Hi forum
Sort of new here, have set up website before.
I have an old Filemaker artwork database with name, number, image, description, year and extra field.
I want to port these, about 150 projects as pages into concretecms.
There is no need of importing data from Filemaker since I want to create a whole new collection using copy&paste.
What is an easy way to build this?
I’m using the Atomik theme v.9.3.5, have tried pages/pagelist and express, but I am not a programmer.
I would also use a paid addon but couldn’t find anything on the marketplace.
I found this NEW Product Catalog Listing addon but link leads to 503 error.
The addon you reference was suspended because it comes from Russia.
The usual solution is Pages as you have tried. Add a parent page, then add a page type with blocks ready to fill for the image with page attributes for the various data that goes with it. You can configure it to only publish beneath the parent.
Then in the parent add a page list. The page list can be configured to filter according to associated blocks such as topics, tags and date nav. This is often the best solution for lists that could get larger and for more complex data. But it does require a page to be added for each item.
There are also some more sophisticated page list blocks such as Enlil Page List which provide finer control of listing and filtering.
Another way to address this would be to use Community Store, but without the checkout.
Yet another way, as you have already experimented with, would be to use Express to create a simple database of the files and their data, then an Express list to show them. It can work well enough for items that are no too complex. That may be simpler to maintain, but the listing is not as flexible as a Page List for filtering without custom code and Express code is not the easiest to work with…
Finally, if the list is primarily about the artwork, you can use attributes of the file for all the extra data and show the list of files as a gallery or slider. That can be graphically nicer, but won’t have the filtering capability of a Page List. Nevertheless, with a bit of custom JavaScript for filtering, this can provide an interactive in-page solution for lists of the size you describe.
There are other solutions that would all involve some code, so I am leaving it at the above.
Hello JohnTheFish
Your extensive answer is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I’ll try now what is suited best for my project.
I think pages and pagelist would be best. Would it be expensive to have a super simple template crated by a developer?
Would this data be able to be exported?
Overall, the structure is the same as a blog. You have a parent page which lists sub pages using a page list block. On that page are also topic/tag/date blocks which tell the page list block how to filter the sub-pages shown.
The sub pages are just pages, one per file with its associated data as attributes. These can display attributes of the page using and attribute display block.
For the actual page list, don’t mess with a custom template yet. Get it working with the default page list block + default template and populate a few pages, experiment with formats for the pages and revise. (As you add more pages, you accumulate more revision work to those pages if your ideas change). You should be able to do the individual pages without any custom code or templates.
Consider using one or more stacks to display your page attributes - that will allow centralised changes.
Once the mechanics of the list are working, you can
a) Explore alternative page list blocks which have more filtering & display options
b) Explore alternative block templates for the page list block
c) Think about whether you actually need a custom template for the page list block. A custom template would only be a few hours work for a developer, but there is an overhead of setting up to do that work. On many small jobs, it is the setup that dominates the cost.
One of the options of a pagelist is an RSS feed. Creating a custom template for the RSS is one way of providing a data export.
Thanks a lot for this. What a great expertise and cool manual.
Too bad there isn’t an addon for this. I’m not so good in coding but I will start to work with pages/pagelist.
This is really exciting. I worked it all out, - well, almost.
Now I have «Archive Page» with a Page List and "Archive Entry» already test populated with 5 pages. Next to default Attributes I have custom Attributes like content, thumbnail, number, image, url and rating in my Composer Form.
For some reason they all show not on my page. In Page Type > Output, I try add them on my Page Template via the Composer Control Block.
The dialog is white, nothing available there. When I hit save this Error comes up. See screenshot.
I seems, that some of the blocks don’t go well with Composer Control block.
I don’t really understand Errors here, but maybe some blocks are not compatible?
