[opencms-dev] Properties template and template-elements

[Michael Emmerich]

Tim,

Paul-Inge Flakstad had a quite good explanation of those properties.

You must differ between xmlpages and structured xmlcontent.

Xmlpages is a quite old technology, this is something that is in OpenCms 
since the beginning.
If you have an xmlpage, you define the template (i.e. the general layout 
of your website) which should be used in the "template" property of your 
xmlpage.
Your template is a jsp that is located in the /templates folder of your 
module and which should contain a <cms:include element="body" /> where 
"body" is the name of the content part that should be included there.

If you now load a xmlpage, OpenCms looks at the "template" property of 
this file and calls the jsp (templete) that is contained there. This 
template jsp is then processed and the <include...> mentioned above will 
integrate the content in the produced output.


Structured xmlcontent are a newer technology and were introduced with 
OpenCms 6. To stay compatible with the older OpenCms versions, the 
handling for those kind of resources is a bit different. Most pages are 
now build using xmlcontents.

For your xmlcontent, the "template-elements" property describes which is 
the jsp that is used to create the output for the xmlcontent. We call 
those kind of jsps "detailpage" and they are normally located in the 
/pages folder of your module.

Such a detail jsp mostly looks like this

[...]
<cms:include property="template" element="head" />
[...]
<cms:contentload .... >

// your code to output the content of the xmlcontent is here

</cms_contentload>
[...]
<cms:include property="template" element="foot" />
[...]

So when you load an structured xml content, OpenCms looks at the 
"template-elements" property and calls the jsp (detailpage) that is 
contained there. This jsp is processed and according to the example 
above, it includes the "head" and "foot" part of the template to put the 
output into the correct layout of the website.
This is done by reading the "templete" property of the structured 
xmlcontent file.

Therefore, for a structured xmlcontent, the "template-elemets" property 
defines the detail page to display the content itself and the "template" 
property defines the general layout "around" the content.

Of course you could have the general layout in your detailpage, but if 
you use many different xmlcontent types on your website, its easier to 
define the general layout in a single template and use this in your 
detail pages.


Kind regards,
Michael Emmerich








Am 29.03.2010 15:33, schrieb Tim Daschner:
> Ok thanks for the clarification. So, isn't xmlpage itself a type of
> structured xmlcontent defined in opencms-modules.XML by some module? If
> so, then this usage of template property must come from the template
> used by that module. In other words template is not really used by
> opencms framework but might be used by a module that alkacon may have
> written as a part of their distro.  Did I get it right?
>
> Tim
>
>> On Mar 29, 2010 8:25 AM, "Paul-Inge Flakstad" <flakstad at npolar.no
>> <mailto:flakstad at npolar.no>> wrote:
>>
>> Tim,
>> Just to clearify: for xmlcontent ("Structured content"), the
>> "template" property isn't used by OpenCms. But for other resource
>> types, like xmlpage ("Page with free text"), it is used by OpenCms.
>> As far as I can tell, the "master template" (the surrounding outer
>> template) works in a slightly different way when working with xmlpage
>> files, compared to working with xmlcontent files:
>> For xmlpage, the master template has some <cms:include element="..."
>> /> statements that include content from the various element(s) of
>> the xmlpage.
>> For xmlcontent, the master template is included from the xmlcontent's
>> template, defined in the property "template-elements".
>> In short, xmlpage files need their "template" property set, xmlcontent
>> files need their "template-elements" property set. If done correctly,
>> you can use the same master template for both.
>> Best regards,
>> Paul
>>
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>     > From: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org
>>     <mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org>
>>     [mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org
>>     <mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org>] On Behalf Of Tim D...
>>
>>     *Sent:* 29. mars 2010 14:59
>>
>>
>>     > To: The OpenCms mailing list
>>
>>     *Subject:* Re: [opencms-dev] Properties template and template-elements
>>
>>     > Thank you folks. Yeah, that's how I have used the template
>>     elements property so far. I was not awa...
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Kind Regards,
Michael.

-------------------
Michael Emmerich

Alkacon Software GmbH  - The OpenCms Experts
http://www.alkacon.com - http://www.opencms.org