Content Module Principles

In the Content Module, we directly render the frontend of the website, and then augment it with the Neos Content Editing User Interface.

Because of this, we do not control all CSS or javaScript which is included on the page; so we need some special guidelines to deal with that. These are listed on this page.

Naming of main UI parts

The following image shows the main UI parts of the content module and the names we use for them.

Content Module Architecture

The whole Content Module is built around the Aloha Blocks. Blocks are un-editable elements of a website, which are managed by Aloha. They can appear inside or outside editables, can be nested, and can appear either as inline element (<span>) or as block-level element(<div>).

Only one block is active at any given time. When a block is active, then all its parent blocks are selected. The block selection contains the active block as first element and all other selected blocks from innermost to outermost.

Most of the UI changes depending on the current block selection.

User Interface Updates on Selection Change

The following diagram shows how the UI is changing when the block selection changes:

The neosintegration Aloha Plugin (located in alohaplugins/neosintegration/lib/neosintegration-plugin.js) hooks into the Aloha event which is triggered whenever the block selection changes. Whenever this event is triggered, it calls T3.Content.Model.BlockSelection.updateSelection().
We need to wrap each Aloha Block with a Ember.js Block (later only called Block), so we can attach event listeners to it. This wrapping is done by the BlockManager
The BlockManager either returns existing Ember.js Blocks (if the given Aloha Block has already been wrapped), or creates a new one.
Then, the BlockSelection sets its content property, which the UI is bound to. Thus, all UI elements which depend on the current block selection are refreshed.

User Interface Updates updates on property change

When an attribute is modified through the property panel, the following happens:

WARNING: TODO: Document what happens when an editable is modified

Node Property Naming Conventions

TODO write some intro text

Normal properties

Those properties contain normal values like a title, date or other value. Serverside setting of the property is done using Neos ContentRepository Node::setProperty()
Visibility / lifecycle properties

These properties are prefixed using an underscore, like ‘_hidden’. Serverside setting of the property is done using Neos ContentRepository Node::set<UpperCamelCasePropertyname>()
Neos internal properties

These properties are prefixed with a double underscore, like __workspacename TODO: internal

Saving content

Saving is triggered using T3.Content.Model.Changes.save() and is very straight-forward. For now, we use ExtDirect to send things back to the server.