Introduction

SimpleLayout provides an intuitive way of adding and arranging the different elements of a page such as paragraphs, images, files and links using drag-and-drop functionality. These elements are implemented as addable and easily arrangeable "blocks". Because of the restricted dimensions of text, images and other content elements, the general result is content with a uniform look and feel throughout the site.

Compatibility

Plone 4.3.x

Please use the plone4 extra on Plone 4 Installations in order to have the right dependencies.

Plone 5.1.x

Features dropped for Plone 5.1.x:

• Anchor extraction from Blocks for anchors on a page.
• Upgrade step, which removes the plone.app.referenceablebehavior.referenceable.IReferenceable from all sl content types.

Themes

For consistent styling of the Simplelayout UI we recommend using plonetheme.blueberry.

Upgrade from Plone 4.3.x to Plone 5.1.x

TODO: Needs to be implemented and tested.

Trash

ftw.simplelayout integrates automatically with ftw.trash when both are installed.

Change in Version 3.0.0

Since the performance with the working copy feature is not great. We decided to implement a new concept (well old plone concept), how the GalleryBlock and FilelistingBlock are getting their content.

From Version 3 on upwards the default behavior is, that GalleryBlocks and FileListingBlocks are displaying content from a referenced Media Folder. The Media Folder does not get copied if using the working copy feature, thus makes it much much faster, since reindexing files is no longer necessary.

This has also the advantage, that files and images could be organized centrally.

Installation

• Add the package to your buildout configuration:

[instance]
eggs +=
    ...
    ftw.simplelayout[mapblock]

• With ftw.simplelayout 2.0.0 we introduced Plone 5 support. But Plone 4 has different dependencies. In order to use ftw.simplelayout 2.0.0 with Plone 4 also install the plone4 extra

[instance]
eggs +=
    ...
    ftw.simplelayout[mapblock, plone4]

Then you have several profiles to choose from:

• ftw.simplelayout lib profile - Just the basics without any ContentTypes. This profile is also available for Plone 5
• ftw.simplelayout default profile - Installs Simplelayout with default ContentTypes and everything you need to create content the Simplelayout way.
• Overlays for manipulating blocks, such as adding, deleting and modifying.
• Saving the current Simplelayout state.
• Loading the configuration of a simplelayout page.
• Reloading blocks with additional parameters, view, or data attributes.

Usage

First steps

It's a good idea to install the default profile, which ships some basic contenttypes, such as ContentPage and TextBlock.

Simply add a new ContentPage instead of a Plone Document. A Toolbox appears on the right, which allows you to create content on/in your ContentPage with Simplelayout.

By default you can choose between a 1 column, 2 Column or 4 Column layout. Simplelayout adds an empty 1 column layout for you by default, so you can directly start adding a Block.

Just drag the Block of your choice, for example a TextBlock, into the layout. Enter title, body text and/or an image. Then click save.

As you can see, you never have to leave the ContentPage, all actions with Simplelayout are asynchronous. This means adding, deleting and editing always opens an overlay, where you can make the modifications.

RESTAPI

Simplelayout supports the plone.restapi (read only). The simplelayout page state is accessable with the key "simplelayout". The key "slblocks" stores a UID -> Block Json mapping, which is handy to access the blocks via the page state. The block configuration is accessable per block via the key "block-configuration"

The key "blocks" was already in use by Plone.

Load the restapi extras by adding the following to your buildout config

[instance]
eggs +=
    ...
    ftw.simplelayout[contenttypes, restapi]

Contenttypes

Simplelayout ships by default with two content types. One folderish type, the ContentPage and one block type, the TextBlock.

ContentPage

The ContentPage is a simple folderish dexterity based contenttype, which does nearly nothing, but has the @@simplelayout-view view configured by default. It's possible to add a ContentPage within a ContentPage

TextBlock

The TextBlock provides the following fields:

• Title (Well, this will be the title of the block, rendered as h2).
• Show title? (Decide if the title will be displayed or not).
• Text
• Image

Title, or Text, or the image is needed to successfully add a new block

The TextBlock configuration allows you to use this block to show text only or images only, or of course both. There's no need of a single block for images and a single block for text.

Add TextBlock

Extra Blocks

AliasBlock

The AliasBlock can be installed with an extra aliasblock. The block uses the SCSS variable $color-primary for its styling which can be overwritten by a custom design. The dropzonewrapper class is set to display: none; to avoid errors trying to upload content on the AliasBlock. There is also a link provided to jump to the original content.

All Blocks within this package, ftw.addressblock and ftw.sliderblock are supported. Other Blocks from different packages or policies won't work because the list of aliasable blocks is hardcoded. This list of blocks is available via ftw.simplelayout.aliasblock.contents.aliasblock.get_selectable_blocks.

It's also possible to select a whole ContentPage to render within the AliasBlock. It's not possible however to select a ContentPage which already contains an AliasBlock or the ContentPage an AliasBlock is being created on to prevent recursion.

Behaviors

• The Teaser behavior is enabled by default on TextBlock. It allows you to add an internal or external link to the block.
• The show_title behavior is disabled by default. It can be enabled to add a checkbox to the configuration of contentpages. With this checkbox, the title can be hidden.

Portlets

ftw.simplelayout provides a Simplelayout Portlet which alows you to move Blocks into the right, or left column. You simply have to assign the portlet on a specific context, or type.

Example (How to assign the portlet by default to all Simplelayout ContentPages).

portlets.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<portlets>
    <assignment
      manager="plone.rightcolumn"
      category="content_type"
      key="ftw.simplelayout.ContentPage"
      type="ftw.simplelayout.portlet"
      insert-before="*">
    </assignment>
</portlets>

Simplelayout your site

Yes it's simple:

• Add layouts by Drag'n'Drop
• Add Blocks by Drag'n'Drop
• Upload images directly by Drag'n'Drop [Comming soon]
• Change representation of blocks directly on the Block itself
• Responsive by default
• Create multiple column pages with ease.
• Uninstall profile

Development

Python:

1. Fork this repo
2. Clone your fork
3. Shell: ln -s development.cfg buidlout.cfg
4. Shell: python boostrap.py
5. Shell: bin/buildout

Run bin/test to test your changes.

Or start an instance by running bin/instance fg.

Creating a new Block

Make your content 'blockish', needs only two steps.

1. The only difference between a block and other DX content types is the SimplelayoutBlockBehavior. You can simply add the Block behavior to your content by adding the following line to FTI:

<property name="behaviors">
    <element value="ftw.simplelayout.interfaces.ISimplelayoutBlock" />
</property>

2. In order for your block to know how to represent itself on a simplelayout page you need to register a block_view for your Block.

Register view with zcml:

<browser:page
    for="my.package.content.IMyBlock"
    name="block_view"
    permission="zope2.View"
    class=".myblock.MyBlockView"
    template="templates/myblockview.pt"
    />

Corresponding template:

<h2 tal:content="context/Title">Title of block</h2>

<!-- Assume you got a text field on your content -->
<div tal:replace="structure here/text/output | nothing" />

Basically that's it :-) You just created a new block!!

Create custom actions for Blocks

Global Simplelayout configuration

Create new Block representations

Directly edit items in a folderish block

To implement this, you just need to place a link in the rendered block. Assume you want to edit a file in a listing block: you need a link, which is pointing to ./sl-ajax-inner-edit-view, has the css class inneredit and a data attribute named uid containing the uid of the content.

<a href="./sl-ajax-inner-edit-view"
   class="inneredit"
   tal:attributes="data-uid file_object/UID">EDIT</a>

After editing the content, the view automatically reloads the block.

Additional plone.restapi methods

After creating blocks in a simplelayout content page they should be synchronized with the pages config. Otherwise the order in the frontend might be wrong. It also removes objects which are in the pages config but not in the page itself.

To do this, you can simply send a RestAPI Post (more information about plone.restapi ) request to the path of your page, appended with @sl-synchronize-page-config-with-blocks. A dict with added and removed block UIDs is returned.

Staging

Simplelayout provides integration level tools for setting up a staging solution for content pages. An IStaging adapter provides the functionality for making working copies and applying the changed content of the working copy onto the baseline. Simplelayout does not provide an integration; the integration must be implemented on project level.

Simple usage example:

from Acquisition import aq_inner
from Acquisition import aq_parent
from ftw.simplelayout.staging.interfaces import IStaging

# Make a working copy of "baseline" in the folder "target"
target = aq_parent(aq_inner(baseline))
working_copy = IStaging(baseline).create_working_copy(target)

# Apply the working copy content to the baseline:
IStaging(working_copy).apply_working_copy()

# Or discard the working copy:
IStaging(working_copy).discard_working_copy()

Although the staging can be integrated in various ways (actions, events, etc.), it is usually integrated in the workflow. Since ftw.lawgiver >= 1.15.0, it supports [intercepting transitions](https://github.com/4teamwork/ftw.lawgiver/blob/master/README.rst#intercept-and-customize-transitions), which can be used for integrating a staging solution.

When the working copy is created, only simplelayout block children are copied from the baseline to the working copy. This has the advantage that a root page of a large structure can be revised and copied without a performance problem because of many subpages.

When the working copy is applied back, the content of its children are copied back to the baseline. The simplelayout state and relations are updated accordingly.

Run custom JS code

Some Blocks need to run some JS code after rendering or for the widget itself while adding/editing. For this use case you can simply listen to the jquerytools overlay events.

Run JS after adding and editing a Block

This example has been taken from the MapBlock. It uses the onBeforeClose event of jquerytools Overlay to load the collectivegeo map.

$(function(){
  $(document).on('onBeforeClose', '.overlay', function(){
    if ($.fn.collectivegeo) {
      $('.widget-cgmap').filter(':visible').collectivegeo();
    }
  });
});

Run JS after the overlay has been displayed

This example has been taken from the MapBlock. It uses the onLoad event of jquerytools Overlay to load the collectivegeo map in edit mode.

$(function(){
  $(document).on('onLoad', '.overlay', function(){
    if ($.fn.collectivegeo) {
      var maps = $('.widget-cgmap').filter(':visible');
      var map_widgets = $('.map-widget .widget-cgmap').filter(':visible');
      maps.collectivegeo();
      map_widgets.collectivegeo('add_edit_layer');
      map_widgets.collectivegeo('add_geocoder');
    }
  });
});

More JS events

jQueryTools Overlay provides two more events:

• onBeforeLoad
• onClose

Check jQueryTools Overlay Documentation

Modify the Simplelayout configuration

The simplelayout JS lib can be modified by the data-sl-settings on the simplelayout container. Currently supported settings:

• layouts
• canChangeLayouts

1. You're able to modify those settings globally through the Simplelayout control panel. For example:

{"layouts": [1]}

All Simplelayout sites are configured to have only 1 column Layouts

2. Using a ISimplelayoutContainerConfig Adapter, which adapts a context and request, which means you can have different settings for different Simplelayout enabled types.

Example:

from ftw.simplelayout.contenttypes.contents.interfaces import IContentPage
from ftw.simplelayout.interfaces import ISimplelayoutContainerConfig


class ContenPageConfigAdapter(object):
    implements(ISimplelayoutContainerConfig)

    def __init__(self, context, request):
        pass

    def __call__(self, settings):
        settings['layouts'] = [1]

    def default_page_layout():
        return None

provideAdapter(ContenPageConfigAdapter,
               adapts=(IContentPage, Interface))

Note 1: The adapter gets called with the settings Dictionary, so you don't have to return it.

Note 2: With the default_page_layout method you can also define default layouts, which are pre-rendered on a empty page.

3. Using the View itself, by overwrite the update_simplelayout_settings method.

from ftw.simplelayout.browser.simplelayout import SimplelayoutView


class CustomSimplelayoutView(SimplelayoutView):

    def update_simplelayout_settings(self, settings):
        settings['layouts'] = [1, 4]

4. By default the canChangeLayouts option is injected by the Simplelayout provider. It checks if the current logged in user has the ftw.simplelayout: Change Layouts permission.

OpenGraph support

Simplelayouts provides a basic OpenGraph integration. You can disable (Simplelayout Settings - Control Panel) Opengraph for the plone root as you wish, because it's enabled by default. On Simplelayout sites itself the OpenGraph meta tags can be controlled by the OpenGraph marker behavior.

Migration from ftw.contentpage

This package is the successor of ftw.contentpage. In order to migrate from ftw.contentpage types to ftw.simplelayout types, take a look at the preconfigured inplace migrators in the migration.py module of ftw.simplelayout.

Client Library

Building

Rebuilding the library (resources/ftw.simplelayout.js):

yarn build

To watch for changes and rebuild the bundle automatically:

yarn watch

You can get an expanded version of the compiled js, by disabling the uglifying with the additional option optimize: "none" in the Gruntfile.js.

Testing

Running all test:

npm test

or

grunt test

Running a specific test:

grunt test --grep="Name of your test"

Getting started

Toolbox

Provide a toolbox instance for the simplelayout.

var toolbox = new Toolbox({
  layouts: [1, 2, 4],
  canChangeLayout: true, // Decides if toolbox get rendered
  blocks: [
    { title: "Textblock", contentType: "textblock", formUrl: "URL",
      actions: {
        edit: {
          class="edit",
          description: "Edit this block",
          someCustomAttribute: "someCustomValue"
        },
        move: {
          class: "move",
          description: "Move this block"
        }
      }
    },
    { title: "Listingblock", contentType: "listingblock", formUrl: "URL" }
  ],
  layoutActions: {
    actions: {
      move: {
        class: "iconmove move",
        title: "Move this layout arround."
      },
      delete: {
        class: "icondelete delete",
        title: "Delete this layout."
      }
    }
  },
  labels: {
    labelColumnPostfix: "Column(s)" // Used for label in toolbox
  }
});

Blocks

Actions

Simplelayout

Use toolbox instance for initializing a simplelayout.

var simplelayout = new Simplelayout({toolbox: toolbox});

Deserialize

Use existing markup for deserializing the simplelayout state.

Provided HTML Structure

<div class="sl-simplelayout" id="slot1">
  <div class="sl-layout">
    <div class="sl-column">
      <div class="sl-block" data-type="textblock">
        <div class="sl-block-content"></div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="sl-column">
      <div class="sl-block" data-type="textblock">
        <div class="sl-block-content"></div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="sl-column">
      <div class="sl-block" data-type="textblock">
        <div class="sl-block-content">
          <p>I am a textblock</p>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="sl-column"></div>
  </div>
</div>

Make sure that each datatype in the structure is covered in the toolbox.

Events

Attach events using the singleton instance of eventEmitter.

var simplelayout = new Simplelayout({toolbox: toolbox});
simplelayout.on(eventType, callback);

Eventtypes

blockInserted(block)

block-committed(block)

block-rollbacked(block)

beforeBlockMoved(block)

blockMoved(block)

blockDeleted(block)

layoutInserted(layout)

layout-committed(layout)

layout-rollbacked(layout)

layoutMoved(layout)

layoutDeleted(layout)

DOM properties

Each block and layout is represented in the DOM through an ID.

Each DOM element provides the following properties:

• object --> object representation in simplelayout
• parent --> parent object representation in simplelayout
• id --> generated UUID for this element
• represents --> representer from origin (empty if object only exists locally)

These properties can get extracted as a jQueryElement:

var block = $(".sl-block").first();
var blockObj = block.data().object;

TODO

• Update/Finish examples.
• Update/Add images (animated gifs).
• Improve Plone 5 support (probably with plone 5 contentttypes).
• Archetypes block integration (for legacy packages).

Links

• Github: https://github.com/4teamwork/ftw.simplelayout
• Issues: https://github.com/4teamwork/ftw.simplelayout/issues
• Pypi: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/ftw.simplelayout
• Continuous integration: https://jenkins.4teamwork.ch/search?q=ftw.simplelayout

Copyright

This package is copyright by 4teamwork.

ftw.simplelayout is licensed under GNU General Public License, version 2.