12 KiB
title: Common Variables summary: Some of the common variables and methods your templates can use, including Menu, SiteConfig, and more.
Common Variables
The page below describes a few of common variables and methods you'll see in a SilverStripe template. This is not an exhaustive list. From your template you can call any method, database field, or relation on the object which is currently in scope as well as its' subclasses or extensions.
Knowing what methods you can call can be tricky, but the first step is to understand the scope you're in. Scope is explained in more detail on the syntax page.
Outputting these variables is only the start, if you want to format or manipulate them before adding them to the template have a read of the Formating, Modifying and Casting Variables documentation.
Base Tag
:::ss
<head>
<% base_tag %>
..
</head>
The <% base_tag %>
placeholder is replaced with the HTML base element. Relative links within a document (such as ) will become relative to the URI specified in the base tag. This ensures the browser knows where
to locate your site’s images and css files.
It renders in the template as <base href="http://www.yoursite.com" /><!--[if lte IE 6]></base><![endif]-->
CurrentMember
Returns the currently logged in [api:Member] instance, if there is one logged in.
:::ss
<% if $CurrentMember %>
Welcome Back, $CurrentMember.FirstName
<% end_if %>
Title and Menu Title
:::ss
$Title
$MenuTitle
Most objects within SilverStripe will respond to $Title
(i.e they should have a Title
database field or at least a
getTitle()
method).
The CMS module in particular provides two fields to label a page: Title
and MenuTitle
. Title
is the title
displayed on the web page, while MenuTitle
can be a shorter version suitable for size-constrained menus.
Page Content
:::ss
$Content
It returns the database content of the Content
property. With the CMS Module, this is the value of the WYSIWYG editor
but it is also the standard for any object that has a body of content to output.
The $Content
variable contains the published content by default,and only preview draft content if explicitly
requested (e.g. by the "preview" feature in the CMS) (see the versioning documentation for
more details).
SiteConfig: Global settings
:::ss
$SiteConfig.Title
The SiteConfig object allows content authors to modify global data in the CMS, rather than PHP code. By default, this includes a Website title and a Tagline.
SiteConfig
can be extended to hold other data, for example a logo image which can be uploaded through the CMS or
global content such as your footer content.
Meta Tags
The $MetaTags
placeholder in a template returns a segment of HTML appropriate for putting into the <head>
tag. It
will set up title, keywords and description meta-tags, based on the CMS content and is editable in the 'Meta-data' tab
on a per-page basis.
By default $MetaTags
renders:
:::ss
<title>Title of the Page</title>
<meta name="generator" http-equiv="generator" content="SilverStripe 3.0" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
$MetaTags(false)
will render
:::ss
<meta name="generator" http-equiv="generator" content="SilverStripe 3.0" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
If using $MetaTags(false)
we can provide a more custom title
.
:::ss
$MetaTags(false)
<title>$Title - Bob's Fantasy Football</title>
Links
:::ss
<a href="$Link">..</a>
All objects that could be accessible in SilverStripe should define a Link
method and an AbsoluteLink
method. Link
returns the relative URL for the object and AbsoluteLink
outputs your full website address along with the relative
link.
:::ss
$Link
<!-- returns /about-us/offices/ -->
$AbsoluteLink
<!-- returns http://yoursite.com/about-us/offices/ -->
Linking Modes
:::ss
$isSection
$isCurrent
When looping over a list of SiteTree
instances through a <% loop $Menu %>
or <% loop $Children %>
, $isSection
and $isCurrent
will return true or false based on page being looped over relative to the currently viewed page.
For instance, to only show the menu item linked if it's the current one:
:::ss
<% if $isCurrent %>
$Title
<% else %>
<a href="$Link">$Title</a>
<% end_if %>
An example for checking for current
or section
is as follows:
:::ss
<a class="<% if $isCurrent %>current<% else_if $isSection %>section<% end_if %>" href="$Link">$MenuTitle</a>
Additional Utility Method
-
$InSection(page-url)
: This if block will pass if we're currently on the page-url page or one of its children.:::ss <% if $InSection(about-us) %>
You are viewing the about us section
<% end_if %>
URLSegment
This returns the part of the URL of the page you're currently on. For example on the /about-us/offices/
web page the
URLSegment
will be offices
. URLSegment
cannot be used to generate a link since it does not output the full path.
It can be used within templates to generate anchors or other CSS classes.
:::ss
<div id="section-$URLSegment">
</div>
<!-- returns <div id="section-offices"> -->
ClassName
Returns the class of the current object in scope such as Page
or HomePage
. The $ClassName
can be
handy for a number of uses. A common use case is to add to your <body>
tag to influence CSS styles and JavaScript
behavior based on the page type used:
:::ss
<body class="$ClassName">
<!-- returns <body class="HomePage">, <body class="BlogPage"> -->
Children Loops
:::ss
<% loop $Children %>
<% end_loop %>
Will loop over all Children records of the current object context. Children are pages that sit under the current page in
the CMS
or a custom list of data. This originates in the Versioned
extension's getChildren
method.
ChildrenOf
:::ss
<% loop $ChildrenOf(<my-page-url>) %>
<% end_loop %>
Will create a list of the children of the given page, as identified by its URLSegment
value. This can come in handy
because it's not dependent on the context of the current page. For example, it would allow you to list all staff member
pages underneath a "staff" holder on any page, regardless if its on the top level or elsewhere.
AllChildren
Content authors have the ability to hide pages from menus by un-selecting the ShowInMenus
checkbox within the CMS.
This option will be honored by <% loop $Children %>
and <% loop $Menu %>
however if you want to ignore the user
preference, AllChildren
does not filter by ShowInMenus
.
:::ss
<% loop $AllChildren %>
...
<% end_loop %>
Menu Loops
:::ss
<% loop $Menu(1) %>
...
<% end_loop %>
$Menu(1)
returns the top-level menu of the website. You can also create a sub-menu using $Menu(2)
, and so forth.
Access to a specific Page
:::ss
<% with $Page(my-page) %>
$Title
<% end_with %>
Page will return a single page from site, looking it up by URL.
Access to Parent and Level Pages
Level
:::ss
<% with $Level(1) %>
$Title
<% end_with %>
Will return a page in the current path, at the level specified by the numbers. It is based on the current page context,
looking back through its parent pages. Level(1)
being the top most level.
For example, imagine you're on the "bob marley" page, which is three levels in: "about us > staff > bob marley".
$Level(1).Title
would return "about us"$Level(2).Title
would return "staff"$Level(3).Title
would return "bob marley"
Parent
:::ss
<!-- given we're on 'Bob Marley' in "about us > staff > bob marley" -->
$Parent.Title
<!-- returns 'staff' -->
$Parent.Parent.Title
<!-- returns 'about us' -->
Navigating Scope
Me
$Me
outputs the current object in scope. This will call the forTemplate
of the object.
:::ss
$Me
Up
When in a particular scope, $Up
takes the scope back to the previous level.
:::ss
<h1>Children of '$Title'</h1>
<% loop $Children %>
<p>Page '$Title' is a child of '$Up.Title'</p>
<% loop $Children %>
<p>Page '$Title' is a grandchild of '$Up.Up.Title'</p>
<% end_loop %>
<% end_loop %>
Given the following structure, it will output the text.
My Page
|
+-+ Child 1
| |
| +- Grandchild 1
|
+-+ Child 2
Children of 'My Page'
Page 'Child 1' is a child of 'My Page'
Page 'Grandchild 1' is a grandchild of 'My Page'
Page 'Child 2' is a child of 'MyPage'
Top
While $Up
provides us a way to go up one level of scope, $Top
is a shortcut to jump to the top most scope of the
page. The previous example could be rewritten to use the following syntax.
:::ss
<h1>Children of '$Title'</h1>
<% loop $Children %>
<p>Page '$Title' is a child of '$Top.Title'</p>
<% loop $Children %>
<p>Page '$Title' is a grandchild of '$Top.Title'</p>
<% end_loop %>
<% end_loop %>
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are the path of pages which need to be taken to reach the current page, and can be a great navigation aid for website users.
While you can achieve breadcrumbs through the $Level(<level>)
control manually, there's a nicer shortcut: The
$Breadcrumbs
variable.
:::ss
$Breadcrumbs
By default, it uses the template defined in cms/templates/BreadcrumbsTemplate.ss
:::ss
<% if $Pages %>
<% loop $Pages %>
<% if $Last %>$Title.XML<% else %><a href="$Link">$MenuTitle.XML</a> »<% end_if %>
<% end_loop %>
<% end_if %>
Forms
:::ss
$Form
A page will normally contain some content and potentially a form of some kind. For example, the log-in page has a the
SilverStripe log-in form. If you are on such a page, the $Form
variable will contain the HTML content of the form.
Placing it just below $Content
is a good default.
You can add your own forms by implementing new form instances (see the Forms tutorial).
Related
API Documentation
- [api:ContentController]: The main controller responsible for handling pages.
- [api:Controller]: Generic controller (not specific to pages.)
- [api:DataObject]: Underlying model class for page objects.
- [api:ViewableData]: Underlying object class for pretty much anything displayable.