placeholders.md

title	slug	description	date	lastmod	weight
Placeholders	content-creation/placeholders		2022-03-14 08:42:21 UTC	2023-08-20 11:04:12 UTC	200.4

Placeholders

Placeholders can be used in content type fields or templates. The placeholders allow you to automatically fill in values when creating a new content.

Default placeholders

Placeholder	Description
{{title}}	Title of the page
{{slug}}	Slug of the page
{{now}}	Current date formatted with the value defined in frontMatter.taxonomy.dateFormat or ISO string
{{year}}	Current year
{{month}}	Current month
{{day}}	Current day
{{hour12}}	Current hour in 12-hour format
{{hour24}}	Current hour in 24-hour format
{{ampm}}	Show AM/PM
{{minute}}	Current minute

Special placeholders

Placeholder	Description	Works for
{{fm.<field name>}}	The value of the field in the front matter	previewPath on the page folder or the content-type.
{{pathToken.<index>}}	The value of the path token at the index	previewPath on the page folder or the content-type.
{{pathToken.relPath}}	The relative value path staring from the page folder' path	previewPath on the page folder or the content-type.

Example 1

Example of how you can use the special placeholders:

"frontMatter.content.pageFolders": [
  {
    "title": "post",
    "filePrefix": null,
    "previewPath": "/{{fm.type}}/{{pathToken.3}}/{{pathToken.4}}",
    "path": "[[workspace]]/content/{{year}}/{{month}}",
    "contentTypes": ["post"]
  }
]

The preview path will generate the following path: /post/2023/02/<slug>.

Example 2

"frontMatter.content.pageFolders": [
  {
    "title": "post",
    "filePrefix": null,
    "previewPath": "/{{pathToken.relPath}}/",
    "path": "[[workspace]]/content"
  }
]

If a file would exist in: ./content/docs/settings.md. The preview path will generate the following path: /docs/settings/.

Example 3: using field formatting

In case of using the {{fm.<field name>}} placeholder, you can also use field formatting. Here is an example of how you can use field formatting:

"frontMatter.content.pageFolders": [
  {
    "title": "blog",
    "filePrefix": null,
    "previewPath": "'/{{fm.type}}/{{fm.pubDate|format:dd/MM/yy}}/'",
    "path": "[[workspace]]/content"
  }
]

The above configuration results in the following path: /blog/25/02/23/.

Custom placeholders

You can define you own placeholders within the frontMatter.content.placeholders setting. There are two types of placeholders you can create:

• static: A static placeholder that will be replaced with a static value (you can use another placeholder in the value)
• dynamic: A dynamic placeholder that will use a script to generate the value

Static placeholders

Here is an example of a static permalink placeholder:

"frontMatter.content.placeholders": [
  {
    "id": "permalink",
    "value": "/blog/{{slug}}.html"
  }
]

Info: The static placeholder's value is adding some text and it will also include the slug of the page. There is no extra logic that is executed to generate the value.

To use the permalink placeholder, you need to define the {{permalink}} value in your content type or template.

{
  "title": "Permalink",
  "name": "permalink",
  "type": "string",
  "default": "{{permalink}}"
}

Dynamic placeholders

Dynamic placeholders allow you to use custom scripts to generate the value. The difference with the static placeholder is that instead of specifying a value, you need to specify a script and command property.

Placeholder definition

Here is an example of a dynamic uniqueId placeholder:

"frontMatter.content.placeholders": [
  {
    "id": "uniqueId",
    "script": "./scripts/uniqueId.js",
    "command": "~/.nvm/versions/node/v16.13.1/bin/node"
  }
]

Placeholder script

The base script looks like this:

const arguments = process.argv;

if (arguments && arguments.length > 0) {
  const workspaceArg = arguments[2]; // The workspace path
  const filePath = arguments[3]; // The path of the file
  const title = arguments[4]; // Title of the page

  console.log(Math.random().toString(36).substring(2, 15));
}

Info: Like the other content scripts, you can use other types of scripts like Python, Bash, and more.

The base script for a dynamic placeholder similar to the content script. The difference is that instead of retrieving the whole front matter object, you will receive the title. The reason is that the file is still not completely processed, and not all front matter fields are available.

Important: In case you need to retrieve the whole front matter object, you can make use of the postScript property on your content type in combination with a content script.

Placeholder usage

To use the ogImage placeholder, you need to define the {{ogImage}} value in your field as follows:

{
  "title": "Unique ID",
  "name": "uniqueId",
  "type": "string",
  "default": "{{uniqueId}}"
}