concrete5: Beginner's Guide - Second Edition

concrete5: Beginner's Guide - Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

concrete5 is an open source content management system (CMS) for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. concrete5 is designed for ease of use, and for users with limited technical skills. It enables users to edit site content directly from the page. It provides version management for every page and allows users to edit images through an embedded editor on the page. concrete5 Beginner's Guide shows you everything you need to get your own site up and running in no time. You will then learn how to change the look of it before you find out all you need to add custom functionality to concrete5. concrete5 Beginner's Guide starts with installation, then you customize the look and feel and continue to add your own functionality. After you've installed and configured your own concrete5 site, we'll have a closer look at themes and integrate a simple layout into concrete5. Afterwards, we're going to build a block from scratch which you can use to manage a news section. We're also going to add a button to our site which can be used to create a PDF document on the fly. This book also covers some examples that show you how to integrate an existing jQuery plugin. concrete5 Beginner's Guide is a book for developers looking to get started with concrete5 in order to create great websites and applications.

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Pop Quiz Answers

Free Chapter

Installing concrete5

Preparing for installation

Installing Bitnami

Time for action – installing Bitnami WAMP stack

Downloading concrete5

Time for action – downloading the latest version

Creating an empty MySQL database

Time for action – creating a MySQL database

Installing concrete5

Time for action – installing concrete5

Time for action – disabling caching

Time for action – enabling pretty URLs

Summary

Working with concrete5

Getting familiar with concrete5

Time for action – logging in to concrete5

Adding new blocks

Time for action – adding new blocks

Time for action – editing existing blocks

Time for action – exiting edit mode

Working with the dashboard

Time for action – changing the site's name

Adding more pages

Time for action – adding pages to create a news section

Time for action – adding blocks to a new page

Managing page defaults

Time for action – adding default blocks to a page type

Time for action – adding blocks to existing pages

Moving and sorting pages

Time for action – moving and sorting your pages

Splitting content into columns

Time for action – creating a multi-column layout

Copying blocks using the clipboard

Time for action – copying the block using the clipboard

Working with stacks

Time for action – working with stacks

Styling with design and CSS

Time for action – styling your blocks

Summary

Managing Permissions

Managing basic permissions

Time for action – adding groups

Time for action – adding users

Time for action – assigning sitemap permissions

Time for action – granting file manager permissions

Time for action – granting edit access

Time for action – creating a protected website

Time for action – granting partial dashboard access

Time for action – restricting access to blocks

Working with the advanced permission mode

Time for action – activating the advanced permission mode

Time for action – removing permissions to change permissions

Time for action – setting subpage permissions

Summary

Managing Add-ons

Introduction to add-ons

Time for action – installing an add-on

Time for action – uninstalling an add-on

Time for action – installing an add-on manually

Working with theme add-ons

Working with block add-ons

Packages

Summary

Creating Your Own Theme

Starting with a new layout

Converting HTML and CSS to a concrete5 theme

Time for action – creating the concrete5 theme header

Time for action – creating the concrete5 theme footer

Time for action – creating a page template

Time for action – creating more page templates

Installing your theme

Time for action – installing theme

PHP constants and functions

Time for action – getting a list of available constants

Time for action – listing all available functions

Time for action – checking for edit mode

Time for action – hiding content from anonymous visitors

Time for action – restricting numbers of blocks per area

Time for action – inserting a block wrapper in an area

Working with page attributes

Time for action – using attributes to set background picture

Time for action – accessing attribute data from a template

Inserting blocks in templates

Time for action – replacing the header area with a template block

Time for action – finding autonav block properties

Time for action – specifying block templates in an area

Applying a theme to a single page

Time for action – creating a single page layout

Time for action – adding variables to handle login errors

Creating customizable themes

Time for action – creating a customizable theme

Summary

Customizing Block Layouts

Custom templates to modify a block layout

Thumbnails in a page list

Time for action – adding thumbnails to a page list

Time for action – restricting thumbnails to a custom dimension

Block template folder

Time for action – creating a template folder

Picture pop-ups in a content block

Time for action – building a lightbox gallery

Adding a Gravatar picture in the guestbook

Time for action – adding a Gravatar picture to the guestbook

Avoiding duplicate code in a custom template

Time for action – including an existing template

Transforming a slideshow into a gallery

Time for action – creating a gallery template for a slideshow

Time for action – adding a slideshow gallery

Slideshow using file attributes

Time for action – adding file attributes to our slideshow

Time for action – using file attributes in the gallery

Using advanced tooltips in the content block

Time for action – creating advanced tooltips

Summary

Adding Site Navigation

Introducing the autonav block

Time for action – undoing autonav block integration

Adding navigation images

Time for action – creating page attributes for navigation pictures

Time for action – creating a block picture navigation template

Adding a CSS3 hover effect

Time for action – creating a CSS3 transition autonav template

Building a drop-down navigation

Time for action – creating a SooperFish template

Sliding mobile navigation

Time for action – building a mobile navigation

Summary

Creating your Own Add-on Block

Building a product information block

Time for action – creating the database structure

Time for action – creating the block controller

Time for action – creating the editing interface

Time for action – printing block output

Time for action – installing a block

Time for action – adding a check for mandatory fields

Time for action – adding product categories

Building a product list

Time for action – handling multiple block versions

Time for action – creating the product list block

Creating a picture magnifier

Time for action – creating the picture magnifier block

Creating a PDF-generating block

Time for action – creating the PDF generation block

Creating a simple gallery

Time for action – creating the simple gallery block

Summary

Everything in a Package

What's a package?

Time for action – creating the package controller

Moving templates into a package

Time for action – moving templates into a package

Moving a theme and blocks into a package

Time for action – uninstalling blocks

Time for action – moving the jQZoom block into a package

Time for action – moving the PDF block into a package

Hooking into core events

Time for action – hooking into an event from a package

Working with maintenance tasks and jobs

Time for action – executing concrete5 jobs periodically

Time for action – creating a job to check for broken links

Injecting header items

Time for action – creating global tooltips

Time for action – integrating a CSS fix in a package

Summary

Dashboard Extensions

Working with the MVC pattern

Adding the broken link interface

Time for action – creating the broken links dashboard extension

Time for action – creating a package model

Time for action – adding a second controller method

Embedding a file editor in the dashboard

Time for action – creating the file editor add-on

Summary

Deployment and Configuration

Deploying a concrete5 site

Time for action – disabling pretty URLs and the cache

Time for action – transferring MySQL databases

Time for action – transferring files to the server

Time for action – updating the configuration file

Time for action – setting file permissions

Updating production configuration

Time for action – installing a translation file

Time for action – getting PHP information

Time for action – measuring site performance

Where to go next

Summary

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Time for action – printing block output

Carry out the following steps:

Last but not least, we have to make sure the data we save in the block gets printed on the page. For this, we have to create a file named view.php in our new add-on directory.

We've got to access and print the file object along with some basic commands to print the value of our variables. The content of the file has to look like this:

<?php defined('C5_EXECUTE') or die('Access Denied.'); ?>
<div class="product-information">
<h2><?php echo $title?></h2>
<?php
if ($picture instanceof File) { 
    $html = Loader::helper('html');
    echo $html->image($picture->getURL());
}
echo $description;
?>
</div>

What just happened?

The last part, the actual rendering of the content, is rather short:

We did use another helper, html, to print our image element. We could have built this string manually; which option you chose is up to you.
We're accessing $picture which has been set in the block...

concrete5: Beginner's Guide - Second Edition - Second Edition

concrete5: Beginner's Guide - Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

concrete5: Beginner's Guide - Second Edition - Second Edition

Time for action – printing block output

What just happened?