ContentBlocks plugin for CakePHP

Installation

You can install this plugin into your CakePHP application using composer.

The recommended way to install composer packages is:

composer require brandcom/cakephp-content-blocks

Load the plugin:

bin/cake plugin load ContentBlocks

... and run the migrations:

bin/cake migrations migrate --plugin ContentBlocks

Getting Started

1. Create Blocks

The plugin does not come with any blocks, so you will have to create them on your own.

Let's create a simple TextContentBlock with a title and a content field.

Note: Every ContentBlock must end with *ContentBlock

1. In your database, create a table text_content_blocks with the fields title (Varchar 255) and content (Text). Note: You will also need an id field and a field content_blocks_block_id as int(11), unsigned.

2. Then, run the bin/cake bake model text_content_blocks command. You won't need any templates or controllers.

3. Edit the baked TextContentBlock.php file and make the class extend ContentBlocks\Model\Entity\Block instead of Entity.

4. Modify your TextContentBlocksTable.php so that your TextContentBlocksTable extends ContentBlocks\Model\Entity\BlocksTable, and modify the class as follows:

Set the relation:

$this->belongsTo('Blocks', [
    'foreignKey' => 'content_blocks_block_id',
    'className' => 'ContentBlocks.Blocks',
]);

Fix the buildRules() method, set table to Blocks:

$rules->add($rules->existsIn(['content_blocks_block_id'], 'Blocks'));

You will find more on customizing your Block below, but let's now add it to one of your pages.

2. Admin interface

To add your TextContentBlock to an Entity, e.g., Article, add the BlocksAdmin cell to your edit template:

<?= $this->cell("ContentBlocks.BlocksAdmin", ['entityOrKey' => $article]) ?>

This will render a table representing the BlockArea for the respective entity.

New in version 0.3: You can also create Areas for custom keys, e.g. on other places on your site or for index pages:

<?= $this->cell("ContentBlocks.BlocksAdmin", ['entityOrKey' => 'my_custom_key']) ?>

At the bottom of the table, there will be a button for each of your ContentBlocks. You should already find a button with the title Text.

If you click on the button, a new Block will be added to the Block Area. You can enter content and save.

3. Create a template for your block

ContentBlock templates are elements. In your Template/Element folder, create the folder content_blocks/ and the file text.ctp.

The template file name is always the lower_case_underscore version of your model name, omitting the content_block.

So the template for MyCoolHeroHeaderContentBlock will be in /Template/Element/content_blocks/my_cool_hero_header.ctp.

Your TextContentBlock Entity will be available as the $block variable.

Now you can create your template:

<?php
/**
 * @var \App\Model\Entity\TextContentBlock $block
 */
?>
<section class="my-12">
    <h2>
        <?= $block->title ?>
    </h2>
    <div class="content">
        <?= $block->content ?>
    </div>
</section>

Note: You can change the rendering logic in your TextContentBlock Entity by overriding the render() method.

4. Display the blocks

To render your block area for an entity, add this cell to your template:

<?= $this->cell("ContentBlocks.BlocksArea", ['entity' => $article]) ?>

5. Modifying the Admin interface

If you want to change how fields are displayed, you can override the getFields() method in your TextContentBlock Entity.

The method should return an array of all editable fields with the field names as keys and an array as value which is passed to FormHelper::control as $options:

public function getFields(): array
{
    return array_merge(
        parent::getFields(),
        [
            'title' => [
                'label' => __("Block Title"),
            ],
            'style' => [
                'label' => __("Choose a style for this block."),
                'options' => [
                    'default' => __("Default Style"),
                    'funky' => __("Other cool Style"),
                ],
            ],
        ]
    );
}

Special field options:

• beforeControl: Will be rendered before the respective control.
• afterControl: Will be rendered after the respective control.

To change the hidden fields, override Block::getHiddenFields():

public function getHiddenFields(): array
{
    return array_merge(
        parent::getHiddenFields(),
        [
            'some_field',
            'another_hidden_field',
        ]
    );
}

E.g., content_blocks_block_id is hidden by default, and you may want to make it editable.

6. Containing associated Models

Define a beforeFind() method in your TextContenBlocksTable

public function beforeFind(Event $event, Query $query): Query
{
    return $query->contain([
        'Images',
    ]);
}

7. Edit related models

The plugin supports an admin interface even for related models.

HasMany relations

Say you have a SliderContentBlock with several slides. This means, you will have e.g. a SliderBlockSlide entity and a SliderBlockSlidesTable.

1. Let your Slide entity use the ContentBlocks\Model\Entity\Traits\BelongsToBlockTrait
2. Contain the Slide as shown in 6. Containing associated Models
3. In your SliderContentBlock, override the Block's method getManagedModels(). This should return an array of all related models which shall be editable in the admin form.

public function getManagedModels(): array
{
    return [
        "SliderBlockSlides,"
    ];
}

4. To customize the appearance in the admin form, you can override the methods from the BelongsToBlockTrait, e.g. to define a nicer title or control what fields are available for editing (similarly as in 5. Modifying the Admin interface).

8. Pass custom data to the block template

By default, the containing model of the block area is passed to the template as $owner, so, e.g., if you have an Article entity which has a TextContentBlock, your article entity will be accessible in the text.ctp as $owner.

You can override this - and add more view variables - by overriding the getViewVariables() method in your *ContentBlocksTable.

If you want to rename $owner and add more data, you can do that like so:

public function getViewVariables($entity): array
{
    $vars = parent::getViewVariables($entity);

    return [
        'article' => $vars['owner'],
        'random' => "This is just a string",
        'someOtherVariable' => $this->getSomeOtherVariable($entity),
    ];
}

$entity, the instance of your *ContentBlock, will be passed to the method.

9. Allow or disallow the ContentBlock on specific Entities

If an Entity's model is listed in ContentBlock::getDisallowedEntities(), it will never be visible in the Block list.

protected function getDisallowedEntities(): array
{
    return [
        "Articles",
        "Jobs",
    ];
}

You can also define a list of allowed Entities:

protected function getAllowedEntities(): array
{
    return [
        "BlogPosts",
    ];
}

Note: If a model is listed in both, it will be disallowed.

10. Block HTML-Anchors and (custom) preview-link

New in 0.2.0: Every Block has a field for an HTML-Anchor. A link to the anchor is displayed below.

To override the default route, you can define a url on your $owner entity which holds the Area, e.g. Articles. This can be useful, if your URL uses a slug or other parameters. The $block instance will be passed to the method:

public function getContentBlocksViewUrl(Block $block): array
{
    $anchor = $block->html_anchor ?: "content-block-" . $block->id;

    return [
        'prefix' => false,
        'plugin' => false,
        'controller' => 'Articles',
        'action' => 'view',
        $this->slug,
        '#' => $anchor,
    ];
}

Contribution

You can contribute to this project via pull requests or issues.