modules are more lightweight and flexible extensions used for page rendering. These modules are mostly known as the “boxes” that are arranged around a component, for example: the login module. The footer is a module. Modules are assigned per menu item. So, you can decide to show or hide the logon module depending on which menu item the user is viewing. Sometimes modules are linked to components such as the “latest news” module which links to the com_content and displays links to the newest content items. However, modules do not need to be linked to components, as a matter of fact they don't even need to be linked to anything and can be just static HTML or text.
Examples: Banners (mod_banners), Menus (mod_menu), Who's Online (mod_whosonline)
Read more
If you are using Joomla 1.5 then please refer this plugin it does exactly what you want. http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/2723/details

Selecting a datasource item for preset components

Before digging into my explanation i will summarize my question:
How do I provide the user (editor) with a user-friendly possibility to select a datasource item for sublayouts that are preset on the standard values?
My situation is as follows:
I have a page template, with pre-defined layout on the standard values.
Let's say the layout consists of:
one placeholder "wrapper"
one sublayout "content"
This sublayout is pre-defined on my page template, but can also be placed in the placeholder using the Page Editor.
It needs to have a datasource item that defines a Title and Body value.
Now, if a user adds this sublayout to the placeholder using the Page Editor, he will get a nice interface to select or create the datasource item (see screenshot).
However, if the sublayout was pre-defined on the standard values, it will be added without datasource (I can't pre-set the data source in the standard values because it's still unknown by then).
At that point there seems to be no way to get to that nice interface for selecting or creating a datasource item.
Ideally I want to be able to add a field to my template that can hold a datasource item which the user can select/create using the nice interface. I looked at the datasource field type, which could be an alternative, but it's still not exactly what I want.
Bare in mind that the content sublayout is just an example.
I understand that in that specific case I could solve it by always adding a title/body field to the template which hold the values if there is no datasource, but for my real world problem that won't suffice.
I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Page Editor (with the new way of working with it) so I would like to get some advice on this subject.
According to what you said here:
Ideally I want to be able to add a field to my template that can hold a datasource item which the user can select/create using the nice interface. I looked at the datasource field type, which could be an alternative, but it's still not exactly what I want.
It seems you want an intuitive data source selector interface in the CMS shell similar to the Page Editor-based UI.
Quick answer: Simply put, there's nothing that does this for you in Sitecore.
Longer answer: There are still some options for you, e.g.
Define a global "dummy" data source and set that to be the data source set in in Presentation > Layout Details of the template's standard values. So every time you create a new page, it will always point to that dummy value to show something.
From here you can do a few things:
If the user must use the shell UI and not Page Editor, they can simply create another data source item for the specific page and update that page to point to it using the existing native interface in Layout Details.
Another option is to write an event handler, say for item:created or similar that when you create an item, auto-create a corresponding data source item for this specific page (whether this auto-created item be a sub-items or global item...) then programmatically set this to be the data source. A similar concept is shown in this video by Nick Wesselman: http://www.techphoria414.com/Blog/2012/May/Sitecore_Page_Editor_Unleashed

Flexible block positioning in Django?

In Drupal you could choose in which "region" of your site you want your block displayed. You did not have to modify any php/html code in order to achieve this.
Can such a thing be achieved with Django, and if yes, how?
By block I understand a piece of html output that doesn't have it's own URL and gets displayed along side the main data. (for example a search box or a poll)
Hm you probably want to create context processor and just output from it where you want it in template?
If you want reordering of content blocks in html output inside admin then you need something to generate that output like cms. You could try something like django-fluent-contents for this without requiring big cms.
Django and Drupal shouldn't be compared like this: Drupal is a CMS, Django is a web framework.
If you want to get a somewhat similar experience, I would look at using django-cms. With this, you can create numerous templates and set placeholders within these templates (these are regions of the page like 'sidebar', 'footer', 'content area' etc.). When you go to create a new page in django-cms, you select which template you want to use (maybe a two column layout or a three column layout with a header - depending on what you have created) and then you choose what content (or plugins) you want to place within the placeholders you have created in the template. So this is a somewhat similar experience to Drupal's regions.