Book Image

concrete5 Cookbook

Book Image

concrete5 Cookbook

Overview of this book

concrete5 is an increasingly popular open source content management system because of its incredible and easy-to-use interface. But, it also comes complete with a robust PHP framework, allowing web developers to create custom websites and applications with ease. "concrete5 Cookbook" is a practical collection of solutions to tasks that both novice and experienced concrete5 developers face on a regular basis. Readers will learn multiple subjects, including full blueprints for developing an event calendar add-on and an image gallery block. Developers new to concrete5 will quickly learn how to customize concrete5 to their needs, and seasoned pros will find it an excellent quick reference for performing specific tasks. "concrete5 Cookbook" will transform ordinary PHP developers into concrete5 experts capable of bending concrete5 to their will and unleashing the true power of this up-and-coming content management system. Throughout the course of over 140 recipes and 3 bonus project blueprint chapters, PHP developers will learn how to create custom blocks and dashboard interfaces as well as programmatically work with pages, files, users, permissions, and more. Discover the built-in Active Record support that makes working with databases simple and maintainable. Readers will also learn how to take advantage of the numerous helper classes included in concrete5, and will dive deep into the concrete5 MVC framework to create powerful custom websites and applications. Tie together all of the concepts learned in the recipes with 3 bonus chapters featuring complete blueprints to create a calendar add-on, an image gallery block type, and tips on how to sell your themes and add-ons for money! "concrete5 Cookbook" is a complete collection of recipes to solve the most common (and some not-so-common) tasks that concrete5 developers will face on a regular basis.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
concrete5 Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating a page type


You can easily add new page types through the concrete5 user interface, but there are some situations that can require you to create page types dynamically using PHP code.

Getting ready

First, you will need to create an associative array that contains the data of the page type that you are creating.

The array can contain the following fields:

Attribute

Required?

Description

ctHandle

Yes

The collection type handle: an alphanumeric string with underscores between words.

ctName

Yes

The collection type name: a string that will appear in the concrete5 interface.

ctIcon

No

If you'd like to specify an icon for this page type, pass in the numerical ID of the icon from the File Manager.

ctIsInternal

No

A Boolean indicating if this page type is an internal page type. Internal page types do not appear in the page creation dialog in the concrete5 interface.

akID

No

An array of attribute key IDs to be added to the new page type.

How to do it...

We will create a page type using only the required fields: ctHandle and ctName. The steps are as follows:

  1. Open /config/site_post.php in your preferred code editor.

  2. Declare the handle of the new page type to be created.

    $handle = 'page_type_handle';
  3. Declare the array that contains the data for the ctHandle and ctName fields.

    $data = array(
      'ctHandle' => $handle,
      'ctName' => 'Page Type Name'
    );
  4. Check to see if the page type already exists by loading it by the new handle.

    $pageType = CollectionType::getByHandle($handle);
  5. If the page type does not exist, create it.

    if (!$pageType) {
      $newPageType = CollectionType::add($data);
    }
  6. If it does exist, assign the existing page type to the new page type variable.

    else {
      $newPageType = $pageType;
    }
  7. Dump the new page type variable to ensure that it worked.

    my_debug($newPageType);

How it works...

concrete5 will take the data array that you pass in and use it to create a new CollectionType record in the database. concrete5 will also automatically generate a Master Collection page in the database. The Master Collection is a template page that concrete5 will use as base for all pages of that type. Any blocks, attributes, or other data assigned to the Master Collection will automatically be added to any new pages created with that page type.

There's more...

If you are creating this page type in a custom package, you will need to pass in your package object to the add() function, so concrete5 knows that this page type belongs to your package. That way, when users uninstall your package, they will have the option of removing all of the page types that it created.

Assuming that you know the handle of your package, use the following code to create a page type with it:

$data = array(
  'ctHandle' => $handle,
  'ctName' => 'Page Type Name'
);
$pkg = Package::getByHandle('my_package');
$newPageType = CollectionType::add($data, $pkg);

See also

  • The Creating custom add-on package recipe

  • The Updating a page type recipe