cmsplugin-text-wrapper 0.2

Description

This plugin adds a simple wrapping functionality to the text plugin shipped with django-cms. By adding this plugin, an editor may optionally choose a predefined wrapper, which is rendered as template around the current content. This is especially useful when working with predefined grids such as http://960.gs

This plugin is fully compatible with the default text plugin and offers all of the current functionality. It shall therefore be used to replace the default text plugin. It works together with both, the WYEditor as well as with the TinyMCE editor.

Dependencies

• Django >= 1.3

• django-cms >= 2.3

• South >= 0.7

Installation

add the plugin to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'cmsplugin_text_wrapper',  # alternative to 'cms.plugins.text'
    ...
)

and remove 'cms.plugins.text' from INSTALLED_APPS if configured.

Then run manage.py migrate cmsplugin_text_wrapper to update your database table cmsplugin_text. This adds a column named wrapper.

Restart your application. You may use all your text fields as before. They then are marked for not using any wrapper and are rendered as before.

Usage

In your settings.py add a tuple of tuples such as:

CMS_TEXT_WRAPPERS = (
    ('<wrapper name>', {
        'render_template': '<template name>',
        'extra_context': <a dictionary with extra context to render the template>
    }),
    ...
)

<wrapper name> is a unique name to identify the wrapper. The second part of each wrappers tuple contains a directory with the following keys:

render_template is the name of the template to be used when rendering the content of this text plugin. This template can contain some optional html tags but must contain the following template variable:

{{ body|safe }}

which is replaced by the editors content.

If render_template is missing, the content of this text plugin is rendered in the same way, as the default text plugin renders its content.

extra_context is an optional dictionary containing any kind of data. The context used to render the template is populated with this extra context.

This plugin does not change the admin interface, except for a pull down box on top of the text editor. Using the default value is perfectly legal, in this case the text wrapper plugin behaves exactly as the default text plugin as shipped with django-cms.

The 960 pixel grid system

One of the most widespread grid system is named http://960.gs . This plugin interacts nicely with this grid, but does not depend on it.

The problem with the shipped text plugin is that an editor can add text, images, etc. to a placeholder, but he gains no control over the layout of the given container. Often this is desired behavior but sometimes it is annoying.

So, if an editor wants to use the 960 Grid System with, say 12 columns, a template must be created for each possible combinations of rows. This can result in specialized templates such as:

<begin container------------12>
  <grid-------------9> <grid-3>
  <grid-------6> <grid-------6>
  <grid--4> <grid--4> <grid--4>
<end container---------------->

where each grid container gets its own placeholder. If an editor needs many similar layouts such as the one shown above, it can be hard to maintain all possible combinations of rows and columns.

This cmsplugin-text-wrapper gives an editor of a CMS page a flexible and clean way to add as many different rows, with as many different columns as he wishes. Each of these columns can have their own widths.

If this grid system is enforced, the editor gains control over certain parts of the layout without having to fiddle with div tags nor snippets.

Download the files reset.css, text.css and 960.css from http://github.com/nathansmith/960-Grid-System/zipball/master and add them to your stylesheets.

In your templates directory, create a template named container-12.html:

... other stuff goes here
<div class="container_12">
    {% placeholder "Container Content" %}
</div>
... more stuff goes here

and add it to your CMS_TEMPLATES tuple.

In your templates directory, create another template named grid.html:

<div class="{{grid_class}}">
    {{ body|safe }}
</div>

and add it in different configurations to your CMS_TEXT_WRAPPERS tuples:

CMS_TEXT_WRAPPERS = (
    ('Grid 3', {
        'render_template': 'grid.html',
        'extra_context': {'grid_class': 'grid_3'}
    }),
    ('Grid 6', {
        'render_template': 'grid.html',
        'extra_context': {'grid_class': 'grid_6'}
    }),
    ('Grid 12', {
        'render_template': 'grid.html',
        'extra_context': {'grid_class': 'grid_12'}
    }),
    ... and more ...
)

text-plugin-ng

There is another plugin which works in a similar way to this one. It can be downloaded from https://github.com/KristianOellegaard/cmsplugin-text-ng .

text-plugin-ng is not intended to replace the default text plugin. It is an add on to the text plugin as shipped with Django CMS and is not compatible with it. Therefore an editor gets a choice of two text plugin, the one shipped with Django CMS and cmsplugin-text-ng. For each placeholder he then has to choose from one of those two.

Additionally the editor has to maintain two extra tables with named templates.