Part III - Fine-tuning a basic content app

This is the third and final part of the My first content app tutorial.

The content type allows you to define the actual content model. Magnolia then creates an editing interface automatically, but you have the ability to tune every aspect of the interface to its final form as required by a specific use case.

This page describes how you can fine-tune the app to the requirements set out in the use case defined for this tutorial. You also add and polish the i18n labels and descriptions for the elements of the app’s UI.

Fine-tune the app descriptor

First, change the bookshelf-app.yaml app descriptor, to:

  • Add an app icon

  • Tailor the properties

Open the file, located in the bookshelf light module apps folder, edit it as follows and save it:

bookshelf-app.yaml (app descriptor)
!content-type:book
name: bookshelf-app
icon: icon-content-app (1)
subApps:
  detail:
    form:
      properties:
        ed: (2)
          fieldType: checkbox
        title: (3)
          rows: 2
        description: (4)
          rows: 5 (5)
          maxLength: 5000
        publish_date: (6)
          fieldType: date
        isbn13: (7)
          maxLength: 13
          validators:
            - name: isbn13
              class: info.magnolia.ui.form.validator.definition.RegexpValidatorDefinition
              pattern: '97(8|9)[0-9]{9}(\d|X)'
1 You assign the Bookshelf app a new icon called icon-content-app, which symbolizes a bookshelf.
The icon-content-app is one of the icons we provide as part of the UI framework and you can see them all here: https://dev.magnolia-cms.com/svg-app-icons-gallery/.
2 Change the ed property. NOTE: You change the field type of this property from the default text to the checkbox field type.
3 Set the height of the field for the title property. You set the rows field property of the title content type property to 2.
Some book titles are longer and in most cases a two-row text field allows the user to read the whole title compared to just a one-row field.
4 Define the height and maximum length of the field for the description property.
5 Set the number of rows for the description property to 5.
You also limit the maximum length of a description to 5000 characters to comply with data import restrictions of the libib.com cloud service, in case the user decides to transfer data between the Bookshelf app and libib.com.
6 Change the publish_date property. Set the field type to date to help the user find a book publication date with a pull-down calendar.
7 Length setting and a validator related to the isbn13 property.

We set the maxLength property to 13 characters to provide the user with a digit counter for entering the ISBN-13 number. We then add a regex-based field validator for the name:isbn13 field. This validation makes sure that the number entered complies with the basic syntax of ISBN-13 numbers.

Adding an i18n message bundle

Now add and polish the i18n labels and descriptions for the elements of the UI in the Bookshelf app.

Message bundle

A message bundle (resource bundle in Java) is a collection of .properties files. Each file contains key-value pairs of translated user interface text such as labels and messages. The keys in all files of the same bundle are identical but the values are language-specific translations.

A message bundle must contain at least one .properties file. The files are named after the language (locale): <bundle-name>_<locale>.properties, for example, app-pages-messages_en.properties. Every Magnolia module should provide its own message bundle. If a module installs several apps, each app should have its own message bundle.

Since you’ve assigned a new name (bookDetailsTab) to the default tab in the detail subapp, you have to create new labels even for the message keys that supply label values from the magnolia-ui-framework module.

In the i18n subfolder, open the bookshelf-messages_en.properties file and save it with the following content (click the filename link to see the content):

# App label
bookshelf-app=Bookshelf

# Book browser subapp labels.
bookshelf-app.browser.label=Book Browser
bookshelf-app.browser.actionbar.sections.root.label=Actions
bookshelf-app.browser.actionbar.sections.item.label=Actions
bookshelf-app.browser.actionbar.sections.folder.label=Actions
bookshelf-app.browser.actionbar.sections.deletedItem.label=Actions
bookshelf-app.browser.actionbar.sections.deletedFolder.label=Actions
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.addItem.label=Add book
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.confirmDeletion.label=Delete book
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.editItem.label=Edit book data
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.rename.label=Rename book
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.addFolder.label=Add shelf
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.confirmDeleteFolder.label=Delete shelf
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.editFolder.label=Rename shelf
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.moveFolder=Move shelf
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.confirmDeleteFolder.confirmationHeader=Delete {0,choice,1#this shelf|1< these {1} shelves}?
bookshelf-app.browser.actions.confirmDeleteFolder.confirmationMessage={0,choice,1# This shelf|1< These {1} shelves} and all {1,choice,1#its|1< their} sub-items will be marked for deletion.
bookshelf-app.browser.views.treeview.name.label=Shelf name or book cataloging name
bookshelf-app.browser.views.listview.name.label=Cataloging name
bookshelf-app.browser.views.listview.path.label=Bookshelf location

# Book detail subapp labels and descriptions.
bookshelf-app.detail.label=Book Details
bookshelf-app.name.label=Cataloging name
bookshelf-app.name.description=This field is required. Its value is used to create a hyphenated book cataloging name which is visible in the BOOK BROWSER subapp and under which the book is stored in the <i>books</i> workspace.
bookshelf-app.authors.label=Author(s)
bookshelf-app.ed.label=Author(s) in editorial role
bookshelf-app.ed.buttonLabel=
bookshelf-app.ed.description=Check off the box if the primary role of the "Author(s)" is editorial.
bookshelf-app.title.label=Full title
bookshelf-app.description.label=Description
bookshelf-app.publisher.label=Publisher
bookshelf-app.publish_date.label=Publication date
bookshelf-app.publish_date.description=If you know just the year of publication, enter the date as YYYY-01-01.
bookshelf-app.isbn13.label=ISBN-13
bookshelf-app.isbn13.description=If an ISBN-13 is available for the book, enter it without hyphens or spaces.
bookshelf-app.isbn13.validation.errorMessage=The ISBN-13 number has 13 characters. The first 12 characters can only be numerals, the last character can be either a numeral or "X". The number has to begin with either 978 or 979.
bookshelf-app.detail.actions.cancel=Cancel
bookshelf-app.detail.actions.commit=Save Book Data

To apply the new labels and descriptions, close and reopen the Bookshelf app in Magnolia.

Congratulations! The Bookshelf is now ready for use.

You can tweak the app’s configuration further to expand its capabilities.

If you would like to see some book data in the app, you may either add it yourself or download it as a sample file called books.My-Good-Reads.xml from the _sampleContent folder in the bookshelf repository. For downloading, open the sample data in the browser, then copy and paste it to a local file. Import the file to the Bookshelf app using the Import action in the Book browser subapp.

Except for the ed and name content properties, all the other properties make the design of the Bookshelf app compatible with the data nomenclature used by the libib.com service. This makes a file-based or a REST-based exchange of book data between the Bookshelf app and the Libib cloud service possible.
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