dotCMS - Open Source Content Management System, Ondemand CMS, and Professional Support

Widgets

Widgets are re-usable pieces of dynamic content that can be created by users with no knowledge of HTML or Velocity.  Widget content is created by utilizing a Widget Structure Type which provides all of the coding and parameters for new widget creation.

Why use Widgets?

Before the implementation of widgets, dynamic listings of content could only be created by users who had been trained in Velocity and/or HTML. Now any user can create their own customized dynamic listing of content by providing a few simple parameters. Since all the programing is done once by a webmaster or dotCMS Content Architect, adding a new widget becomes as easy as filling out a few form fields to describe the desired output of the dynamic listing.

Some widget structure types have been built in to the dotCMS since version 1.6.5 but any trained dotCMS Content Architect can create their own.  These are the basic steps to creating new customized widgets:

1. A widget structure type must be created by a dotCMS Content Architect  to use that includes custom parameters for Content Contributors to use.
2. A content contributor must create a widget (dynamic pull), by creating a new piece of content of the widget content type.
3. After one or more widgets are created, these powerful dynamic pulls can be re-used, as needed, throughout a dotCMS website.

The following documentation sections describe each of these steps in detail.