Advanced content modeling

You can use Kentico’s content only page types to build an advanced content model. This allows editors to work with shared content (reuse pages) when modeling pages. Individual pages also support workflow, localization and page-level permissions.

Kentico allows you to define a Pages field on individual page types. Using the Pages field, you can let content editors know that you expect them to reuse different pages when modeling an individual page.

For example, you can create an Article page type that consists of standard page type fields such as Header, Text, and Image. In addition to that, the article page can also consist of content from an Interesting fact page and an Author page. Both Interesting fact and Author pages are just means that editors can use to create the content of the page.

Note: This approach serves mainly for modeling of content by editors. If you need to create named, two-sided page relationships between pages, use standard page relationships.

Note

  • Changing related pages in fields with the Pages data type is not a versioned operation – pages under workflow immediately reflect such changes in their published version. Individual pages that editors add using the Pages data type can still be affected by workflow.
  • On multilingual websites, related pages are shared between all culture versions. For example, if you add pages to a field in an English version of a page, the same pages are also added for all other culture versions.
  • Copying pages does not transfer the pages configured within Pages fields. The new copy is considered as a separate page from the original, and editors can define any required relationships manually.

To allow editors to reuse pages, add the Pages form control to a page type:

  1. In the Page types application, Edit () a page type.
  2. On the Fields tab, add a New field:
    • Data type – Pages
    • Form control – Pages

Note

We do not support usage of the Pages data type field in alternative forms for page types. The Pages data type together with the Pages form control is designed only for page type fields.

  1. Use the Field caption, Field description and Explanation text fields to inform content editors how you intend them to use the field. For example:
    • Field caption – Interesting Fact and Author

    Tip

    In the advanced Editing control settings section, you can set additional optional settings for the form control. You can, for example:

    • Select a Starting path. This allows you to specify the section of the site from which content editors can select pages.
    • Choose a Limit of related pages to restrict the number of pages that an editor can add on the Form tab of a page.
  2. Save the changes.

Editors can now use this advanced content modeling technique to reuse content on the Form tab.

Developers can display the content on the live site by, for example: