Page model

Overview

A WebCmsPage is a component that represents a single page in the application. It differs from an article>in that the page is stand-alone, i.e. you have more control regarding the layout and the components of the page. One can use this, for example, to create about or faq pages. It is related to the publication model in that an article is contained in a page: the data is contained in the article component, but how the article is rendered is handled by the page.

Properties

Name Type Mandatory Description Default Value

Page Type

Page Type

Yes

Defines the page type of a page. Can be set during page creation but can not be changed afterwards.

Default

Title

String

Yes

The title of the page.

None

Parent

Select

No

Parent page of the page. Affects any generated URLs and (if auto-generated) the canonical path.

None

Template

String

No

The thymeleaf template of the page. The filename of the page without the extension. If none is defined the one from the page type is used.

None

Path Segment

String

No

The path segment of the page.

None

Auto create menu items

Checklist of menu names.

No

If checked, a menu item is generated for the checked menu(s).

None

There are two configurable subsections, one for URL settings and one for publication settings

URL settings

Field Type Mandatory Description Default Value

Path Segment

String

Yes

Path (URL) of the page.

None

Canonical path

String

Yes

FQDN of the page. Must be unique within the application.

None

Both of these can be generated manually or automatically, depending on the title and parent (and grandparent, and …​) of the page by checking the relevant checkboxes.

Publish settings

Field Type Mandatory Description Default Value

Published

Boolean

Yes

If the page is published (or not). Published pages are visible for regular, non-logged in users.

None

Publication Date

Date

No

The page is only visible if the access date of the file is greater than the publication date.

None

Auto-create new menu items

Boolean

Yes

If checked, creates a new menu item after creation.

False

When creating or updating the page, the following updates are done with regards to the associated URLs:

  • If the page object is saved, and the publication is in the future or not yet published, update the primary url.

  • If the page object is saved and published but the publication date is in the past, no adjustments to the primary url will happen.

This, however, can be overridden by behaviour defined in WebCmsMenu.

Page template

A page can optionally specify a template that should be used for rendering. If the template is left empty, the template attribute of the WebCmsPageType will be used as template for rendering instead. If the WebCmsPageType does not specify a template either, the value of module setting webCmsModule.pages.default-template will be used.

A page template will usually be resolved by the configured Spring MVC ViewResolver beans. By default page templates are expected to be Thymeleaf template files.

At startup of the application, WebCmsModule will attempt to determine the default template path of the current application. Any relative template will then be automatically prefixed with the default template path. Only templates with a specified prefix (eg. th/) are considered absolute and will be left untouched.

The default file extension .html does not need to be specified when setting the template value.

Example: MyApplication would resolve the default template path as th/my/.

  • template my-template would be resolved as th/my/template

  • template th/other-module/my-template would be resolved as th/other-module/my-template

You can manually specify the default template prefix using property webCmsModule.pages.template-prefix. See the module settings for all options you can configure if you want to change the default template resolving behaviour.

Web Components

A WebCmsPage can contain different WebCmsComponent assets. Those form the building blocks of the pages. For further information, please check the chapters on components.

URLs

A WebCmsPage can be referred to by different URLs. Please see the respective chapter for more information.

Importing a page

One can import a page by using the import infrastructure provided by the import functionality of WebCmsModule.

Examples

Example page

page:
  - title: Always Created Page (1)

  - objectId: "wcm:asset:page:reference-simple"
    title: Simple Page

  - objectId: "wcm:asset:page:reference-simple-child"
    title: Simple Child Page
    parent: "wcm:asset:page:reference-simple" (2)
    published: true

  - objectId: "wcm:asset:page:reference-fixed-path-segment"
    title: Fixed Path Segment Page
    parent: /simple-page (2)
    pathSegment: fixed
    publicationDate: "2017-03-14"

  - objectId: "wcm:asset:page:reference-faq"
    title: Frequently Asked Questions
    pathSegment: faq
    wcm:menu-items: (3)
      - menu: sideNav
      - menu: topNav
        title: FAQ
        path: /help/faq
        sortIndex: 10
1 Sensible defaults are used. Only title is mandatory.
2 One can refer to both the object id and the canonical path.
3 You can use this notation to manipulate the associated menu items.

Properties

Page properties that can be imported
Property On UI Details

title

Title

parent

Parent

Should be the canonical path or the objectId

pathSegment

Path segment

pathSegmentGenerated

Generate path segment based on title

canonicalPath

Canonical Path

canonicalPathGenerated

Generate canonical path based on title

template

Template

pageType

Page type

Only supported during creation; if you do an update where the type has been changed an exception will be thrown.

objectId

-

isPublished

Published

publicationDate

Publication Date

WebCmsPageType

A WebCmsPageType is used for assigning a certain type of page to a WebCmsPage. The default page type is controlled via the webCmsModule.pages.default-page-type parameter in the configuration.

Properties

Table 1. Parameters
Field Required Type Description Default Value

Name

Yes

String

The name of the page type. Displayed in the drop down list when creating a new page.

None

Attributes

No

Attributes

The attributes affecting the behaviour when rendering/creating the page. Specified as key-value pairs.

None

wcm:components

No

Components

The components that are automatically generated when creating a page that uses this page type.

None

Attributes

Attribute Description

contentTemplate

The name of the container component whose components should be cloned to every page of that type. If omitted, a component called contentTemplate will be searched for.

defaultTemplate

The thymeleaf page that is used if there has not been a page specified on the page itself.

hasEndpoint

Whether or not an endpoint is defined for a page. If you disable this, the menu and URL functionality will be disabled on the front end.

isPublishable

Whether or not the page can be published.

Importing a page type

In the standard setup one can only manipulate the available page types via the import functionality. The default types are described further down. One can extrapolate any other needed page type from them.

Default page types

types:
  page:
    default: (1)
      name: Default
    template:
      name: Template
      attributes: (2)
        hasEndpoint: false
        isPublishable: false
1 The default page type. Notice that there are no attributes, so the default attributes specified are in effect for this type.
2 Attributes are defined as simple key-value pairs.

Another, more complex example. This page contains multiple nested containers that themselves have child components.

Tabbed

tabbed-page:
  name: Tabbed page
  attributes:
    template: th/cfr/tabbed-page
  wcm:components:
    content:
      componentType: container
      sortIndex: 1
      wcm:components:
        code:
          title: Code
          componentType: container
          wcm:components:
            introduction:
              title: introduction
              componentType: html
              sortIndex: 1 (2)
              content: | (1)
                <section>introduction</section>
            requirements:
              title: requirements
              componentType: html
              sortIndex: 2
              content: | (1)
                <section>requirements</section>
            browser-support:
              title: browser support
              componentType: html
              sortIndex: 3
              content: | (1)
                <section>browser support</section>
            further-reading:
              title: further reading
              componentType: html
              sortIndex: 4
              content: | (1)
                <section>further reading</section>
        documentation:
          title: Documentation
          componentType: html
          sortIndex: 2
        used-in:
          title: Used in
          componentType: html
          sortIndex: 3
1 Pre-filled content. When a page is created using this template, this data will be filled in (but can be changed by the user).
2 You need to manually set the sort order, or otherwise the default value (i.e. 0) will be filled in.

Web infrastructure

Any WebCmsPage will automatically create a WebCmsAssetEndpoint with generated URL values.

Default page controller model

When requesting a page endpoint a default model will be rendered:

  • the template rendered will be determined by the template property or by the WebCmsPageType if no template is set on the page itself

  • the components attached to the page will be available as page scope

  • the following model attributes will be registered:

    • page: WebCmsPage being rendered

    • asset: WebCmsPage being rendered (alias for page)

The default page model is loaded by the WebCmsPageModelLoader bean.

Custom page mapping

You can create your own page handler by using @WebCmsPageMapping annotation. The @WebCmsPageMapping annotation can be combined with other @RequestMapping annotations to create a specific match.

@WebCmsPageMapping(canonicalPath = "/my/page") (1)
public void extendSpecificPageModel( WebCmsPage page, Model model ) {
    model.addAttribute( "extraData", ... );
}

@GetMapping (2)
@WebCmsPageMapping(pageType = "static") (2)
@IgnoreEndpointModel (3)
public String renderStaticPage( WebCmsPage page, Model model ) {
    model.addAttribute( "page", page );
    return "th/my-app/static-page";
}
1 Handler method that will be used for the single page with the unique canonicalPath /my/page. The default page model will still be loaded, this handler only adds a model attribute. This handler method could optionally return a view, but since it does not, the view being rendered is still determined by the default model.
2 Handler method for a page of type static, provided the page is requested using the HTTP GET method.
3 The @IgnoreEndpointModel annotation suppresses the default page model from being loaded. The handler method should fully initialize the model required as well as return the view that should be rendered.
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