Gentics CMS FileLink plugin

The Gentics CMS FileLink Plugin allows handling links to files or images as blocks, that render additional (not editable) information.

This setup guide covers the following topics:

1 Implementation of the tagtype

The FileLink plugin will transform links that point to files or images, which are managed by Gentics CMS to blocks, which are stored as Gentics CMS Tags in the backend. Therefore an appropriate tagtype must be present and assigned to the Node of the edited page.

The tagtype implementation must meet all of the following conditions:

  • The tagtype must render a single root element (a span is recommended), that must have the attribute data-aloha-block-type="GCNFileBlock"
  • The tagtype must have a part of type File (URL) with keyword file
  • The tagtype must have a part of type Text (short) with keyword text which must be inline editable.
  • The tagtype must render an a (anchor) tag, where the href contains the url of the part file and the contents is the part text (in edit mode, e.g. by using the velocity directive #gtx_edit)
  • The anchor tag must have attributes data-gentics-aloha-repository and data-gentics-aloha-object-id filled like in the example below.

Additionally, the tagtype may have some additional parts:

  • class for setting the class attribute of the anchor
  • title for setting a title to the anchor
  • target for setting the target of the anchor

It is recommended to implement the tagtype with a Velocity Part, and a template like shown in the example below:


#if( "$!cms.tag.parts.title" != "" )##
#set( $escapedTitle = $cms.imps.string.regexp($cms.tag.parts.title, '"', '"') )##
#set( $title=" title='$escapedTitle'" )##
#end##
#if( "$!cms.tag.parts.target" != "" )##
#set( $target = " target='$cms.tag.parts.target'")##
#end##
#if("$!cms.tag.parts.get('class')" != "")##
#set($class = " class='$!cms.tag.parts.get('class')'")##
#end##
#if( "$!cms.tag.parts.file" != "" )##
#set( $data = " data-gentics-aloha-repository='com.gentics.aloha.GCN.Page' data-gentics-aloha-object-id='$!{cms.tag.parts.file.target.ttype}.$!{cms.tag.parts.file.target.id}'" )##
#set ($sizeinfo = " ($cms.tag.parts.file.target.sizeMB MB)" )##
#set( $href = $cms.tag.parts.file )##
#end##
#if( "$!href" == "")##
#set( $data = " data-gentics-gcn-url='#'" )##
#set( $href = "#")##
#end##
<span data-aloha-block-type="GCNFileBlock"><a$!title$!target$!class href="$href" $data>#gtx_edit("text")</a>$!sizeinfo</span>##

2 Configuration of the plugin

The plugin must be loaded, and the construct to be used must be defined

conf/*.yml

aloha_plugins_global:
  - "gcn/gcnfilelink"

aloha_settings:
  plugins:
    gcnfilelink:
	  # the construct to be used by the gcnfilelink plugin (keyword or ID)
      construct: "filedownload"

3 Dependencies of the plugin

The FileLink Plugin depends on the following other plugins:

  • gcn/gcn (Gentics CMS Integration Plugin)
  • common/link (Aloha Editor Link Plugin)
  • common/block (Aloha Editor Block Plugin)

All of those plugins need to be loaded together with the FileLink Plugin in order for the FileLink Plugin to work properly.

4 Functionality

When the target of a link is changed to be a file or image, the link will be transformed into a block and a new tag will be created in the page.

When the target of a link is changed from a file or image to a page, the block will be transformed to a normal link and the tag will be removed.

The additional properties of the file/image links can be modified in the sidebar.