Overview

CMF Portal Layout consist of a tool - portal_layout - a Zope class, some layout plugins and a collection of scripts which together gives the ability to create dynamic menus, content boxes etc. and place them in different layout columns.

Details

The products is divided in a portal tool where you create general formatting rules and a selection of layout plugins which does the actual rendering based on the formatting rules and their own special rules. The product includes a small collection of plugins.

• AboutBox renders information regarding the current object with help from a format object (see below).
• ActionsMenu creates a menu of portal actions based on the action category and whether the to get the actions from the current object or its folder.
• BreadcrumbsBox creates a breadcrumb list you can place anywhere on your page.
• CalendarBox creates a box containing a calendar that can list objects of types you select.
• ContentMenu creates a box containing one or more portal object(s) without rendering the entire main template.
• ImageMenu creates a box containing an image. You can also let the image link to something (e.g. use it for portal logo).
• IntervalList creates a box containing content that fits the interval settings you have selected.
• LanguageBox creates a box where you can select which language you will use at the portal (will only work if you have Localizer installed).
• LayoutBox creates a layout box inside the column you add it to. This way you can have columns inside columns.
• LinkMenu creates a link box with links you define on you own. You can choose to either link to some content on the portal, link to another layout object or a hardcoded link.
• ListMenu creates list boxes with links to selected portal objects that is selected based on their portal type, their subjects and their search path.
• LoginBox creates a box that will be displayed for anonymous users. Here people can login from.
• OrderedMenu creates a list of sorted filtered and links to the contents of the current folder.
• RSSMenu creates a box containing links parsed from a RSS feed.
• SearchBox creates a box containing a simple search form.
• SubjectSearch creates a dynamic list of searches based on the available subjects for the specified portal types and a search path.
• ToolBox creates a box where you in a very easy way can add content from. Requires CMFTypeFilter

The portal_layout tool has the special tabs Types, Formats, Format Elements, Styles and Links. I will explain their function below.

• Types - Here you can select a subset of portal types that should be available for the layout plugins such as List Menus, Sorted Menus and Subject Search.
• Styles - Here you can define different styles e.g. Header, Description etc. These styles is rendered as class names in the included css stylesheet.
• Format Elements - These are named TALES expressions which retrieves data from the objects used by the layout plugins. The pre-defined elements is mostly Dublin Core metadata but you are free to create your own specialized format elements. You must be aware that there is no error checking to whether the queried object really has the property you are querying it for.
• Formats - Here everything is pu together. Formats are Zope objects which combines Styles and Format Elements to create a special formatting rule. An example of such a format object could be called something like Icon, Title and description and would contain four format lines:
  • The Format Element Icon.
  • The Format Element Title with the Link property set and using the Heading style.
  • A NewLine.
  • A HorizontalLine.
  • A TextLine containing hardcoded text.
  • The Format Element Description using the Style Description.
• Links - Here you can define where different lines in a format object can link to.

Usage

Quickstart

When you have installed the product (see INSTALL.txt) you will have to make a few modifications before your users/administrators can gain benefit from it.

As you might have noticed there is now a new tool in your CMF Site called portal_layout (in the ZMI).

When you have selected which portal types your users should be able to select when selecting types for list menus, sorted menus and dynamic searches, then click on the Format tab and create some formats (info available on the page).

Now you should be ready to start using the Layouts!

Go to the root of your CMF Site (not in the ZMI) and select Layout. If this action is not available you may have a customized site. The action is available in the folder category of the portal actions.