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Define a content type

Locomotive allows you to create content types without imposing a specific pre-built structure. No SQL knowledge is required here.

Your content types can then be used directly in your Liquid templates.

Generate it with Wagon

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Before further reading, make sure you created a site with Wagon.

Wagon provides you the generate command to help you to create the YAML file describing your content type.

cd ~/workspace/my_first_site
bundle exec wagon generate content_type events title:string description:text event_date:date

It will generate 2 files:

  • app/content_types/events.yml
  • data/events.yml

The first one contains the content_type declaration, the second contains sample data so that you can test your site with fake data. Some random data have been added.

📘

Use plural for your content type names.

Examples: posts, articles, photos, success_stories, ...etc.

📘

The available field types are

string, text, file, select, boolean, date, date_time, tags, integer, float, belongs_to, has_many, many_to_many.

Description of the YAML file

Here are the properties you can use on app/content_types/*.yml files. All the content types should be plural filenames.

Example of an Article content type:

name: Articles
description: Just a simple blog module
order_by: posted_at
order_direction: desc
slug: articles
label_field_name: title
fields:
- title:
    label: Title
    type: string
    hint: The title of the article
- posted_at:
    label: Posted at
    type: date
    hint: The date when the article has been or will be posted.
- body:
    label: Body
    type: text
    text_formatting: html
    hint: The body of the article

Property

Type

Description

name

String

Public name of the content type. Use plural.

slug

String

Internal name of the content type. Use plural and lower case, no space.

description

String

Explanation displayed in the backoffice.

label_field_name

String

Field slug. Default field slug (generally title), it must be a string field. It is advised to not use relationship fields as it might cause issues with public entry submissions.

order_by

String

Any field slug or 'manually' or 'created_at'. Changes the order of content entries in backoffice and content entries.

order_direction

String

'asc' or 'desc'

group_by

String

Field slug. Display entries grouped by the given field in the backoffice.

public_submission_enabled

Boolean

Activate public 'create' API (e.g for a contact form)

public_submission_accounts

Array

Array of emails to be notified of new entries made with the public API. Works only in the Engine, not with Wagon.

display_settings

Hash

Control the display of the content type in the back-office. Possible values:

  • seo: [Boolean]
  • advanced: [Boolean]
  • position: [Integer]
  • hidden: [Boolean]

entry_template

String

By default, the back-office displays the _label property (see label_field_name) of the content entry. This can be modified by writing your own Liquid template.
Example: {{ entry._label }}

fields

Hash

List of fields whose structure is described below

Fields types

The minimal structure:

field_slug:
  type: <type>
  option: value

Common properties of fields

Property

Description

label

String

Required. Label for the backoffice

required

Boolean

default false

hint

String

Displays a hint in the backoffice.

localized

Boolean

Default false. Makes this field localized: each language will have a different value.

unique

Boolean

Default false. Makes this field unique. Useful for email fields.

Depending on the field type, you can provide one or more options.

Type

Description

string

Standard string field

text

Longer field.
Use with the text_formatting option:

  • html: option to display a wysiwyg editor in the backoffice
  • markdown
  • raw

select

Add select_options: ["value 1", "value 2"] or for multilingual:

select_options:
  en: ["Value 1", "Value 2"]
  fr: ["Valeur 1", "Valeur 2"]

file

No option, get the url with product.the_photo.url in your code.

integer

Integer field. No option.

float

Float field. No option.

date

Date field. No option.

date_time

DateTime field. No option.

boolean

true or false field. No option.

tags

Tags field. No option.

belongs_to

Example with product belongs to a category, field 'category' in products.yml: class_name: categories

has_many

Declare a relationship between 2 content types. Example with category has many products (field 'products' in categories.yml):

class_name: products
inverse_of: category
ui_enabled: true

Notice the plurals and singulars.

many_to_many

Example with products has and belongs to many categories. In products.yml:

class_name: products
inverse_of: category
ui_enabled: true

Updated 14 days ago