Looking for content type design suggestions

Rhythmyx Technical Discussion
1

Here is the scenario I would like to create:

I have ContentTypeA and ContentTypeB. I would like to associate a list of items from ContentTypeB with an item of ContentTypeA (Normally done with a slot). The challenge is that I want some unique content (a few text blurbs unique to this item of ContentTypeA) associated with each item of ContentTypeB in the list.

So, in short, I could have several items of ContentTypeB reused over several lists within items of ContentTypeA each with some associated content unique to each instance.

Does that make sense?
Any suggestions?

2

Let me ask a clarifying question here.

I’m assuming you have a “List Content Type” that has the slot in its template, and an “Entry Content Type” that is included in the slot.

My question is, is the “blurb” of text related to the specific Entry content item, or is unique to the List instance? That is, if the same Entry appears in 2 Lists, will the blurbs be the same or different?

Dave

3

If the same entry appears in 2 lists, the text blurbs will be different. They are specific to both the “Entry Content item” and the List instance.

4

Another “nice to have” requirement for this scenario is if the solution could have the drag to reorder functionality that Active Assembly gives to items in slots, but not items in a child table.

5

In this case, your only real choices are:

  1. Use an Inline Template and add the blurb as body content

  2. Create another content item (type “blurb”) which has a slot into which the Entry is placed. The Blurbs go in the slot, and there is one Entry per Blurb.

The advantage of #1 is it’s less work to implement, and less approval for the implementer.

#2 will perform better, and you can use Drag & Drop to re-order the blurbs.

Dave

6

Thanks, Dave. I hadn’t thought about option #2. I’m hoping that will work for us.

To add another layer of complexity… I need to assign these blurbs to a category. So the display order of the categories and the display order of the blurbs is completely arbitrary. I would like to be able to drag and drop these.

Can Active Assembly handle slots within slots for drag and drop?

Can anyone think of a better way to categorize than using a new slot for each category?