ContentBlocks ContentBlocks 2.x Developer Architecture

Depending on your goals, you will touch different parts of ContentBlocks.

Table of Contents

Client-side structure

assets/components/contentblocks/js/
  core/       ContentBlocks.js, Elements/, Collections/, Utilities/
  inputs/     One file per input type (extends ContentBlocks.Input)
  plugins/    One file per plugin (extends ContentBlocks.Plugin)

Key classes

  • ContentBlocks — main initializer
  • Canvas, Layout, Column, Block — UI element hierarchy
  • Input — base class for input types
  • ContentBlocks.Store — reactive data store
  • ContentBlocks.Dispatcher — event system

See Canvas Structure.

Configuration

Block, layout, and canvas definitions are JSON files loaded from config directories. Templates are resolved at render time. See Blocks and Templating.

Server-side content building

Building pages programmatically? See Building Content in PHP for a set of fluid PHP interfaces that turns code into canvases.

Please don’t manually build JSON or write directly to the database anymore.

Server-side rendering

RenderService orchestrates template resolution and parsing. See Parser and Rendering and Data Flow.

Database

Generally, the database is abstracted away, and you would not touch it directly in a normal integration. Using the provided PHP API instead ensures backwards (and forwards) compatibility with core and other extensions.

Table Purpose
cbCanvas Canvas per principal (principal_type, principal_id, principal_field)
cbCanvasLayout Layout instances (layout_key, position, title, data, publishing fields)
cbCanvasBlock Block instances (block_key, column_key, position, parent_block, repeater_key, data)

Legacy v1 tables (cbField, cbLayout, cbTemplate, etc.) are deprecated. See Database and Legacy Tables.