Broadleaf Commerce Discussion Forums

Hi,

I was following CMS tutorial, and managed to make RightHandSideBanner Ad work as BLC demo site works.

Now I have a more complex request. I need to have 4 images and 4 URL links as description of ONE banner space.

Client has an idea to use carousel to rotate those images.

I was thinking about solution to have one more complex BLC_FLD_GROUP with 8 BLC_FLD_DEF (2 fields per image representing image url and URL link that correlates that image)

Then I would have e.g. 'Carousel banner' as BLC_SC_FLD_TMPLT and ofcourse BLC_SC_FLDGRP_XREF, BLC_SC_TYPE, BLC_SC, BLC_SC_FLD and BLC_SC_FLD_MAP that follow that NEW field group definition.

In HTML, stuff stays the same, <blc:content contentType="Carousel Banner Ad" />
and then I would have something like:



I think that this should work.

But I was thinking about more elegant solution.

E.g. Anyway all fields are same. They all have: imageURL and targetURL. But I have them four instead of just one. Is there maybe some solution to iterate through contentItem, e.g. JSTL c:forEach ???

Or I expect too much?

Thank You

You're right, a more elegant solution does exist and you've come to the right place to find it

Rather than try to create multiple field groups, instead create a single field group, 2 field defs (representing image url and url link), a single fld template, and a SC_TYPE. Call the SC_TYPE something like 'Carousel Images'. In the admin, you can now create structured content keyed off of that 'Carousel Images' type: http://cl.ly/image/0o2D1o0e2y0R

After you've created some pieces of content for that particular content type, let's look at the Javadocs for the ContentProcessor (I know this is not easy to find; we're looking for a better solution for documenting these processors):



So this says that we can pass in the name of a content type and then get back all of the items in the list in a model variable called 'contentList'. So this would look exactly like the c:forEach you mentioned:



This loops through all of the items in the list corresponding to the 'Carousel Images' content type and outputs the fields within each content item. For more on the th:each processor, check out the Thymeleaf docs.

Great!

Thank you for your help. I've done it as suggested. Used 'Ad Template' as from demo, but defined one new BLC_SC_TMPLT. And defined 4 BLC_SC records but all of them of same Structured Content Template.

Figured it out that, <blc:content> will pick all items of same "template". So it will pick up 4 items and populate each <li> element with imageUrl and targetUrl.

So everythings works like a charm.

I have just one question more regarding this. I had to prepare everything for creating BLC_SC, I mean I have to create FLD_GROUP, FLD_DEF, BLC_SC_TEMPLATE. And only way I can do that is executing SQL updates.
Is this only way to do so?


Thank you once again for your help.

Actually, all you have looking at AdTemplate. Carousel is nothing more than 2, 3 images downloaded by your browser while page renders, just setting display:none or removing this css attribute, depending of position in carousel.

I am not sure where you are stalled, so please download DemoSite look how 'Right Hand Side' banner works. You will get idea what needs to be done. If you can't make it work, post here your problem. I will try to help you.

Thank you