Part Types in Gentics CMS

This section contains an overview over existing part types. These part types can be used to create tagtypes. Part types are the essential building blocks of tagtypes.

1 Overview

Type Id Type Name Description
1 Text Used for normal text (without HTML), which is entered using the tagfill dialog. Linebreaks will be transformed into <br> tags while rendering.
4 Page The URL (page) part type provides an element to select a page within any accessible folder.
6 Image Reference an image.
8 File Reference a file.
13 Overview The overview part type creates and overview which can be configured using a the provided wizard. WARNING: Cannot be used together with other tag parts that are set as editable.
21 HTML Used for text containing HTML tags, which is entered using the tagfill dialog or Aloha Editor. No conversion will be done while rendering.
25 Folder This part can be used to select a folder.
29 Select (single) This part type provides static datasources from which a user can pick a single value.
30 Select (multiple) This part type provides static datasources from which a user can pick multiple values.
31 Checkbox Part type for input of boolean value.
32 Datasource With this part type, the user can define individual datasources in the tag.
40 Node The node part is a drop-down menu with the nodes available to the user.
42 Form The CMS Form part lets the user select a form from the CMS. See Gentics CMS Forms for details.
43 Handlebars The Handlebars part type renders its content with the Handlebars rendering engine. See Rendering with Handlebars for details.
44 JSON The JSON part type offers storing, validation and navigation/resolving over structured data in the JavaScript Object Notation content.
45 Groovy The Groovy part type allows to execute Groovy Scripts for preparation of data to be rendered. See Implementation of Groovy Scripts for details.

Inline editable parts – which are transformed to editables in Aloha Editor – should only use the part type HTML.

2 JSON Part Type

This part type is designed to work with content of the JavaScript Object Notation . The tag content of this type is validated against JSON syntax.

Optionally, one may limit the allowed content with JSON schemas. As the simplest example of such allowance limits, the following JSON schemas depict the person data, and a simple array of strings:


{
    "type" : "object",
    "properties" : {
        "firstName" : {
            "type" : "string"
        },
        "lastName" : {
            "type" : "string"
        }
    },
    "required" : [
        "firstName",
        "lastName"
    ]

}


{
    "type" : "array",
    "items" : {
        "type" : "string"
    }
}

So the following contents will pass the corresponding schema filters:


{
    "firstName" : "John",
    "lastName" : "Doe"
}


[
    "a string",
    "another string"
]

For looking up into the full possibilities of JSON schemas filtering one may inspect the official JSON Schema guide.

3 Custom Part Type Implementations

Custom part types can be created using the AbstractExtensiblePartType class.

To use extensible parttypes you need to insert a row into the type table of the cms database. Please note that once the row has been inserted, any changes to the row, such as updating the class name, require a CMS restart (the part type information is cached internally).

To avoid id conflicts please calculate your personal id range for now:

  • Take the 1st 4 characters of one of the customers cms license keys.
  • Convert them from hex to dec.
  • Multiply by 1000. this is the lowest allowed id.
  • Add 999. thid is the highest allowed id.
  • E.g: license key is A2B4-xxxx-xxxx…
  • HEX a2b4 is 41652 in decimal.
  • Your personal id range is 41652000 – 41652999.