help with content slider

4 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: September 8, 2010   (RSS)

By moh3 - September 4, 2010 - edited: September 4, 2010

hello to all i'm getting my mind on how to setup cms builder to do different things ,great product

i have a question about repeated fields

say for example i want to create a front page content slider
that holds images and intro text and links

how can i create this structure inside cms builder
so that i have single record section that controls my slider
content the images and text so in case i wanted to add more images to my slider i would go my single record section
and add a predefined template of fields that have a field for text and image using some sort of button that is only found in this single record section something like a add more button that once clicked will generate a new set of fields

i have an idea of maybe using the html editor to add this add more button any ideas

i hope iam clear on my question appreciate your help

Re: [moh3] help with content slider

By Chris - September 6, 2010

Hi moh3,

I think the solution you're looking for is a Multi Record section. You can drive a single page (your front page) with multiple sections — I do this all the time!

Often it makes sense to have a page driven by both a Single Record section and a Multi Record section. You can use the Single Record section to manage the header and footer text, etc. and the Multi Record section for your content slider items.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
All the best,
Chris

Re: [moh3] help with content slider

By Chris - September 8, 2010

Hi moh3,

CMS Builder is currently capable of supporting the kind of data relationship you're talking about.

The way you would model something like this in a database would be to use a one-to-many relationship between two tables: the first table would be your "records" (let's call them Articles) and the second table would be your "repeated fields" (let's call them References.) Each Article has zero or more References associated with it. For example:

Articles

num title
1 West Bengal legislative election, 2006
2 Dynamic time warping
3 Never Gonna Give You Up


References

num article source
1 2 Dynamic programming algorithm optimization for spoken word recognition
2 2 Fundamentals of speech recognition
3 3 Mike Stock Music - Biography


The first article has no references, the second has two, and the third has three.

Regardless of how your CMS software shows you the information, the "repeated fields" are actually separate records in other tables which are associated with the main record. This is how relational databases (e.g. MySQL) are designed to work.

You can accomplish this kind of relationship in CMS Builder right now by creating a List Field in your second table (read: section.) To get started with this, try out the [url http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=77230#77230]Sub-categories Tutorial[/url].

If you're still dead set on having the User Interface hide the related section from the user (making it seem like nothing more than repeated fields) this is definitely something our consulting department could build for you. Please let me know if you're interested in that and we can work out a quote for you.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.

P.S. We're actually working on a "record preview" feature right now, as discussed [url http://www.interactivetools.com/iforum/Products_C2/CMS_Builder_F35/Notice%3A_CMSB_Upcoming_Features_and_Development_Plan_P82981/]here[/url].
All the best,
Chris