Fields

Fields are the elements that constitute contents. The only required field is the content’s title, even if the description field (introtext/fulltext) is strongly recommended to maintain com_content’s compatibility.

The first particularity is that FLEXIcontent can assign a same field to multiple types of content. In the optic of building multi-criteria advanced search engines (upcoming feature) this feature is extremely interesting.

The second particularity lies in the fact that the same field is able to store multiple ordered values. For fields that accept multiple values (e.g. text fields), it is possible to order the different values by simple drag and drop in the item form.

To display a field on the site it should not only be published but it must also be assigned to a position/group in the item/category template. In order to do this, you just need to edit it and choose the positions where it should be displayed.

There are two fields’ families: core fields and user fields (non core fields)

1.- Core fields

These fields are automatically added to all contents’ types. This doesn’t mean they will automatically be displayed on the site, but just that they exist and have a value. These fields values are self-generated and thus don’t appear in the “item type fieldset” of the item form. The only exception is the description field!!! If you really doesn’t want a description text to be displayed for a specific content type, just hide it with type’s parameters.

a - com_content's fields (fields stored in the jos_content table)

Theses fields are:

• Title
• Description
• Created
• Created by
• Last modified
• Revised by
• Hits
• Document
• Version
• State

b - Special fields

These fields are:

• Voting
  It displays the voting star (or whatever icon you've choosen in the fields configuration).
• Favourites
  It displays the heart icon that allows registered members to add the item to their favourites' list.
• Categories
  It displays a list of all categories assigned to the item.
• Tags
  It displays the list of the tags assigned to the item

2.- User fields

These fields are specifically created by administrators to build their different content types. (e.g. dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons, download buttons, images, and many more...).

a - The fields with predefined values (or elements)

These fields are:

• Checkbox
• Checkbox image
• Select
• Select multiple
• Radio
• Radio Image

To create the value set of these fields use the following syntax in the element field of the specific field properties panel.

value1::Label1%% value2::Label2%% value3::Label3

In the case of radio image and checkbox image buttons the syntax is the following:

value1::Label1::image1.jpg%% value2::Label2::image2.jpg

The image path is specified in the image directory fields.

Since the beta4 release select lists (standard and multiple) can be dynamically generated by SQL queries. If you wish to display a list of the Joomla users for example use the following syntax in the element field :

SELECT id AS value, name AS text FROM #__users

Checkboxes and select multiple lists allow you to store multiple values as radio buttons and standard select list can only store a single values.

All these fields can be used as filters in the category views.

b - Date field

The date fields are used store dates, you can choose to store single or multiple values and the display format. Concerning the display format, the populated formats are default Joomla constants (DATE_FORMAT_LC1, …). You can use a custom format, see strftime for more information.

c - Email field

Ce champ stocke des adresses email et crée en frontend des liens du type mailto. Les adresses sont protégées contre le spam grâce à l'email cloaking.
Ce champ accepte les valeurs multiples

d - File field

Ce champ accepte les valeurs multiples

e - Image field

Ce champ n'est pas prévu pour stocker plusieurs images

f - Text field

Ce champ crée une zone de texte d'une ligne unique avec possibilité de préfixe ou de suffixe.
Ce champ accepte les valeurs multiples.

g - Textarea field

Ce champ est destiné à l'affichage d'une zone de texte multiligne avec la possibilité d'insérer un éditeur HTML.
Ce champ n'accepte pas les valeurs multiples

h - Weblink field

Ce champ accepte les valeurs multiples

The fields should actually be called elements, since they can be real small applications: an image dynamically resized with watermarking, a mini gallery with an ajax slideshow, a mini task manager with a progress bar, a Google map with its markers, a.s.o. ...
Each field type is a Joomla standard plugin located in the flexicontent_fields’ group with specific events (see plugin chapter for more information). Thus third-party developers can easily create any type of fields depending on their needs. The extensibility is basically unlimited.