Part II - Complex content types and security set up

Part I - My first content type is a prerequisite to Part II.

This is the second part of the tutorial about how to use Magnolia content types.

In this part, you will define relationships between different content types, try out the multiple property and learn to handle complex use cases using submodels. You will see how you can store data in different languages and how to set up security for a production environment.

Extended use case

In order to promote their tour guides, the travel agency Magnolia Travels decides to provide information about which office each tour guide works out of and what vehicles are available for tourists. For example, the tour office in Ho Chi Minh City currently owns five Yamaha Nuovo 135 bikes.

In the first part of the tutorial, we created a content type for tour guides. In this part, we will define two additional content types in the same domain:

  • Tour office

  • Tour vehicle

A tour office has one or more tour guides. In addition, each tour office has one or more tour vehicles available.

In the next section, we will define content types and app descriptions for the tour vehicles and the tour offices. Later on, we will define the relationships between different content types and extend the content types.

Adding new content types with apps

Add the content type definitions and app descriptors for the tour vehicles and the tour offices to the light module content-type-examples.

The new content types require a name property; we will use the automatically created name property to define the name property.

Tour vehicles

A tour vehicle has a name, vehicle type, number of seats and description.

Content Type definition

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourVehicle.yaml

datasource:
  workspace: tourvehicles
  namespaces:
    mt: https://www.magnolia-cms.com/jcr/mgnl
  autoCreate: true

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourVehicle
  properties:
    - name: vehicleType
      options:
        - name: bicycle
          value: bicycle
          label: Bicycle
        - name: motorbike
          value: motorbike
          label: Motorbike
        - name: van
          value: van
          label: Van
        - name: boat
          value: boat
          label: Boat
        - name: car
          value: car
          label: Car
        - name: other
          value: other
          label: Other
    - name: numberOfSeats
      type: Double
    - name: description
      type: richText

App descriptor

/content-type-examples/apps/tourVehicles-app.yaml

!content-type:tourVehicle
name: tourVehicles-app

Tour offices

A tour office has a name, country, city and address. It may link to tour vehicles and to tour guides.

Content Type definition

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourOffice.yaml

datasource:
  workspace: touroffices
  rootPath: /
  namespaces:
    mt: https://www.magnolia-cms.com/jcr/mgnl
  autoCreate: true

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourOffice
  properties:
    - name: city
    - name: address
    - name: country
# - name: tourGuides
# - name: allVehicles

The fields for the linked tour guides and vehicles are not properly defined yet, we will do this in the following sections.

App descriptor

/content-type-examples/apps/tourOffices-app.yaml

!content-type:tourOffice
name: tourOffices-app
#
subApps:
  detail:
    editor:
      form:
        tabs:
          default:
            fields:
              - name: address
                rows: 5

Light module file structure

Your light module should now have the following structure:

content-type-examples/
├── apps/
│ ├── tourGuides-app.yaml
│ ├── tourOffices-app.yaml
│ └── tourVehicles-app.yaml
├── contentTypes/
│ ├── tourGuide.yaml
│ ├── tourOffice.yaml
│ └── tourVehicle.yaml
└── i18n
    └── content-type-examples-backend_en.properties

Updating the i18n file

Since you have created new apps, you also need new user interface labels. Update your messages file /content-type-examples/i18n/content-type-examples-backend_en.properties to use the following version:

/content-type-examples/i18n/content-type-examples-backend_en.properties

# APPS

#
# app "tourVehicles-app"
#
tourVehicles-app = Tour vehicles
tourVehicles-app.default.label = Tour vehicle
tourVehicles-app.default.name.label = Name
tourVehicles-app.default.description.label = Description
tourVehicles-app.numberOfSeats.label = Number of seats
tourVehicles-app.vehicleType.label = Type
# browser
tourVehicles-app.browser.label = Tour vehicles
# actionbar
tourVehicles-app.browser.actionbar.sections.root.label=Vehicles
tourVehicles-app.browser.actionbar.sections.folder.label=Folder
tourVehicles-app.browser.actionbar.sections.item.label=Vehicle
# actions
tourVehicles-app.browser.actions.addItem.label=Add vehicle
tourVehicles-app.browser.actions.editItem.label=Edit vehicle
# details app
tourVehicles-app.detail.label=Add vehicle

#
# app "tourOffices-app"
#
tourOffices-app = Tour offices
tourOffices-app.browser.label = Tour offices
tourOffices-app.default.label = Tour offices
tourOffices-app.default.name.label = Name
tourOffices-app.default.city.label = City
tourOffices-app.default.country.label = Country
tourOffices-app.default.address.label = Adress
tourOffices-app.default.tourGuides.label = Guides
tourOffices-app.default.allVehicles.label = All vehicles
tourOffices-app.default.allVehicles.vehicleGroup.vehicle.label = Vehicle
tourOffices-app.default.allVehicles.vehicleGroup.amount.label = Amount
# actionbar
tourOffices-app.browser.actionbar.sections.root.label=Office
tourOffices-app.browser.actionbar.sections.folder.label=Folder
tourOffices-app.browser.actionbar.sections.item.label=Office
# actions
tourOffices-app.browser.actions.addItem.label=Add office
tourOffices-app.browser.actions.editItem.label=Edit office

#
# app "tourGuides-app"
#
tourGuides-app = Tour guides
tourGuides-app.default.label =
tourGuides-app.default.name.label = Name
tourGuides-app.default.birthday.label = Birthday
tourGuides-app.default.gender.label = Gender
tourGuides-app.default.gender.options.female = Female
tourGuides-app.default.gender.options.male = Male
tourGuides-app.default.gender.options.other = Other
tourGuides-app.default.shortBio.label = About
tourGuides-app.browser.label = Tour guide
# actionbar
tourGuides-app.browser.actionbar.sections.root.label=Guides
tourGuides-app.browser.actionbar.sections.folder.label=Folder
tourGuides-app.browser.actionbar.sections.item.label=Guide
# actions
tourGuides-app.browser.actions.addItem.label=Add guide
tourGuides-app.browser.actions.editItem.label=Edit guide

App launcher tiles

Magnolia adds the tiles for the new apps to the App launcher automatically when registering the apps. To make the app tiles appear in the App launcher, you must first restart your Magnolia session once by logging out and logging in again. For further details see App launcher layout.

App launcher tiles list

To see the list of the app tiles, click the app launcher icon to the right of the Find Bar.

App launcher tile

Checking the new content types and apps

Test the new apps work by creating some tour offices, tour guides and vehicles.

Linking content types and adding multiple values

You can define relations between different content types. An item of type A can have zero to many links to items of type B. This is called a 0-n relationship.

In this section we define a relation between tour offices and tour guides. An office may have one or many tour guides.

We will also use the multiple property to make it possible to add more than one tour guide to a given office.

Linking tour guides to offices

An office may have more than one tour guide. Edit the model property of the tourOffice content type:

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourOffice.yaml (snippet)

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourOffice
  properties:
    - name: city
    - name: address
    - name: country
    - name: tourGuides
      type: reference:tourGuide
      multiple: true

  • Line 14: For the property tourGuides, we define its type as reference:tourGuide. This value is the name of an existing content type.

  • Line 15: The multiple property with the value true makes it possible to add more than one tour guide.

Open the tourOffices-app app with the app launcher tile and add a tour guide to a tour office.

Tour offices for Germany

Creating and linking submodels

Submodels are useful whenever you need a group of fields more than once. A content type model definition can contain a list of submodel definitions within the subModels property. Submodels can be used only within the content type where they have been defined.

A submodel definition has the same properties as a model, but a submodel cannot have additional submodels.

The default nodeType for a submodels is mgnl:contentNode.

We defined the content type for tour vehicles at the beginning of this part of the tutorial. A tour vehicle has the properties: name, vehicle type, number of seats and description.

Tour vehicles app

Now we will extend the tour office to make it possible to add tour vehicles to it. We need to be able to specify the number of different vehicles. For example, the tour office in Ho Chi Minh City currently owns five Yamaha Nuovo 135 bikes.

To map this case, we add a submodel to the tourOffice content type.

Defining a submodel

Keep in mind that a submodel definition is very similar to a model definition and that a model definition can contain a list of submodels.

Here is a fragment which shows a submodel:

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourOffice.yaml (snippet)
subModels:
  - name: vehicleGroup
    properties:
      - name: vehicle
        type: reference:tourVehicle
      - name: amount
        type: Double

  • There is one submodel named vehicleGroup.

  • The submodel has two properties:

    • vehicle – Its type is reference:tourVehicle, which means that it is referring to the tourVehicle content type.

    • amount – A number to indicate how many different vehicles are available.

Linking to the submodel from a model property

After you define the submodel, you must add a property in the model with type: <submodel-name>.

This is the updated model of the tourOffice content type definition with the submodel added:

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourOffice.yaml (snippet)

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourOffice
  properties:
    - name: city
    - name: address
    - name: country
    - name: tourGuides
      type: reference:tourGuide
      multiple: true
    - name: allVehicles
      type: vehicleGroup
      multiple: true
  subModels:
    - name: vehicleGroup
      properties:
        - name: vehicle
          type: reference:tourVehicle
        - name: amount
          type: Double

  • Lines 19-25: The submodel definition.

    • Line 20: The submodel’s name is vehicleGroup (arbitrary).

  • Lines 16-18: The model property allVehicles.

    • Line 17: type has the value vehicleGroup, which is the name of a submodel.

    • Line 18: multiple enables you to choose more than one of the submodel vehicleGroup.

Now the tour offices app is ready to handle vehicles as described in the use case:

Tour vehicles country info

Complete tourOffice content type definition

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourOffice.yaml
datasource:
  workspace: touroffices
  namespaces:
    mt: https://www.magnolia-cms.com/jcr/mgnl
  autoCreate: true

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourOffice
  properties:
    - name: city
    - name: address
    - name: country
    - name: tourGuides
      type: reference:tourGuide
      multiple: true
    - name: allVehicles
      type: vehicleGroup
      multiple: true
  subModels:
    - name: vehicleGroup
      properties:
        - name: vehicle
          type: reference:tourVehicle
        - name: amount
          type: Double

Linking to items in existing content apps

We’ve looked at how to link from one content type to another. You can also link from a content type to an already existing app such as the Magnolia Assets subapp, which is not based on a content type definition.

To demonstrate this, we will extend the tour guide content type (and its app) with a new image property to assign an asset (an image) to a tour guide.

To do so:

  1. Add a new property to the model definition of the content type. Give it an arbitrary name. Here we use image:

    model:
  nodeType: mt:tourVehicle
  properties:
    - name: vehicleType
    - name: numberOfSeats
      type: Double
    - name: description
      type: richText
    - name: image

  2. Override the defaults of the field that were generated for the property:

    !content-type:tourVehicle
name: tourVehicles-app
#
subApps:
  detail:
    editor:
      form:
        tabs:
          default:
            fields:
              - name: image
                fieldType: link
                targetWorkspace: dam
                appName: assets
                label: Select image
                identifierToPathConverter:
                  class: info.magnolia.dam.app.assets.field.translator.AssetCompositeIdKeyTranslator
                contentPreviewDefinition:
                  contentPreviewClass: info.magnolia.dam.app.ui.field.DamFilePreviewComponent

Setting the fieldType and defining a Link field in the app descriptor is a feasible way to link to any content app.

Linking to assets

To link to an asset, instead of defining the link field in the app descriptor (as showed above) - use type: asset in the content type definition. In this case there is no more need to override the field in the app descriptor.

model:
  nodeType: mt:tourVehicle
  properties:
    - name: image
      type: asset

This is what the adapted tourVehicles-app looks like:

Asset image in the Tour app

Localizing content

The properties of a content type item can be stored in multiple different languages.

If localization and internationalization (i18n) are completely new to you, we suggest you read the Language section of this documentation.

Here is an overview of how you enable multilanguage content:

  1. Enable multilanguage authoring.

  2. Set i18n=true in the properties of the model definition.

  3. Define locales in the site.

To try out this feature, change the tourVehicle content type so that we can store the different language content for the description property.

How to enable multilanguage authoring

Enable multilanguage authoring in /server/i18n/authoring. This allows editors to enter the same content in multiple languages.

server:
  i18n:
    authoring:
      class: info.magnolia.multisite.i18n.MultiSiteI18nAuthoringSupport
      enabled: true
Property Description

enabled

required, default is true

Enables multilanguage content entry.

class

required

A class that implements info.magnolia.ui.api.i18n.I18NAuthoringSupport such as:

  • info.magnolia.ui.framework.i18n.DefaultI18NAuthoringSupport supports multilanguage content entry for one site.

  • info.magnolia.multisite.i18n.MultiSiteI18nAuthoringSupport supports multilanguage content entry for many sites (DX Core). This class reads the available locales (languages) from the site definitions. So you need to define them for each site.
By default, the Magnolia instance is already configured for the authoring property.

Setting the i18n property in model properties

You must enable localization of content type items for each property.

Here is an example showing only the description property enabled for multilanguage support:

/content-type-examples/contentTypes/tourVehicle.yaml (snippet)

datasource:
# ...
model:
  nodeType: mt:tourVehicle
  properties:
    - name: vehicleType
    - name: numberOfSeats
      type: Double
    - name: description
      type: richText
      i18n: true
    - name: image

Defining locales in site

If you are using the magnolia-community-demo-webapp as indicated in part I of the tutorial, your Magnolia instance already has a site with properly defined locales.

If you have no site definition, configure a site where you define at least its i18n node as shown below.

How to define locales in site

Define the languages that editors should be able to choose as locales in the site definition under <site>/i18n/locales.

Example: en, de and cs locales in an example test site definition.

test:
  i18n:
    enabled: true
    class: info.magnolia.cms.i18n.DefaultI18nContentSupport
    fallbackLocale: en
    defaultLocale: cs
    locales:
      cz:
        country: CZ
        language: cs
        enabled: true
      de:
        country: DE
        language: de
        enabled: true

Properties

Property Description

enabled

optional, default is false

Enables support for localized content. Used to rewrite URIs and getting nodes based on the current language.

class

required

Class that implements info.magnolia.cms.i18n.I18nContentSupport such as:

  • info.magnolia.cms.i18n.DefaultI18nContentSupport which supports a language prefix such as /en/* in the URL and stores localized content in a node using the naming pattern <name><locale>, for example subtitle_en.
    Use this implementation if your site is organized into a single tree, in which the locale prefix usually points to the root of a site.

  • info.magnolia.cms.i18n.HierarchyBasedI18nContentSupport which stores and serves localized content in a hierarchical structure.
    Use this implementation if your site is organized into multiple trees, in which site roots are usually named after the locales.

  • info.magnolia.cms.i18n.RequestLocaleAwareI18nContentSupport which reads the locale from the request. This implementation does not render language specific URLs.

fallbackLocale

optional, default is en

Content is served for the fallback locale if content is not available for the current locale.

defaultLocale

optional

If no locale can be determined, the default locale will be set. If no default locale is defined, the fallback locale is used.

locales

required

     <locale>

required

Locale ID that consists of language and country such as zh-TW for traditional Chinese or pt-BR for Brazilian Portuguese.

         country

optional

Country code such as BR for Brazil. See Java 8 locale IDs.

         language

required

Language code such as pt for Portuguese. See Java 8 locale IDs.

         enabled

optional, default is false

Enables the locale.
Configure locales for the fallback site

If i18n is enabled in the configuration of your content app, you need to configure locales for the fallback site or extend a site definition with locales.

Then, when editing structured content, the locales of the fallback site will be used while showing the language dropdown.

Result

Language dropdown

Setting up security

In this section, we look at how to set up security for content types and their apps in a production environment. We cover both JCR access security and app security.

In a local development environment, you can use the superuser user. Superuser has the permissions required to manage the content types and related apps that you built during this tutorial. In a production environment, you should create users with specific roles and deactivate the superuser account.

In this tutorial, we will create the ct-examples-editor role to edit the content type items on the author instance.

JCR access security

The content type items are stored in the JCR.

JCR access security

JCR access security is a feature of the JCR standard (defined by JCR JSR-170 and JSR-283). JCR access is granted per workspace on path level. It can grant Read-only or Read/Write permission. Grant JCR access lists per role.

Creating the ct-examples-editor role on the author instance

Add a role with read and write permissions for the JCR workspaces: tourguides, touroffices and tourvehicles.

  1. Log in to the Magnolia author instance as a user (such as superuser) with permission to write on the userroles workspace.

  2. Open the Security app > Roles subapp.

  3. Click Add new role.

  4. Provide values for the fields in the Role info tab:

    • Role name: ct-examples-editor

    • Full name: Example role that can edit tourguides, touroffices and tourvehicles workspaces.

  5. In the Access control lists tab, you see a list of all JCR workspaces visible to the current user.
    Create an access control list (ACL) for the workspaces tourguides, touroffices and tourvehicles. with the following settings:

    • Read/Write

    • Selected and subnodes

    • / (in the last field)

  6. Save the new role.

The system automatically creates another ACL for the workspace userroles. This ACL makes sure that the new role can read its own role definition on the workspace which stores the roles.

Here is a screenshot from the JCR ACLs for the ct-examples-editor role:

Access control lists

Assigning the ct-examples-editor role to eric the editor

In a production environment, you have different users editing content such as tour guides, tour offices, tour vehicles and others. These users do not have the superuser role.

The magnolia-community-demo-webapp we are using emulates a production environment. It already contains a user named eric that has several roles to edit different types of content.

To assign the new ct-examples-editor role to eric the editor:

  1. Log in to the Magnolia author instance as a user (such as superuser) with permission to write on the userroles workspace.

  2. Open the Security app > Users subapp.

  3. Select eric and click Edit user.

  4. Click the Roles tab. There is a Twin-column field.

  5. Select the ct-examples-editor role in the left Other available roles column and move it using the >> button to the right Granted roles column.

  6. Click Save changes.

Log out and in again as the user eric with the password eric.

Eric cannot see the app launcher tiles for the apps tourGuides-app, tourOffices-app and tourVehicles-app yet. You must enable the tour apps for Eric; you will learn how do this in the App security section.

Creating a role to read specific JCR data on the public instance

In a production environment, you would also create a role to grant read access for the new workspaces tourguides, touroffices and tourvehicles. Read only access would be assigned to the special system user anonymous. This would make sure that anonymous website visitors on the public instance would see content, once rendered, from those workspaces.

How to create this role and how to render the content types item on a website are not within the scope of this tutorial.

App security

Without any further configuration, by default, only the superuser role is granted access to an app.

The app descriptor, which defines an app, has a property named permissions. In this property, you can add a list of roles for which you want to grant app access.

Add the following code snippet to the very bottom of the YAML files for the apps tourGuides-app, tourOffices-app and tourVehicles-app:

permissions:
  roles: [ct-examples-editor]

/content-type-examples/apps/tourOffices-app.yaml

!content-type:tourOffice
name: tourOffices-app
# .-
subApps:
  detail:
    editor:
      form:
        tabs:
          default:
            fields:
              - name: address
                fieldType: text
                rows: 5
# security
permissions:
  roles: [ct-examples-editor]

Log out and in again as the user eric (you assigned the role ct-examples-editor to Eric earlier).

Eric the editor can now use all three apps: tourGuides-app, tourOffices-app and tourVehicles-app. He can add, edit and delete content items in the JCR workspaces: tourguides, touroffices and tourvehicles.

Congratulations.

You have built a complete set of content types including complex types with submodels. You have created the apps to manage the content items for these content types. You have defined relationships between content types and other, non content type-based apps. Finally, you have learned to properly adjust security settings.

Next steps

The next logical step would be to set up your Magnolia system to display the tour guides, the tour vehicles and the tour offices on your public instances for your website visitors. This could be done in different ways.

Some suggestions

Headless consumption of the content types

  • Define a REST endpoint (using the Delivery API) for each of the three content types.

  • Develop a static website that renders the data via REST delivery endpoints using Angular, ReactJS or a similar JavaScript framework.

  • Develop a mobile phone app to present the data consumed from Magnolia via REST using PhoneGap, Ionic or similar frameworks.

Embed content type items as components into pages

  • Develop some component and page templates to embed different content type items into pages (managed with the Pages app).

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