Component Types

The current siteseed release offers features not yet covered by the official documentation. One of these features are component types. They e.g. extend comon editor fields by predefined default content and a lot of other things.

Component Types

A text field as you have been used to is now a component of type "text field". Changing from old text fields to components is no problem, as all old text fields are converted to components of type text field automatically. Editors won’t recognize a difference.

New Features

All new features try to accomplish a better separation between content and layout/html.

Comment for Editors

This field allows to supply instructions for editors to let them know what they are supposed to do. This is optional.

VE

The VE check box allows to use the visual editor. If you don’t want to allow editors the usage of the visual editor, just deselect the field and the VE link won’t show up for this component. This may help to prevent spoiling a CSS-layout with format tags.

Values

The values supplyed in the values field, show up automatically once a new article is created. This may save a lot of time as editors are only required to do minor changes in case of fields that almost have the same content in every case. Text fields accept any code, other fields however require a certain format. Check boxes, select fields, etc, expect <value> tags:

<value name="Powerboast"><b>Powerboats are on sale</b></value>
<value name="Sailboats" selected><b>Sailboats are on sale</b></value>

The code above does only make sense if an appropriate type has been selected. For radio buttons the article editor result would look like:

Sailboats is selected due to the selected option used in the value code above. The name is used for both the label and internal identifier. The internal identifier is used to e.g. sort the list values and to memorize if a value has been selected or not. So avoid changing names. Changing them doesn’t change the component content immediately, but the next time an article is changed, Siteseed isn’t able to decide anymore whether that particular field was selected or deselected. The values between the <value> and </value> tags is used as content. From now on we call it the value. So, for the above example it means, if "Powerboats" is selected <b>Sailboats are on sale</b> is taken as value/content. In case of check fields or multiple select fields it’s possible to select several values. In this case the content is put together by using all selected values. If content is supplied for the "separate by" field, it is used to separate the values from each other. This string will then be saved as content of this component as long as the article isn’t edited. So, changing stuff between value tags, won’t take effect until the articles are saved again.

Sorting

Can be used to select the preferred method of sorting for <value> lists. The are sorted by name.

Separate by

In case of more than one list element selected, the content of the separate by field is used to separate the list values.

New Field Types

This is an overview of all new component field types:

Text Field

Figure 1: A Text Field Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case "Text Field".
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	How many character columns do we want to have for the text field?
Rows:	How many rows do we want to have for the text field?
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of text field. Zero ("0") means no limit.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	Make visual editor accessible.
Values:	Whole content of this field will be used as predefined content for new articles.
Order:	n/a
Separate by:	n/a

Figure 2: And this is how it looks like to an editor.

---

Check Box

Figure 3: A Check Box Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case “Check Box”.
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	n/a
Rows:	n/a
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of component. Zero ("0") means no limit and is recommended for check box types.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	n/a
Values:	<value> style, used to define and preselect check boxes for new articles. Option “selected” can be applied on all check box list items.
Order:	Allows to order check box list.
Separate by:	Content for this component is assembled by using all selected list values separated by content of "Separate by" field.

Figure 4: The component as seen by an editor. The generated content for this case would be:
Value 1<br>Value 3

---

Select Field

Figure 5: A Select Field Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case "Select Field".
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	n/a
Rows:	Can be used to set the size (height) of the select field.
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of component. Zero ("0") means no limit and is recommended for select field types.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	n/a
Values:	<value> style, used to define and preselect select fields for new articles. Option "selected" must not be applied more than once.
Order:	Allows to order select field list.
Separate by:	n/a

Figure 6: The component as seen by an editor. The generated content for this case would be:
Value 2

---

Choice Field

Figure 7: A Choice Field Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case "Choice Field".
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	n/a
Rows:	n/a
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of text field. Zero (“0”) means no limit.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	Make visual editor accessible.
Values:	<value> style, used to define select list for choice field. It is not possible to preselect values.
Order:	Allows to order choice field list.
Separate by:	n/a

Figure 8: The component as seen by an editor.

---

Multiple Select Field

Figure 9: A Multiple Select Field Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case “Select Field”.
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	n/a
Rows:	Can be used to set the size (height) of the multiple select field.
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of component. Zero (“0”) means no limit and is recommended for multiple select field types.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	n/a
Values:	<value> style, used to define and preselect multiple select fields for new articles. Option “selected” can be applied more than once.
Order:	Allows to order select field list
Separate by:	Content for this component is assembled by using all selected list values separated by content of “Separate by” field.

Figure 10: The component as seen by an editor.  The generated content for this case would be:
Value 2<br>Value 3<br>Value5

---

Radio Buttons

Figure 11: A Radio Button Component

Search:	Makes component field searchable. Search index of content is created automatically.
Component Name:	Name shown to the editor.
Type:	Defines the component type, in this case “Radio Buttons”.
Order:	Defines the display order for the article editor.
Columns:	n/a
Rows:	n/a
Bytes:	Limit in bytes for content of component. Zero (“0”) means no limit and is recommended for radio button types.
Comment for Editors:	Comment shown to the editor. Can be used for e.g. instructions, explanations, etc…
VE:	n/a
Values:	<value> style, used to define and preselect radio button list element for new articles. Option “selected” must not be applied more than once.
Order:	Allows to order radio button list.
Separate by:	n/a

Figure 12: The component as seen by an editor. The generated content for this case would be:
Value 1