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Reading content records

Note

The following chapter aims at explaining the relationship between database content and frontend output via TypoScript. Example code is taken from system extension "css_styled_content", you don't have to write it all again yourself.

If you wish a content element to be rendered differently or if you program an extension with new content elements, it will be necessary to understand this relationship to be able to design your own TypoScript properly.

Obviously entering all content for the web site would be terribly tiresome, although possible from a theoretical point of view.

What we want is to have a TypoScript which gathers the content automatically. The example below creates a page on which, for each content element on that page, the headline and the text is displayed.

After creating the PAGE object, we use the CONTENT object to retrieve content from the database. For each content element we use the TEXT object to perform the actual rendering.

page = PAGE
page.typeNum = 0

# The CONTENT object executes a database query and loads the content.
page.10 = CONTENT
page.10.table = tt_content
page.10.select {

     # "sorting" is a column from the tt_content table and
     # keeps track of the sorting order, which was specified in
     # the backend.
     orderBy = sorting

     # Only select content from column "0" (the column called
     # "normal").
     where = colPos = 0
}

# For every result line from the database query (that means for every content
# element) the renderObj is executed and the internal data array is filled
# with the content. This ensures that we can call the .field property and we
# get the according value.
page.10.renderObj = COA
page.10.renderObj {

  10 = TEXT

  # The field tt_content.header normally holds the headline.
  10.stdWrap.field = header

  10.stdWrap.wrap = <h1>|</h1>

  20 = TEXT

  # The field tt_content.bodytext holds the content text.
  20.stdWrap.field = bodytext

  20.stdWrap.wrap = <p>|</p>
}

The CONTENT object executes an SQL query on the database. The query is controlled by the select property, which - in our case - defines that we want all records from the column 0 (which is the column called "NORMAL" in the backend), and that the result should be sorted according to the field called "sorting".

The select property has a pidInList which can be used to retrieve elements from a specific page. If it is not defined - as in our example - elements are taken from the current page.

The renderObj property defines how each record gets rendered. It is defined as COA (Content Object Array), which can hold an arbitrary number of TypoScript objects. In this case, two TEXT objects are used, which are rendered one after the other (remember that the order of the rendering is not controlled by the order in TypoScript, but by the numbers with which they are defined). The TEXT object "10" will be created first and the TEXT object "20" will be rendered after it.

The challenge is to render all content elements like the web designer predetermined. Therefore, we have to create TypoScript definitions for every single database field (e.g. for images, image size, image position, link to top, index, etc.).

• The various content elements
• css_styled_content
• styles.content.get