Content is a text-based CMS bundle for the Laravel PHP Framework (version 3).
It uses a JSON file to describe the site structure, (custom) page properties and page assets.
It uses Markdown textfiles for content.
Being text-based it is easy to version your content using a VCS, like GIT.
Features:
- All content is text-based and therefore easy to version using a vcs like Git.
- No database needed.
- Content is based on Markdown.
- Per page template, title and visibility settings, with sensible defaults.
- Support for user-defined properties.
- Filter functions.
- Asset function for connecting various types of assets to a page.
- Sitemap data generator.
Use Artisan to install Content:
php artisan bundle:install contentAlternatively you can download it from https://github.com/ofnof/laravel-content/. Put the downloaded files in a new folder called bundles/content.
Enable the bundle by adding the following to your bundles.php file:
return array(
'content' => array('auto' => true),
)And finally, create a directory called 'content' under the storage directory. This is where the content pages will reside.
First we need to create a content definition file. This file describes all the pages that will be handled by the Content bundle.
The content definition file should be created at storage/content/content.json and looks like this:
{
"pages": [
{ "path": "projects" },
{ "path": "projects/moon-tower" },
{ "path": "projects/time-machine" },
{ "path": "about" }
]
}The pages array contains page objects that each contain a path. This path references the URI to handle and also a directory under the storage/content directory that contains the actual content page. This content page has the name page.md and is in the Markdown Extra format.
Given the above content definition and the domain www.mydomain.com, this means that the following URIs will be handled:
www.mydomain.com/projects (content file: storage/content/projects/page.md)
www.mydomain.com/projects/moon-tower (content file: storage/content/projects/moon-tower/page.md)
www.mydomain.com/projects/time-machine (content file: storage/content/projects/time-machine/page.md)
www.mydomain.com/about (content file: storage/content/projects/page.md)
To have Laravel catch all remaining routes and show a page based on the content definitions you should add this route below your other routes in application/routes.php:
Route::get('(.*)', function () {
return Content::makeView(URI::current());
});By default the Content::makeView call will render the view named page.blade.php. You can then
fill the view using the $page object.
$page->getTitle() - The title of the page.
$page->getContent() - The Markdown formatted content of the content file.
Overriding the view
The view used to render the page can be overridden by defining a property called template:
{
"pages": [
{
"path": "projects",
"template": "mypage"
}
]
}Overriding the title
The title of the page is derived from the slug of the path. It is created by removing the hypens, making all words lowercase and then make the first letter of each word uppercase. This behaviour can be overridden by defining a property called title:
{
"pages": [
{
"path": "projects/iphone-game",
"title": "iPhone game"
}
]
}Making a page invisible
All pages are visible by default. By adding a property called visible this behaviour can be changed:
{
"pages": [
{
"path": "projects/my-secret-project",
"visible": "false"
}
]
}Invisible pages:
- will not appear in the sitemap data.
- can use the method
$page->getVisible()to request if the page should be visible. You can use this method for example to prevent your page from being indexed. See the following Blade snippet:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
@if (!$page->getVisible())
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
@endif
</head>
<body></body>
</html>By specifying additional properties in the content definition file, you can pass any value to the view.
Define the properties:
{
"pages": [
{
"path": "projects/time-machine",
"description": "a short meta description",
"disqusid": "XXX-YYY-ZZZ",
"script-id": "time-machine"
}
]
}Get the properties with $page->getValue('key'). If a property does not exist for a page
getValue() will return null so that your template can easily handle non-defined properties.
The Content bundle can create an array of sitemap data. You can use this data to create your own sitemap, or you can feed the data into the Sitemapper bundle to create a sitemap automatically.
The following optional page properties will be passed to the sitemap: priority, lastmod and changefreq. You can find more information about sitemaps and these properties at http://www.sitemaps.org/.
To prevent a page from appearing in the sitemap array, add a "visible": "false" property to the page.
Another feature of this bundle is to generate arrays of assets that belong to a page.
For example, let's assume you have defined a page with the path projects/time-machine in the contents.json file and in that view you want to show all the photos of this fantastic time machine. To do so you have to create a folder under your public folder where you put the images. Next, make a page reference in your contents.json file to this folder. You can call this reference anything you like.
The example below shows two different asset sets: img and pdf.
{
"pages": [
{
"path": "projects/time-machine",
"img": "img/tm-photos",
},
{
"path": "projects/a-project-without-assets",
},
{
"path": "projects/a-project-with-multiple-assets",
"img": "img/great-photos",
"pdf": "various/pdf"
}
]
}Now calling the function $page->getAssets([your-asset-set]) will return an array of files located in the
given folder.
Each array element contains two values, one for the key normal and one for the key small. Under normal
circumstances, only the normal value will have a value. The small key will only be filled when a file
end with the name _sml. This makes it easy to define sets of images with a small thumbnail. So for
example if you have an image called 'the-time-machine.jpg' and a thumbnail called 'the-time-machine_sml.jpg'
they will appear in the same array set.
An example Blade view for a slideshow could look like this:
<?php $assets = $page->getAssets('img'); ?>
@if (count($assets) > 0)
<div class="gallery-container">
<ul class="gallery clearfix">
@foreach ($assets as $img)
<li class="gallery-image">
<a href="{{ $img['normal'] }}" rel="photos">
<img src="{{ $img['small'] }}" width="160" height="120">
</a>
</li>
@endforeach
</ul>
</div>
@endifFiltering pages is easy. Just call Content::getPages with a path filter.
This allows you to create menus or lists for example.
Route::get('guides', function () {
$guides = Content::getPages('guides/');
$txt = '<div class="guides">';
foreach ($guides as $guide) {
$txt = $txt.'<b><a href="'.$guide->properties['path'].'">'.$guide->getTitle().'</a></b> - ';
$txt = $txt.$guide->properties['description'];
$txt = $txt.'<br><br>';
}
$txt = $txt.'</div>';
$page = new Page();
$page->properties['path'] = 'guides';
$page->properties['content'] = $txt;
$data = array('page' => $page);
return View::make('page', $data);
});Take these steps if you want to have the Content bundle handle the root page ('/') of your site.
Add a page with a path named index.
{
"pages": [
{ "path": "index" }
]
}Change the content of the catch-all route to:
$uri = URI::current();
if ($uri == '/') {
$uri = 'index';
}
return Content::makeView($uri);And create your root content file at storage/content/index/page.md.
I will not personally update this project anymore. For reference: the following ideas were considered at the time of initial development (2013)
- Make it framework independent and available as a composer package.
- Functions for iterating over the parents and children of a page (to easily create menus).
- CMS end-user interface.
Licensed under the MIT License.