Uploaded bySpike Brehm
Extending Apostrophe to build a variable-based CMS for rendering PDF brochures
This document summarizes a proposal to extend the Apostrophe CMS to build a variable-based CMS for rendering PDF brochures for SunRun, a solar power company. The CMS would allow the sales team to maintain complex sales documents across 25 partners, 13 markets, and 24 utilities while reusing content through variables. It would introduce a "Flapjack" CMS built with Symfony, Doctrine, and extensions of Apostrophe's slots and blog plugins to support custom data models for documents, pages, blocks, widgets, and variables with visibility filters.
Extending Apostrophe to build a variable-based CMS for rendering PDF brochures
- 1. Extending Apostrophe tobuild a variable-based CMS for rendering PDF brochuresSpike BrehmFront-end Engineer @ SunRun, Inc.
- 2. About MeSymfony developersince 2009@spikebrehmAbout SunRunThe nation’s largest provider of Solar Power Service – think SaaSComplex business model and fragmented marketsAble to scale quickly because of software tools
- 3. The Problem25 Partners13Markets24 UtilitiesRetail vs. direct saleMaintaining Sales DocumentsCustom document for each combination (25 * 13 * … )Flat PHP files, edited by handSymlinks on the filesystem to approximate reuse
- 4. The Proposed Solution“Let’sbuild a CMS so that our Sales team can maintain these documents and Engineering can focus on building more cool tools!”
- 5. Introducing: FlapjackCMS formaintaining complex sales documentssymfony 1.4Doctrine 1.xapostrophePlugin 1.4apostropheBlogPlugin 1.4
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- 7. Why Apostrophe?ExperienceBuilt ourcorporate website on ApostropheLearned how to extend it at the app levelDon’t reinvent the wheelRich text editortemplatesFramework for building custom slots (widgets)
- 8. The Data ModelDocumentsPagesBlocksWidgetsVariablesVisibilityfilters… srDocument… srPage -> aPage… aBlogItem… aSlot… srParsedVariable(not Doctrine)… srVisibilityFilterSchema… srVisibilityFilter… srVisibilityExpressionSchema… srVisibilityExpressionGroup… srVisibilityExpression… srVisibilityConsequent
- 9. Pages to DocumentsWhycreate srPage instead of extending aPage?
- 10. Slots to Pages:originalaPage can be both concrete and virtual.Notice circular relationships.
- 11. Slots to Pages:FlapjackInstead of associating aBlogItem to aSlot using the aSlot.value field, we use a join objectsrBlogItemBlockSlot for many-to-many.Note: simplified visibility filter schema.
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- 14. Custom SlotssrStepListSlot: options:symfony: form: false filter: false inheritance: extends: aSlot type: column_aggregationkeyField: typekeyValue: 'srStepList'./symfonyapostrophe:generate-slot-type --application=frontend --type=srStepList? apps/frontend/lib/form/srStepListSlotEditForm.class.php? apps/frontend/modules/srStepListSlot/actions/actions.class.php? apps/frontend/modules/srStepListSlot/actions/components.class.php? apps/frontend/modules/srStepListSlot/templates/_normalView.php? apps/frontend/modules/srStepListSlot/templates/_editView.phpM config/doctrine/schema.yml./symfonydoctrine:build --all-classes? lib/model/doctrine/srStepListSlot.class.php? lib/model/doctrine/srStepListSlotTable.class.php? lib/model/doctrine/base/BasesrStepListSlot.class.phpM lib/model/doctrine/apostrophePlugin/base/BaseaSlot.class.php
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Editor's Notes
- #7 How many of you have used Apostrophe? How does this look different from a typical Apostrophe site?