ConfinityContent

Overview

With ConfinityContent Confinity provides a document (NoSql) based approach to store data together with relational ( Sql) entities. This is useful for complex models with small number of instances. Representing those models as tables in a database would result in many tables with only very few (or even zero) records.Confinity.Pages uses this concept heavily for defining the content of a page. Classes inheriting from PageComponentModel define content for a page and will often only be used once in an application (e.g. 'SearchResultPageConfiguration').

Implementation rules & options

ConfinityContent is designed with specific guidelines in mind, tailored exclusively for Confinity. As such, adherence to certain rules is essential.

Rules

• The class must inherit from ConfinityContent
• The class must have a parameterless constructor
• Use the sealed or abstract keyword to define whether this ConfinityContent can be instantiated or just defines a common contract.
  • In some cases your ConfinityContent can be neither sealed nor abstract, then you need to mark it with the ConfinityAllowInheritanceAttribute.
• Use public accessible properties with getters and setters for all data that should be persisted. Supported types:
  • primitive types, e.g. int, string, DateTimeOffset
  • other ConfinityContents
  • types inheriting ConfinityEntity wrapped in a EntityRef<T>, e.g. EntityRef<Asset
  • ICollection<T> of the former
• Properties must either be non-nullable or have a default value

  Tips

  Default values given to properties are used as defaults in the entity app form configuration.

Options

• Override string ConfinityPreview() to show a summary of configured values to the author
• Configure the form for your ConfinityContent by either implementing IConfinityContentConfiguration or calling RegisterConfinityContent in your module configuration.
• Use the [ConfinityLabel] attribute to set a label for the author

Example

public abstract class MediaContent : ConfinityContent
{
    public string? Title { get; set; }
    public EntityRef<Asset>? Media { get; set; }
}

[ConfinityLabel("Audio")]
public sealed class AudioContent : MediaContent, IConfinityContentConfiguration<AudioContent>
{
    public string? Transcript { get; set; }

    public void Configure(IConfinityContentBuilder<AudioContent> builder)
    {
        builder.Editor(form => form.AddTab(tab =>
        {
            tab.AddInput(p => p.Title);
            tab.AddSelectAsset<AudioContent>(p => p.Media)
                .Validate(p => p.NotNull())
                .FileTypeFilter(new WebAudioDescriptor());
            tab.AddInput(p => p.Transcript);
        }));
    }

    public override string ConfinityPreview()
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(Transcript))
            return "";

        return Transcript.Length > 50 ? Transcript[..50] : Transcript;
    }
}

[ConfinityLabel("Video")]
public sealed class VideoContent : MediaContent, IConfinityContentConfiguration<VideoContent>
{
    public EntityRef<Asset>? PreviewImage { get; set; }

    public void Configure(IConfinityContentBuilder<VideoContent> builder)
    {
        builder.Editor(form => form.AddTab(tab =>
        {
            tab.AddInput(p => p.Title);
            tab.AddSelectAsset<VideoContent>(p => p.Media)
                .Validate(p => p.NotNull())
                .FileTypeFilter(new WebVideoDescriptor());
            tab.AddSelectAsset<VideoContent>(p => p.PreviewImage)
                .Validate(p => p.NotNull())
                .FileTypeFilter(new WebImageDescriptor());
        }));
    }
}